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Armadillo / Leave Your Hat On
The wind blew across the parking lot as I walked toward the Armadillo, trying to avoid the potholes in the dark. I hated walking into the club by myself, but Kat couldn’t get off work early. I had arranged to meet her by the bar about ten, then we were going out for breakfast after the show.
People were packed around the entrance, latecomers standing around smoking and waiting for the main act. I walked on around to the back of the building. It was even creepier back here, but that’s where Harry had told me to come. My brother worked here after his classes at the University of Texas, sometimes just for food instead of a paycheck. He loved music and always said that was usually enough compensation.
“Hey, bubba,” I said when I saw him. He was standing with a tall guy near the kitchen door, talking and smoking a joint.
“Hey, Andrea. You doing okay?” He offered me a toke. I declined. Most of the people here smoked, and I generally got high just walking in the door.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Is Newman here yet?” Randy Newman was supposed to play, but Harry had told me earlier in the day that it might be cancelled.
“Sure is,” Harry said. “I already took him some nachos. Say, what’s happening with that art competition you were talking about? Did you send in some slides?”
“No, the deadline isn’t for a couple of days. But I don’t think I’m going to enter. I don’t have anything they would like. It’s always the weird stuff that gets accepted. Remember the bottles of bodily fluid that won a couple of years ago?”
“Yeah, I know where you’re comin’ from, but you ought to send in your stuff anyway. It’s good work, Andrea. What’s it going to hurt?”
I blew him off. I didn’t want to talk about it right now. “Yeah, maybe,” I answered. “Anyway, thanks for getting me in tonight.”
“No problem – just go on in through there,” he said, pointing behind him.
I thought about what Harry said as I walked through the kitchen. I had been an art major in college, but there weren’t a lot of jobs around for artists when I graduated in ‘71. I had ended up getting a job as a secretary to pay my rent and told myself I’d keep looking. That was almost five years ago. Since then, I painted once in a while when I was bored and looked through the Sunday classifieds sometimes to see if there were any art jobs. I realized the last time I’d thought about doing that was about six months ago. For the last year I’d had a job as a drafter for an oil company. It wasn’t art, but it was drawing, wasn’t it? Yeah, my mind answered – lots of straight lines.
As I walked into the main room, I wound my way through aging hippies and college students, most of them drinking beer from plastic cups. The first band seemed to be finishing their set, vainly trying to entice the crowd into demanding an encore.
That wasn’t going to happen, I thought. Hell, no one was even listening. Most of the people were standing up and talking or milling around, but I noticed there were chairs this time. Sometimes there were and sometimes not. I rammed my way through the crowd, my bad mood propelling me toward the front seats near the stage. “Shit!” I muttered out loud as I looked at my watch. The one musician I had really wanted to see all year was Randy Newman. I’d actually pushed my way to a great spot, and now it was ten o’clock.
I turned around and attempted to look over the sea of heads toward the bar. It was too smoky to see anyone. A man standing next to me looked my way and smiled. He had to be in his late thirties and seemed quite proud of his bushy sideburns. I smiled back sweetly and asked, “I have to go get my girlfriend – will you hold a couple of seats for me?”
“Sure, sweet thing. Not a problem,” he said, slowly looking me over.
Creep, I thought and dropped the smile as soon as I’d turned away. I’d give Kat ten minutes, and then she was on her own. I didn’t want to miss any of the show. Newman was one of the few song writers who was smart and acerbic. He was completely himself. Like Neil Diamond, only better. No one was like Randy Newman.
As I stepped over and around a variety of drunks, I kept thinking about my job. It paid the bills. There were a lot worse jobs. But it wasn’t creative and I couldn’t conceive of ever saying I loved it. I didn’t. It was just a job.
I realized I had developed a pissy attitude and shook my head. I decided I might as well try to enjoy tonight. I’d never seen Randy Newman before and was seriously looking forward to hearing “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” What a sexy song. If only I had someone to act that one out with.
Kat wasn’t at the bar yet. I sighed and walked out front to look around, getting my hand stamped so I could get back in later. All of the latecomers had finally gone inside and the parking lot looked empty of people. A light April breeze blew papers around the tarmac and under the cars that filled the lot. I walked a few steps out into the night and looked up at the sky, wishing Kat would get there, wishing…
“Excuse me,” a voice said behind me.
I turned around, my adrenaline rushing for a moment before I registered that it was a woman’s voice. She appeared to be in her forties, dressed in slacks and a dashiki. Another hippie wannabe, I thought, and a little late in the game to boot. “Yes?” I answered.
“I was trying to find the Nighthawk – it’s a restaurant?”
“Sure, it’s not far from here. Are you driving?”
“No, I walked from my hotel, and got lost somehow. I went to a meeting and I was supposed to meet a client for a drink at nine and I’m so late!”
Oh, good. A talkative one. “Well, I can tell you how to get there…”
“I probably shouldn’t even bother now – he’s probably already gone,” she said as she set a large briefcase down by her feet and started to sniffle. She reached in her bag and pulled out a tissue.
“Listen, I can tell you how to get there. It’s just a block or so. He’s probably still there.”
“No… no he won’t be. And he was going to be my first big sale. And maybe something more. Damn.” Now she was crying in earnest.
Great. I reached over and put my arm around her and she leaned into me, sobbing. I patted her back and peered around behind her, trying to see my watch in the street light. No luck. But I didn’t hear any music coming from inside yet.
She finally stepped back and blew her nose. “And… and now I don’t have a clue how to get back to my hotel.”
I silently cursed the gods of a mundane life who obviously intended me to forego Randy Newman, and found myself saying, “I’ll walk you back. What’s the name of the hotel?”
She told me the hotel name as she wiped her eyes, smearing mascara across her cheekbones all the way to her ear. “Would you mind? Thank you so much. I’ve just been wandering around here for so long. I don’t think it’s far.”
We walked. And I was endowed with her life story.
“… so when Richard and I divorced, I had to just get out of Abilene, you know? I’m here to meet with my new boss and some potential clients. I just hope I didn’t blow it. I’ll be staying at the hotel until I find an apartment.”
I attempted to stretch my hearing, working to pull in the sounds from two blocks behind me. I decided that I heard faint strains of music. “What is it you sell?” I asked from the part of my brain that was conscious of manners.
“Copiers. I know that’s not very exciting, but I try to make it interesting. Lots of facts and figures. And they promised me that I might get to write the manuals someday. That would be fun. I always wanted to write anyway.”
Oh, God. “Really? Like, what?”
“I’m embarrassed to say.”
“No, don’t be. What did you write?”
She bit her lip, and I had to lean closer to hear what she was saying.
“Poems. I used to write them all the time when I was young. On every scrap of paper I could find. My dad thought it was stupid, but my grandma liked to read them now and then.”
“Far out!”
“Yeah. I even won a prize once, in a contest in West Texas. Got my picture in the paper and everything. But that was a long time ago.”
“Why did you stop? Or did you?”
“Yeah, I did. You know, it just never worked out.”
“What do you mean, it didn’t work out?” I asked.
She shrugged and turned to look across the river at the downtown lights. “Life got in the way, I guess. Paying bills. Dating. Being a wife. Watching TV.”
She turned back to me, her eyes and voice seeming to plead for absolution. “I never thought I was that good, for the most part. It would have been impossible for a girl from West Texas to make a living that way, wouldn’t it?” She sighed. “Maybe I just didn’t want it bad enough.”
I shivered and felt cold seeping through my chest. It really was cool for April. “That’s a shame,” I muttered.
We walked another half block and I looked up. “There’s the Nighthawk, if you want to see if your client is still there.”
“Oh, so it was close. I feel incredibly stupid – thank you for your help… I didn’t even ask your name. How rude of me.”
“No… it’s Andrea. What about your hotel?”
“I’ll be okay now. I’ll go inside and see if my client’s there and if he isn’t, then I’ll just take a cab to the hotel. You were very kind.”
I shook my head. “It’s cool. No problem. You might want to go into the lady’s room before you meet your client.” I said and wiped my finger under my eye.
She stared at me a moment, then remembered. “Oh, thanks. I will.”
I walked the two blocks back to the Armadillo, not thinking about the hour or the night.. “A whole life,” I whispered to myself.
Newman had already started and Kat was waiting impatiently by the bar.
“Where have you been?”
“Sorry, Kat. I was here earlier, but then…I’ll tell you about it later. But I can’t go out to eat after this – I have to get home and work on slides. C’mon - a guy was going to hold some seats for us down front. And you get to sit next to him.”
Regina Calton Burchett
November 10, 2003
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