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Judy Garland had 4 toes on one foot and six on the other.

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Nashville when a knock comes on the door and a man of less than normal stature in a pillbox hat asks, “did you call?” Not sure of his origin or affiliation, I made as if I was confused by the whole ordeal and by and by he made his way on down the hall, eventually gaining entry to a room marked “218”, not my “281”. Dumbfounded, I set aside all plans for the weekend getaway of musical mayhem to stalk and discover, and a unfold the riddle that layed itself at my feet.
I don’t know why it always begins or ends with a midget, but it just does. I walked down to 16th for a beer and to meet up with my songwriter friend who had been doing the Music City struggle for three years and probably was in desperate need of my fat ass buying him a beer. He was an hour late, and by the time he arrived I was 3 whiskeys into the evening. Funny word, “evening”, like it is when it makes everything okay, equal, irons out the inconsistencies of the day. Strange the way in which you can suddenly think differently about a word.
It should be no surprise to those of you that have followed me thus far that my time is the “evening”, the other part of the clock is skewed.
My friend arrived and two drinks later we departed for dinner at a BBQ joint on the outskirts of town. Forty-four dollars layed on the bar and a trip in a car with an emerald “E” tatooed on the back – small like the butterflies on girls breasts and buttocks who are trying to keep it from their mothers. I have to say, living in the city now, this was the first time I’ve had to follow a dirt road to get to a dinner since I was a kid and my granfather cooked whole hogs with his drinking buddies at the lodge every Labor Day.
Nashville is a big city too. I mean it is nothing like “the city”, but it is enormous in it’s geographic scope. It took us nearly an hour to get out from beneath the lights. At which point Jack turned to me and in between cigarrette blasts and swig from the “to-go cup” asked, ” when was the last time you saw the world like this?” I hadn’t stopped to notice, but there was a full moon, or nearly so by the looks, and the fallen leaves made a mirror to the dark luminiscence of the sky. It cast deligtful eery shadows of the trees all around and if I could have closed my eyes, I am sure I could imagine the initial “shock and awe” of a Kansas ass first being dropped into Oz.
It had been a long time since I had seen the world like this. Not since Junior High and bike rides with Michael while bats attacked our sweaty heads cruising by Menetrez Lake. There’s another story that has been only half told here and shouldn’t have even entered into this one.
Down the path we went and up and over and down and under – trees, streams, something that looked like a taxidermied owl low on a branch near the road. When we made it to Buster’s I didn’t even know it. There were scant cars in the dirt patch behind and not a sign that this was anything but a normal residence. Two men were smoking on the porch with light beer cans in hand.
Jack saw my agitation and promised that it was okay saying, “you’re gonna love this shit!”
We walked up the concrete tiled path and past the smoking men and into what appeared as a foyer where we were greeted by a man of roughly 60 hard years and Jack exclaimed, “Buster, how the hell are you!”
“Been waiting for you, boy. Where the hell you been all fall?”
“Buster, this here is my good buddy from college, I mean he didn’t go to college with me, I just knew him in college, this is the first time he has come down here.”
“Ya’ll need a table? By the band, right?”
“As always!,” Jack answered.
The next ten minutes were the usual sort of minutes being seated at a restaurant. Drink orders, food orders, cigarettes and a toast to where we were when we last saw each other. A bottle of bourbon was placed on the table, courtesy of Buster, with the explicit instructions that we were not to leave untll it was done.
Half-way into our BBQ plates, out came a motley band of musicians. One on accordion, another on guitar, one on drums and a woman one on a keyboard that looked to have been bought from Sears Roebucks in the late 1970s.
The accordion player seemed alright until I noticed his wandering and asked Jack about it.
“Hasn’t seen a lick since he was 12. A virtual, fucking, Stevie Wonder with a squeeze box.”
“Crazy,” was all I could think to say.
They ripped through a few Zydeco numbers, a blues number here and there and settled into some classic country stuff, everyone sharing the singing duties as was seen fit.
Two songs before the end of the set, and three drinks before the end of our bottle, they launched into a version of Floyd Cramer’s “Last Date” unlike any I had ever heard before. I had played the song once at a piano recital when I was a kid at the request of my Uncle Barry and he cried in a way i had never seen a man cry before. Like it reminded him of a childhood sweetheart washed away by the river. I watched as the piano players delicate fingers moved across the plastic ivories and convinced myself that I would never touch a piano or any other keyed instrument again. Then it struck me.
As I was looking, meditating – mesmerized by the flow of her slender fingers – I noticed that the on the last finger of her left hand was a wedding band. Looking closer I saw that indeed it was the last finger, but still in yet, the ring finger, and looking more closely I saw the nub where a pinky would be. I turned to Jack and drunkenly blurted, “She’s only got four fingers on her left hand!”
“Don’t mention it… does it matter?… just shut up and listen.”
I sensed there was a story to be told which I would ever know. The band played another song. We finished the bottle of whiskey and headed toward the car. Walking toward the door, I saw the place had filled up without me even noticing it. We went out and down the steps and into a dirt lot filled with cars only to meet a midget in a bellboy hat and suit that asked, “Number please?”
Jack said, “It’s okay Caesar, we were here early tonight,” slipped him a bill and we walked on out to the tatooed car, where we drove the hour back to town and I dropped Jack off at a friend’s house where I was not invited in, so I drove back to the hotel and room 281.
We had agreed to meet up the next day, but when I awoke and went out to breakfast, the desk clerk stopped me and said, “Someone left a package and a message for you.” I took the box and the letter and headed to breakfast where I opened the letter first.
“Hey Man,
It was good to see you last night and I know we said we would meet up today, but some things have come up and I’ve got to get some things rolling. Hope you enjoyed Buster’s and the kindly southern hospitality. I don’t really think Nashville is your kind of place.
Keep in touch.
Jack
PS- Don’t open the package until you get back to the ‘big city’.”
After breakfast I headed back to the hotel and showered and changed clothes. Then I headed out to do a little siteseeing before I left on a 8PM flight. I put the package in my bag and stored my bags at the front desk. I went to Gruhn’s and the Ryman and beat about, having a couple of beers in mid afternoon at a couple of overly commercialized “country” bars. I went back to the hotel and caught a taxi to the airport where I clicked my heels 3 times and a jetplane came and took me back to the “big city.”