Chapter 3: Knocked Up And Successful

Well, anyway, ol' Connie proved big time she had something to contribute to our happy little house besides her great ass, which was always available for love. She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, her singing sounded like two cats fucking in an echo chamber. And on top of all everything else, she'd rather listen to some dead guy named Glen Miller instead of some fine, modern, old fashioned and authentic country music with all those social nuances as one arty farty critic called it.

What she done was to bash some balls, big time in the money department. She wasn't what could be called musically inclined, but she sure was a hell of a wheeler dealer. I mean when she was dealing the other side was squealing.

Well, let me back up. The next Friday night, we played and sang some old standards. Then me and Em did the Kentucky Waltz and you would of thought we was the greatest thing to come down the highway in a long time. So I got all inspired and had Homer play "Whispering Hope," which we sung as a duet. You know how it has an old timey churchly sound and those lyrics just seemed to be made for the two of us.

Then some loudmouth who was trying to be funny, yelled up at my innocent Emily, "Whatcha gonna do if the kid tries to come out of ya while you're up there singing and carrying on?" He looked around at his useless, lower than hillbilly white trash buddies and grinned, proud of how clever he was.

But my truly clever and dainty Em sure put him in his place real easy. "Why, you simple son of a bitch, I'll have my baby right up here on this stage in front of God and everybody. Cause the show must go on, no matter what."

After she said what she did, she pulled up her blouse and gave everybody a profile of the top of her very knocked up belly. "I am very pregnant and I am very proud of it," she yelled at the audience.

Oh I mean those shit kickers loved it. Country folk are just naturally sentimental as hell. Redneck country people are so sentimental they would find it inspiring as hell if she really did have her baby up there on the stage. You could just bet some red-necked trailer trash son of a bitch would say, "Now by God. That is true dedication." You think not? Just remember how long "Stand By Your Man" stayed up on top. Now you know how real red neck men think and some of their women do too, sometimes.

But what we didn't know was the editor for the local daily newspaper and the owner of the local radio station were having a few drinks with their wives and they took notice of what darling Em said. So did the editor's wife who is a wrinkled up old prune and completely and totally self-righteous as only the truly ugly can get.

Now the way I figure it is beautiful people have so many more chances to "stray from the path of righteousness," as one pucker butted preacher put it. The truly homely of this world shouldn't feel the need to get all holy on us who has looks and talent and all the rest.

So when some woman is born as ugly as Prunella Hicks was, she becomes self righteous as hell because she just don't get the chance to do much straying her own self, and she resents the hell out of the situation. I mean that woman wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful of it. And the look on her face seemed to indicate she had a big mouthful.

She wrote a "letter to the editor" and demanded her husband print it. In it she expressed outrage for the immorality of some of the local low class so called entertainers who would resort to giving birth on stage in a night club in front of a live audience to gain notoriety and popularity.

Of course she signed it "anonymous citizen." Well, her husband knew a great controversy when he saw one and printed it on the front page of that old newspaper the next day, above the fold, which was usually reserved for the real hot news stories.

People started to call the newspaper the same morning and want to know who the "local entertainer" was. Well, since the girls on the switchboard didn't know, they referred them to the editor who told them to write letters their own selves about what they thought. A few of them he told who the singer was, said singer being my own sweet darling and delicate Emily. Well the brown stuff hit the fan for sure.

What with all the people coming in and asking when we would be on, Walt Deaver, the owner of the club called us and said how we needed to come in the next night, which was Sunday, and sing a few sets then, too. I told him I didn't think Emily would care to work much more than she already was and he said, "Either come in tomorrow or you're fired."

"Hey, fuck you, Stud," I yelled into the phone and slammed it down so hard it broke. People like him just plain piss me off.

"Who was it on the phone?" Homer asked.

"Aw, it was just fucking Walt Deaver," I answered him. "The dumb ass hole said as how if we didn't show up and play tomorrow night we was fired and I told him fuck you and hung up."

Homer's face got white as a sheet. I didn't realize just how desperate to get noticed some performers were when they first started out. They did not, under any circumstances, talk harsh at night club owners or managers. I mean, entertainers who are just starting out go through all sorts of shit and smile and endure it to the end, all in hopes of getting their One Big Break. Somehow what I did was worse than if I had whipped out my old Johnson and pissed in his mother's lap.

"Jesus H. Christ, Wilbur, you done ruined my life and Emily is going to shit a brick when she hears. You ain't no true and sensitive artist like me and Emily, so you just don't understand. Oh shit oh dear, I am ruined for life."

Connie came in about then, dragging Em behind her. They was getting back from Em seeing her baby doctor. (I learned later she made him use a rubber.) "What's wrong?" Connie asked.

His big old ugly face all scrooched up in pain, Homer said, "The son of a bitch you are legally married to, Emily, just got us fired."

"Is this true, Wilbur?" Em asked in a dead serious voice I could hear echoes of death and destruction in it.

Well, then I got all surly and muley and said, "If I won't take shit from my trash customers, what makes you think I'll take shit from a lard assed pecker head like Walt Deaver?"

My good natured Em's usually sweet and carefree face started to cloud up and storm over when the phone in the kitchen rang and Connie answered it.

"Why Mister Deaver. How nice to hear from you. No. Did he really say those things to you? He told you to go and ... and then he hung up on you? My. I can't understand how Wilbur could be so impolite.

You mean all you said was how you would appreciate it if the three of them came in on Sunday night as well and sang a few songs? And Wilbur got all snarly and impolite? Well, don't you worry; you won't have to talk to him ever again unless you want to. I'll do the talking for all three. Okay, I'll be right over."

She hung up the phone and smiled what I later learned was her evil someone's gonna get had for sure smile. I have since learned to know that evil smile real well. What it means is for sure somebody else is going to get poorer and we all are going to get richer.

"I'm going in to talk to Walt and get things straightened out. The rest of you just wait here for me," she told us flat out.

"You might fuck things up." Homer said, "I'm going in there with you so you don't fuck things up too bad."

Connie yelled at him, "Homer, you get your sorry ass back here and sit down. I wouldn't let you in a five-dollar whorehouse with a twenty-dollar bill, right now. You would give it all for a kiss and wonder where you could get some more. I'm going there by my self all alone and I'll come back the same.

She took her clothes off and put on a Dolly Parton Brassier, which belonged to my Sweet Em, and a see real tight through sweater and a micro miniskirt. She was already wearing dental floss instead of panties it looked like. But the expression on her face said if there was only one person who was going to get fucked it would be Walt Deaver.

She went outside and took off in her little sports car.

I finally asked Homer something I had wondered about for some time. "Homer how was you able to buy her such a fancy little expensive sports car on what you make as a mechanic?" I really wanted to know.

He looked worried out the window as she pulled out of the drive and onto the road and said, "She got the car dealer to sell it to her on time for thirty dollars a month and no money down." He kept looking out the window, all worried and anxious. I never seen him this all shook up since we had our sixth grade teacher tell us, "Homer, Wilbur, I think I'm pregnant."

"Homer," I told him, "I think we just hired ourselves a combination business manager and agent."

"Oh God. What if they won't let us perform no more? I better go get things straightened out. Shit. I'll get down on my knees and beg him. I'll suck his dick if I have to. I'll do whatever it takes." I mean he was one old boy who was just about ready to bust a gut.

"Homer, just remember you still got your job working as a mechanic at the slaughterhouse, so you won't starve. Just relax. I think Connie is just about the right person to make a really good deal for us." I talked to him just like he was a boogery old dairy cow what had to be calmed down before you grabbed her tits milked her.

"Wilbur, you don't know the hell I got which is raging in my immortal soul right now. You got a nice voice and can carry a tune and all, but you ain't got a real artistic soul. This is about performing live in front of a live audience. You are my best friend, Wilbur; and you and me sealed our friendship in the body of our sweet wife Emily. We are closer than brothers, we are co-husbands. But this runs oh so much deeper than that. I will kill myself if I don't get a chance to perform live on stage in front of a live audience."

I turned the radio on to the local station, which played country and gospel twenty-four hours a day. Hoot Gooberson, the local DJ just about everybody listened to religiously was talking real excited,

"Now I didn't hear it personal, folks, but I got it from the horse's mouth, or the other part of the horsy anatomy. This newcomer to the country western scene, a local gal named Emily Smith has publicly stated she was going to have her baby right up there on the stage of the Buck Horn roadhouse if it came while she was singing.

"Now, I ask you, dear listeners, do you truly think any woman has the right to have a baby in front of a live audience, on stage yet, just to create some much needed publicity? I'm pretty broad-minded, but I feel anything like this falls beyond the pale so far as artistic license is concerned. I want you folks to protest this immoral sort of thing happening in our community. Let's keep our community clean."

Hoot Gooberson is one of those people you find in radio and television who is always trying to drum up some cause or other to be the big cheese in. If you ever listen to NPR or religious radio, you get to hear the worst of the self-righteous types. I think it is a social disease almost all Democrats get from listening to all their liberal bull shit. Republicans is just as bad if not worse.

You know, instead of a sexually transmitted disease, these people get one which is politically transmitted. You know I'm right. If folks would just listen to country western music they would have rock hard values and everybody would get along fine and dandy.

Anyway, people listen to him because he is such a dumb ass hole. He is so stupid he is hilarious. Why last year he tried to pressure the city council into passing an ordinance making it illegal for dogs in heat to be in public on the grounds it was immoral and might have a bad influence on young children.

On the other hand he does have his uses. You know how one of those arty actors said something about there is no such thing as bad publicity just so long as they get your name right. This was right up there with great publicity.

The two things which will move a redneck Oklahoma country boy to check things out is the mention of incest or something sensational. Well, my humorous and whimsical little sort of virginal looking in places bride, Emily, got half the idea across. Now if she had hinted somehow there was a chance her grand daddy was maybe the father of our child, we would have had it all.

Emily thought his taking serious what she said in the heat of the moment was a real rib tickler. Homer was so far down in the dumps, worrying about his "artistic career" he didn't really hear old Hoot on another of his tirades. And me? Well, I just had me another small jigger of corn whiskey buried in a glass of beer. I really didn't give a shit one way or another.

Any time I wanted to sing with Emily, all I had to do was start singing and she'd chime right in. Besides, I had my other god given talent as a trash man. Now my career hauling trash was real important to me, not this singing for your supper stuff. I figured as how once the blush was off the rose with this singing on the stage it would somehow all blow over and I would go back to my first great calling, which is hauling trash.

About two hours later, Connie came roaring up in her little sports car and hopped out. She brought in a hand full of papers. She had a big old grin on her face as she kicked the door open and come in and yelled, "We are all going to be rich."

"Yeah, but will I be able to play before a live audience?" Poor Old Homer was just so locked in to his worry world so far he couldn't hear anything anyone said.

"Homer, you simple minded son of a bitch, this is exactly why I divorced you in the first place. You just won't listen to a thing I say. Now let me tell you what is happening. Are you ready to listen to me?"

He nodded so she continued, "As soon as you sign these contracts, you guys are going to be appearing nightly, five nights a week. Emily gets off one other night during the week if she needs it. She is pregnant and needs her rest. Here, sign these and this last one which makes me your agent. I get fifteen percent."

As usual, Homer just can't think past the head of his dick. "Jesus, Con, why so much? All you did was to talk to the man for a little bit. Why ain't fifty bucks or so good enough?"

"Homer, just shut the fuck up. I don't want to hear another bit of shit from you today." This was from me, his on and off again best friend. I realize now Homer was in a dark and strange place in his own mind. I never realized how unsure of himself he really was.

I always thought as how, with big old Johnson to be proud of, he didn't have a care in the world. But right then, he was on the verge of being more than he ever dreamed of being and it flat out scared the shit out of him. And he was even scared of losing it before he ever got it.

Em, my sweet and innocent minded, pregnant as hell Em said the only sensible thing said by the three of us. She said, "Show me where to sign." I nodded and Homer signed without saying another word.

When it came time to go on the next evening, we had to run the gauntlet, as the man says. We were all piled into Homer's old van and found we couldn't get in to the Buck Horn parking lot because there were cars parked all around the place. There were protesters waving signs saying such things as, "Keep Motherhood Dignified" and another said "Christian Birth Doesn't Begin In A Bar."

Now there was a laugh. There has been many a gal get knocked up when she went out for a drink or six. Where did all these nuts come from? I wondered.

"Homer, turn around and go home." I told him.

"Why?" he whined. The silly son of a bitch was willing to walk barefooted over the hot coals in Hell if it let him get up on some old stage and pick at his guitar.

"Because, if we try to get through to the club, we are going to get mobbed. Let's go back and get my old garbage truck." I hadn't really quit yet; I officially had Gomer sort of filling in for me. So I still had the keys to the truck and to the front gate of Humper County Sanitation. Dammit. I was sure glad right then I hadn't turned them in. So anyway we went back past the trailer and turned off on the road to the sanitation company truck lot.

Homer was pissy because he felt somehow if he was to make an appearance in a garbage truck it would be "harmful to his image as a serious arteeste. I told him he wouldn't be any kind on an arteeste if we couldn't get in to play and sing. So he got in and off we went. Damned old Homer was going Hollywood on us. Anyway, Emily sat next to me and Connie sat on Homer's lap and we went back out to the Buck Horn.

I opened up with the big old air horn I had installed on the truck and protesters and demonstrators were all jumping like fleas on a hot sidewalk to get out of the way. I drove on past them and pulled around back and we all piled out and went in through the kitchen. We hurried up on stage and started to sing and play. You know what? With all the shit what had been happening to us, we never planned what songs we would use.

Homer started to do some old Bill Dogget guitar stuff. Then Em said, "Lullaby And Good Night." Homer looked puzzled. Then he frowned and started to pick it out on his guitar on one string. Em started to sing in a clear, sweet voice, "Lullaby and good night, go to sleep, my baby, Guardian angels..."

Homer, began a chord progression for his six string guitar and filled in with some of the finest guitar picking I had ever heard. He may be a full time stupid son of a bitch and part time nervous ass hole, but he is one good old boy who could, and can, make a guitar sound better than a full orchestra when he wants to.

I joined in and we went through it again. Now unbeknownst to Emily, I had been adding some verses to the song my own self whilst I anticipated the birth of our co-baby. So I took the mike from her and sang a verse and she took it back and sang the lullaby and good night for a chorus and then I sang another verse and we finished up with a duet on the last chorus.

Nobody clapped. There wasn't a bit of applause from anyone out in the audience. Then I heard a woman's voice, "Oh Willard, this really makes me want to have another baby."

"Aw shit, Rosie, what are you talking about? You're goin' to be forty next week."

"Willard, take me out to the car right now. I want me another baby." Then was when I saw some woman start to dragging a man out the front door. He didn't look too anxious to go with her. As the door closed behind then, somebody gave a rebel yell and everybody in the house started to cheer and clap. Then the orders for drinks started coming in so we stopped playing and waited for the frenzy to quiet down.

"What are we going to sing next?" I asked Homer and Emily.

"Let's showcase Homer," she answered. "Homer, are you drunk enough to do Malaguena?"

"Jesus. I don't know if I can. Oh what if I make a mistake?"

I grabbed the mike, "Folks, my own best friend and despoiler of all young and not so young females of whatever their sexual persuasion has volunteered to give us his rendition of Malaguena.

"Now every time he hits a clinker, I want ever'body to boo and hiss at him and tell him what a ass hole he really is."

Man oh man, but old' Homer was real pissed off at me saying that. But he positioned his guitar and drew back to hit the first chord and some dip shit yelled "Fuck up!"

The goofy drunk really steamed his ass. He yelled "Fuck You." down at the drunk and started to hammer out the song like there was no tomorrow. Now I got to tell you, in case you don't know it, Malaguena is one real rough piece to pick out on a guitar, if you really put your heart into it and do it properly.

He beat on the body of the guitar and slapped the strings to get the sound of running horses. He added riffs and chord progressions he would have found it impossible for him to do if he hadn't been so pissed at me and the loudmouth of a drunk. He went on for a full ten minutes at full bore, doing everything he could to hurt his poor little old musical instrument.