By the time I reached the cross street, I was feeling a little better. I searched the block for the nearest bus stop toward the city. A bus was just pulling away, revealing a woman in a cowboy hat, stomping out a cigarette on the sidewalk.
Are you kidding me? Maybe I hadn’t been sticking out in this neighborhood as much as I liked to think.
I watched the woman walk to a storefront bar with an old-fashioned sign, a couple of bulbs burned out.THE ADDISON ROSE, the sign read.
As I stared, the front door opened, expelling a few people—laughing, singing—and a bit of fiddle-and-string bluegrass.
To paraphrase Conway Twitty: Hello, darlin’.
This is what there was for what ailed ya. Music. Opening my mouth wide and singing, like, I’m here, world. Creating music, the self dissolved, cares faded into the background. I didn’t need pills or booze or a higher power. Nobody’s god spoke to me like the joyful noise coming out of that unlikely shoebox honky-tonk.
At the door, a muscle-head took my ID. “Daaal-ya,” he drawled in that nasal Chicaaago way. “You named after da flower?”
“You’ll have to ask my mother,” I said, “if you can find her.”
I edged into the standing-room crowd and looked around. Was McPhee’s losing money to this place because we didn’t play live music on Saturday? I might need to talk to Alex.
The ceiling was lined with big-bulb Christmas lights, red, green, blue, and a series of hanging lamps, Tiffany-style, but with beer logos on the plastic panels. On the walls: neon, decommissioned parking signs, vintage photos.
On the stage, a couple of dudes in plaid were picking at a banjo and mandolin, riffing through a highly embroidered rendition of “Turkey in the Straw” and giving each other extended solos. They were being backed by a drummer I knew from around the scene.
I would know a lot of people here, probably, I realized. I dipped my head and slipped through the crowd toward the johns. In the ladies’ room mirror, I assessed the damage. Red eyes and nose, smears of mascara under my eyes, ponytail lank.
One of the stall doors behind me opened and a big gal emerged in heavy makeup and an impressive bouffant. She wore a yellow-and-black-striped sequined dress.
“Sweetheart of the rodeo!” she exclaimed, coming up to the sink next to me. “We can surely do better for ourselves, honey. Hold on. I have emergencyeverything.”
A few makeup wipes, a spritz of something lavender-scented, and a dramatic lip later, my hair loose and tousled, Bee-Ann Rhymes had invited me by to see her drag act.
“I do a mean ‘Sweet Dreams,’ would make you cry real tears, honey,” she said, gesturing to her dress. “I always sayhoney, honey. The bees.”
“Honey,” I said, slipping a bit into Doll Devine’s drawl. “I see you in all your Bee-ness. You should come to McPhee’s on Milwaukee Avenue and do a Patsy song with me and my band.”
Lourey would have a fit, but what was the point of keeping the stage to ourselves when it sat empty most of the week? Weshouldbe sharing the stage, showcasing other local talent. If McPhee’s had more space, a back room quieter than the one with three TVs playing all the time, we could have hosted song circles, cowriting sessions.
“McPhee’s,” Bee-Ann gushed. “I’ve heard about that place!”
“You have?” Maybe it was just flattery, or maybe word was getting out about the band better than I thought.
She had stopped applying her mascara to think. “Like, recently?”
I saw it coming a second too late.
“Didn’t they just find a dead guy in the bathrooms or something?”
Word was, indeed, getting out.
Forget the ghost, forget Capone’s gold. McPhee’s had a brand-new legend, and it was going to be a hard one to shake loose.
32
The Addison Rose was absolutely stacked with people I recognized— a bit. Enough to smile at, not enough to stop and chat. I nodded to a guy I was pretty sure worked sound at the Salt Shed, exchanged a smile with a woman in braids and a Nathan Graham T-shirt. Was that Lou from the Gunslingers?
Everywhere I looked it was wall-to-wall denim, ladies in tops that best showed off a shadow of cleavage, dudes in trucker hats. Up at the stage, the dance floor had the usual mix of clowning and serious two-step. The drummer, when he recognized me, dropped a nod.
At the bar, the owner, an older woman with teased Texas hair and a shirt that readMAMA TRIEDcalled my name over the noise and waved her long, decorated nails to make room for me at the trough.
“As I live and breathe, Dahlia Devine,” she crooned. “I was wondering when we were gonna get you to the Rose. What can I get y’all?”
