Free Western Swing by Tim Sandlin Page B

from mine, and Mickey looked like he understood them.
    Even sitting down, I could tell he was real tall. His face was all ridges, his cheekbones, chin, and nose stuck out as if he’d recently starved to death—a chewing, smiling skull.
    The waitress brought our sunrises just as the song ended, so I was the only one at the table to applaud. The others were digging for money or oohing over the orange and red colors or some foolishness.
    â€œClap,” I said.
    Mel or Del just looked at me with his billfold in one hand and two dollars in the other.
    The fiddle player stepped up to a microphone and said they were happy to be in Houston and he hoped everyone has a wonderful New Year’s and gets drunk and laid. The rest of the table came round long enough to applaud and cheer that one.
    Then the fiddler said, “Since this is the tenth anniversary of the death of country music’s greatest legend, Hank Williams, we’d like to play a few of his songs for you.”
    Mickey leaned forward, and closing his eyes, moved into the introduction of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” I didn’t breathe. His fingers made the most beautiful, saddest sounds I’d ever heard, like he touched my insides, casually picking up all the vital organs and squeezing.
    The steel wept, not the quiet tears or uncontrolled sobbing like a woman’s crying, but the deep, helpless grief of a man at the end of himself. I couldn’t believe the sounds, the pain, the hopelessness of each slowly bending note, and all the while, Mickey smiling, looking down at his hands as if he wasn’t even connected to the wails coming from the speakers.
    I’d be embarrassed if it happened now, but I was moved, forced to feel strong emotion. Imagine that, Lana Sue feeling strongly. Maybe it was more the steel than the man. Maybe I’d have fallen in love with the first pedal steel player I heard, no matter who it was, but Mickey got the nod that night.
    Oh, shit. Let’s get as corny as we can here. I was sixteen and semidrunk and the occasion called for corn. The set ended with my sunrise untouched and my heart stomped on. Let’s see Loren get mushier than that.
    As Mickey stood up, he smiled and nodded and looked at me. I know he did.
    Wrestling my hand free of Mel or Del’s double grip, I said, “I’ve got to go to the ladies’ room.”
    Roxanne glanced over. “You want me to go with you, honey?”
    â€œNo, I can make it alone.”
    She frowned. “You okay, Lannie?”
    â€œSure, the beer just went right through. I’ll be back in a second.”
    â€¢ • •
    It took some time, but I found Mickey backstage. He sat alone in a dressing room, his long legs propped on a guitar case, a fifth of Wild Turkey tucked between them.
    â€œHi,” I said.
    He looked me up and down, slowly, calmly. Later I realized that was the same look he gave porterhouse steaks or cases of beer, but at the time, the look made me tremble and go tin-mouthed.
    He didn’t say anything, so I jumped right in, talking as fast as possible. “You don’t know me, but my name is Lana Sue Goodwin and I’m a virgin but that doesn’t really matter because I admire your music and, just watching, I think you could teach me about the world, you know, the people in the world that you sing about. You see, I’ve led an awfully sheltered life, and I don’t know anything about anything, like why people do what they do and how you play that beautiful machine of yours, and you seem to know. Maybe you don’t, maybe I’m just being a squirrel, but I don’t think so and Christ, you have to grow up sometime.”
    Mickey stuck two fingers in his mouth, pulled out his gum, and rubbed it into the bottom of his chair. He opened the fifth and drank. I counted. His Adam’s apple rose and fell three times. He grunted once and handed me the bottle.
    â€œThank you,” I