I nod and return to my lonely linen table in the corner. There’s still some coffee in my cardboard cup, but it turned cold long before.
Most of the following week I spend at Loretta’s bedside on the third floor at Cedars-Sinai. I thought it was some kind of urinary tract infection at first, but then I discovered that she flushed all her prescriptions down the toilet one afternoon and had just been pretending to take them after that. Which worked all right until one afternoon when she passed out in the living room.
“I know you don’t like to take that stuff, honey,” I whisper to her while she’s lying there sleeping with a saline drip in her arm and the soft autumn sun filtering in through the blinds. “But you don’t want to end up here, do you? That’s what those drugs are for. To keep you out of here.” I’m whispering because there’s another woman in the bed next to hers watching television; her name is Alice, she has blond frizzy hair, and the one and only time she spoke to me I found out she’s a makeup artist at Disney and she’s recovering from a burst appendix.
They keep Loretta for three days and nights, until they think she’s stabilized. Then she belongs to Carmen and me. Sometime during all that I see an article in the Times about how cowboy music is catching fire in Russia and the Ukraine. That’s when I remember to call Omar back and ask him what he’s learned.
“I thought I liked all kinds of songs” is the first thing he says. “But you know what? It’s not so. I really hate country-western. It’s the same goddamn story over and over and over. Not only that, it’s the same three fucking chords.”
“I’m guessing you’ve been to a lot of bars, Omar.”
“You’re damn right I have. I’ve lost count. But I did find your boy, I think. Raymond Ballo, also known as Ray Ballo, also known on Facebook as Pretty Boy Ballo. He’s in a band called Tumbleweed.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“No, not yet. But they have a regular Saturday gig at a joint in Tarzana. I figured we should go together. You know what you want to ask him, and I’d kind of like to tag along, just in case things get rowdy.”
“What makes you think that, Omar?”
“Just a feeling. Like you said, I’ve been to a lot of bars lately.”
We go together. I pick him up at his home in Boyle Heights. I’m dressed down for the evening—blue jeans and my old leather bomber jacket. I debate whether or not to keep my Dodger cap on. Depending on your viewpoint, it could be dorky or it could fit right into the landscape. On the plus side, it covers my gray hair, and in a poorly lit club I could pass for twenty years younger. Omar, who’s wearing black pants and a black felt jacket, says to keep it on, so that’s what I do.
The place Ray Ballo appears at is called Jingles. It’s on Tarzana Boulevard, and it has a large, garish neon sign with a pair of purple spurs blinking on and off in quick succession. The spurs are attached to two green neon boots, which feed into two provocative pink neon legs that seem to straddle the entrance. I count six gleaming Harleys in a row. A flyer outside advertises LIVE GIRLS TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS. “We just missed them,” I say to Omar as we push through the door. “Damn.”
Inside it’s dark and woodsy. Once upon a time, I think, this place was probably organized around one simple theme—I don’t know what, naked girls, cowboys, hunting; now it’s just vaguely masculine. There are a few ancient stuffed animals peering down from the walls—deer and elk—and each table features menus with reproductions of wanted posters from the nineteenth century. Laminated pictures of Billy the Kid and Doc Holliday, that kind of thing. At the far end there’s a small raised, unoccupied stage. Everything is there, waiting. A drum set, mics, amplifiers, monitors. Most of the crowd is lined up studiously at the bar, however, their eyes fixated on the silent Rams game being shown on four separate television screens overhead. Most of the crowd is tense and middle-aged and male. They’re following the flow. They want someone to win, or at least to score. Women are few and far between. They’re also watching the game, but they don’t take it nearly as seriously as the men do. It’s just a game, boys running around, chasing a ball. I can see it in their eyes. Meanwhile, everyone is working overtime to soothe their pent-up feelings. They’re holding manhattans and margaritas. A few sturdy buckos down at the end are staring at shot glasses of something even stronger. We find an opening and ask for beer.
“What kind?” the bartender asks. He’s a paunchy bald guy. He leans in close to take our order. He’s got pockmarks on his cheeks and watery blue eyes and a general expression that says he’s been working here too long and doesn’t much like what he does.
“What Mexican beers do you have on tap?” asks Omar.
The bartender scowls. “Nothing Mexican. Coors. Bud Light. Miller. Take your pick.”
“Okay, then,” Omar says. “Miller.”
I hold up two fingers to indicate the same. The bartender nods and goes off. It’s too early to look at the dinner menu, but when he comes back, we take our beers and little white paper coasters and find a table near the stage. A few minutes later, the band members file in from a door off to the side. There are five of them. Four guys dressed in well-worn jeans and boots and silk shirts from Hollywood’s finest consignment shops. The drummer, who’s black, wears a Panama hat and shades. The one girl—their torch—is almost a foot shorter than the lanky men behind her. She looks about nineteen. Beautiful and sure of herself, but who isn’t at that age? She’s got corkscrews of way-out-of-control ash blond hair, and for tonight she has squeezed herself into a tight pink crinoline dress that doesn’t quite reach her knees. Hard to tell what that’s all about. “I think she’s the leader,” I lean in and whisper to Omar.
“I think she’s the reason they call themselves Tumbleweed,” he replies.
One by one they tap their microphones to make sure they’re live. They tune up. A golden spotlight hits the stage and dances around until it centers itself. The singer rushes off and returns with a large clear-glass gallon tip jar, which she sets down carefully in front of her. Someone has already dropped a few dollars in to grease the pot.
A waitress arrives and we order two more beers, a couple of BLTs, and, at the last moment, a side of guacamole.
“You don’t want to try the Rodeo Burger?” she asks. “That’s the house special.”
“No,” I tell her. “We’re fine. Maybe you could bring out the guacamole first, though. That’d be great.”
She wanders off, and Omar stares at me. “I wouldn’t have gotten guacamole in a place like this,” he says. “They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
“Hey, it’s on the menu,” I say. “And besides, who do you think does all the cooking around here? Norwegians?”
“Good point,” he says. “My people are everywhere.”
Without any fanfare, then, the show starts, and the girl, who introduces herself after the first number as Phoebe, welcomes the audience. That would be me and Omar, but then, like I say, it’s early. Surely the rest of the bar will migrate over and make an evening of it. I glance back hopefully at the clot of what now seems to be scruffy overweight men in motorcycle jackets. They’re still drinking. In any case they aren’t quite ready. The band is oblivious. As far as they’re concerned, they could be playing in their living room. They run through an easy medley of Patsy Cline tunes, one after another, and they’re surprisingly good at what they do; I say “surprisingly” because for all intents and purposes, it’s just me and Omar following along. We’re like voyeurs, clapping appreciatively at the end of each song, although, really, what kind of enthusiasm can four