Free His For Keeps: (50 Loving States, Tennessee) by Theodora Taylor Page A

make it through her whole song, them men out there were riding her so bad.”
    The petite blond had come off the stage in tears, because some the male audience members in the front had gotten so loud and lewd with their catcalling.
    “Two minutes,” the stage manager calls out from the stage entrance.
    My mother grabs me by the arm. “You think I'm some scared little white girl?” she asks me, like I've insulted her beyond all get-out. “Those men out there ain't nothing I ain't dealt with before. Now come on!”
    All traces of sweetness are gone from my mother's voice now, replaced by the stubborn fierceness she carries around, hidden like a knife under her cute-as-a-button surface.
    I know if I don't go out there on that stage with her, she'll never let me forget it. Will probably go right on ahead and dump me at my grandparents' house, like she's always threatening to do if I even hint I have something I'd rather be doing on a Friday or Saturday than performing with her.
    I can already hear her telling folks all about it. “I almost got in with Big Hill, but Kyra flaked on me for no good reason, and made me go out there and do a less than professional showing.”
    Valerie must see the crack in my resolve because she pounces on it with some more honey.
    “Baby, I know you're scared, but you've got to be brave for me now, because I can't do this without you.”
    Valerie's right, I decide, my heart softening as I push aside my fears of those drunk fools in the audience. My father abandoned her. My grandparents don't hardly speak to her anymore. I'm all she has. Not just her backup guitar and backup singer, but all the real backup she has in the world, period. I can't let her go out there alone…
    Still I eye the burly men in the front row nervously as I walk on stage behind my mother.
    I'm used to folks double taking when we come onstage. My mama in her cowboy hat, cut-off jean shorts, and flannel shirt tied bikini style at her breast like a Daisy Duke poster. Me in a little cowgirl outfit that I really need to start thinking about changing. It's not so cute anymore now I got all these new curves.
    But the guys up front more than double take when we come out. Their mouths drop open, and then the F-bombs start flying. “What the fuck…? Who the fuck…? Why the fuck…?”
    I decide not to get all the way up on the stool they set out for me. Instead I kind of perch on it, so I'll be ready, just in case we've gotta run.
    “Oh, calm down, ya'll” my mother calls out to the men with one of her thousand watt smiles. “You'll understand soon enough once I get to singing.”
    Like the ambitious country artist she is, she finds the Big Hill head in the audience and throws him a big fake-eyelashed wink. Then she gives me the cue to start before the men have a chance to respond.
    I do, and the men quiet down. My mother might be a little crazy for trying to make it as a country singer in Alabama, I think to myself, but at least she's got the voice to back up all that crazy.
    For a whole verse the quality of my mother's voice, singing one of my songs, is enough to hold the men in thrall. For a whole verse, I get to thinking maybe coming out here on stage wasn't such a bad idea. For a whole verse, I think maybe my mother really will get her meeting with the Big Hill exec, and maybe he'll actually give her a record deal.
    Then I see one of the men sneer, and raise his arm. He's got an empty beer bottle in his hand, and I know what's going to happen next, even before it leaves his hand.
    I stop playing and singing and scream. “Mama!” even though I'm never supposed to call her that. Especially when we're out singing in public. When we're on stage, I'm supposed to call her Val so nobody guesses she's old enough to have a kid.
    My mother turns, probably to hush me, and her turning to scold me is what takes her out of the thrown bottle's range before it can hit her square in the chest.
    Instead it hits me. Smacking sharp into my