The Dixie I Knew

            O’Leary’s Steakhouse and Saloon had been packed with people all weekend.  I had been enjoying the rewards of my recorded song, Back To Idaho and a Christmas TV show I had done for a local television station.  Coupled with all the airplay for the song and the airing of my TV public service spots about Idaho, I was in demand.  Ah, crowd adulation…fickle but addicting.

            I couldn’t help but notice the three very attractive ladies sitting at one of the front tables all afternoon as I played and sang my heart out, mostly to them.  They were downright peaches and cream girl next door beautiful.  I couldn’t help but make jokes about all the guys they had turned down for dances, either.  The guys didn’t seem to mind and everyone was having fun.

            “I want to thank you all for making the trip up from Boise today.  Please be careful driving back to the valley,” I said as I was ending the show for the weekend and the band was playing a nice little intro to the last song. “These three beautiful ladies down front here wanted a pretty slow song…a buckle shiner.  So, all you guys who’ve been getting shot down all afternoon might want to ask them to dance.  I think they’re ready.”

            Thirty guys must’ve lined up to dance with these three gorgeous ladies as I went into my own version of, “Til I Gain Control Again”.  It was hilarious watching them cut in on one another but they finally got their time with each of the three boardwalk beauties as we stretched the song to over six minutes.

            When we were done playing we started to break down the equipment and one of the ladies came up to me.

            “Hi.  My name is Paulette,” she said extending her hand.

            “I’m Ron, Paulette.  Glad to know you,” I responded, extending my hand. “You and your friends sure made the show today a very pleasant experience.”

            “Thanks,” she said.  “What are you doing after you’re done here?”

            I knew what I wanted to suggest but I held my wit in check.

            “I’ve got to get something to eat.  I’m starved,” I answered with a smile.

            “Well, my friends and I would like to take you to dinner at The Miner’s Exchange.  Do you think you can squeeze us in after you’re done here?” she asked with a smile and a wink.

            “Well, I don’t know.  I’ll have to check my social calendar here.  Things get so hectic here in the middle of nowhere, y’know,” I answered smiling.

            My lead guitar player, Johnny, had been paying more than just casual attention to what was going on and must have felt sorry for me.

            “Hey, Ron, go ahead and go.  We’ve got it under control.  We’ll drop everything off at the ranch and see you tomorrow,” he said.  “You need some time off anyway, you dog.”

            When I turned back around the other two girls were standing there with Paulette.

            “Ron, this is Annie and this gorgeous lady is Dixie,” she said making her introductions.

            I shook hands with Annie and Dixie and off we went, the three of us arm in arm up the boardwalk to The Miner’s Exchange.  I felt pretty damned good walking in there with these three and it drew immediate attention as we sat down at a table.

            We small talked for over an hour through dinner and a couple of bottles of wine.  As our tongues loosened we got to talking about our pasts and started getting closer to the present. I noticed Dixie getting a little nervous.

            “So, what do you three do for a living?” I nonchalantly asked.

            They all looked at one another and then Paulette said, “You mean besides being your groupies?  Go ahead, Dix.  Tell him what we do.  He’s not the enemy.”

            “What do you mean, ‘the enemy’?” I asked.

            Dixie’s jet black hair accented her beautiful blues as she looked straight into my eyes.

            “We’re prostitutes, Ron…hookers,” she said matter-of-factly.  “We have Sundays and Mondays off.  We work for a very high class escort service based out of L.A. catering to wealthy businessmen.  We’re mostly hostesses for their social functions and work directly for and with the person who hires us.”

            Being the smartass I am I responded, “Well, slap my ass and call me Spanky.  You’ve got to be shitting me?”

            “No, I’m not,” Dixie answered seriously.  “You probably don’t want to be with us now, huh?”

            I looked at Dixie for a moment and said, “I grew up in a very small town in Massachusetts.  A lot of people were very judgmental.  Because I had immigrant parents I was the brunt of a lot jokes about my ethnicity…half Polock and half Sicilian. 

            “I was also brought up very Catholic and it seems to me that Jesus was very fond of a gal named Mary Magdalene.  Now I’m not fifty percent the man Jesus was but here I am a couple of thousand years later doing three times better than he did.

            “I guess what I’m really trying to say is, I’m not your judge and I never will be.  I’m definitely not going to preach to you, either.   I’m fine with you, if you’re okay with me.”

            Annie jumped up and came over and gave me a hug.

            “Thanks, Ron.  We really were hoping we could come up here to the mountains on weekends and just relax and melt into the background.  We’ll be your groupies, kinda.  We just don’t want to cause you any problems.” 

            “You don’t have a girlfriend or a wife, do you?” Paulette asked, concerned.

            “Nope.  We’re safe there,” I answered as things mellowed out and the tenseness dissipated.

            It was starting to get late so I told them I had to get going.

            “Are you guys staying at the motel here in town?” I asked.

            “No.  They were full.  We’re driving back down the canyon to Boise,” Dixie answered.

            “To hell you say!  You guys are not doing anything of the sort.  You’re all blitzed.  I’ll drive and you can stay with us at the ranch.  I’ve got two extra bedrooms.  You’ll be comfortable there,” I said decisively.

            “Who’s ‘us’?” Dixie asked suspiciously.  “I thought you didn’t have anyone in your life?”

            “Just my son, Jonathan,” I answered.  “He’s six years old and he’s at the babysitter’s right down the street.  I’m a single parent.  We’ll pick him up and I’ll drive us to the ranch.”

            “Wow,” Annie said excitedly.  “Jonathan’s going to wake up to three new aunts!  How cool is that?”

            “Ron, are you sure you want to do this?  What if your neighbors find out who your house guests are?” Dixie asked concerned.  “There’s a lot Mormons up here in the mountains and other self righteous people.  They could make a lot of trouble for you.”

            “I’m just helping three people out who are in no condition to drive.  Besides, it’s none of their damned business and my closest neighbors are two miles away on each side,” I replied. “I won’t hear of you guys driving down this mountain in your condition.”

            We stopped to get Jonathan and as I was coming back to the car Dixie opened the front door.  Jonathan was dead asleep in my arms.

            “Give him to me, Ron.  I’ll hold him,” she said softly.

            I handed Jonathan to Dixie and she wrapped him in her arms, cradling him like a mother.  He never awakened on the trip home and when we got there I tucked him in and got the girls settled in for the night.

            I was awakened at five thirty in the morning to Jonathan’s yelling and screaming while he was being chased around the house by his three new “aunts”.  I staggered out to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee.

            “I see you guys got acquainted, huh, Jon?”

            “Hey, these guys are cool!  Are they going to be singers in your band, Dad?” he asked excitedly.

            The girls laughed and I said, “No.  They’re going to be groupies for a while.”

            We all pitched in and made breakfast.  Paulette and Annie decided they’d drive Jonathan to school, pick up their car at The Miner’s Exchange and then come back to spend a quiet day on the ranch.

            Dixie sat quietly at the table sipping a cup of coffee.  She looked very distant and somber.

            “Are you okay, Dixie?” I asked.

            “Yeah, I’m fine.  I was just remembering a time in my life when things were a little different for me,” she answered.  “You’re pretty lucky to have Jonathan.”

            I smiled and said, “I know.  He’s my best friend and I love watching him grow.”

            She was looking at a picture she was holding and then slowly slid it across the table to me.

            “Does this remind you of anyone?” she asked.

            I picked the photo up and I was stunned.

            “Jeez!  This could be Jonathan’s twin brother!  Who is this? I asked in amazement.

            “That was my son, Billie,” she answered as her eyes welled up.  “That’s a love I’ll never feel again.”

            I could tell there was a great deal of emotional turmoil going on with her so I decided to try and break the ice.

            “We all have our own stories, Dixie.  If you care to talk about it, I’m a good listener,” I said, reassuringly.

            She looked at me and tried breaking a smile then shook her head and sighed.

            “My life got so screwed up a few years ago.  I can’t believe who I’ve become and what.  Admittedly, I had a bad marriage, a beautiful son, and lived on a small farm near Jackson, Mississippi.  It all changed in a heartbeat,” she said solemnly.

            “What happened that got you to this point in your life?” I asked.

            “I got married when I was eighteen, to a redneck SOB who was a rowdy drunk.  I was pregnant with Billie.  The marriage was rocky from the start and Bobby, my husband, was physically and emotionally abusive to both of us and even our dog.  We lived in constant fear of his hair trigger anger, madness, and rage.  I was scared to leave him.  I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to.  Both my parents were dead and I had no brothers or sisters.  He used to threaten to find me and kill me if I ever left him and he was just asshole enough to do it.

            “As Billie grew up he was subjected to all of Bobby’s abuse and bad habits including his racist behavior.  Bobby even took him to a couple of Klan meetings.  Billie was frightened to death of those meetings but Bobby would drag him off ‘so the boy can get some proper learnin’ he would say.  I never would go with him to any of those things and didn’t care for any of his friends, especially after they’d been drinking and thought they were ten feet tall and bullet proof.

            “When Billie was six he came home from school and asked if I would sign a permission slip for him to go on a field trip with his class to the museum in Jackson. I said we’d have to ask his dad.

            “When Bobby got home he was drunk and pissed off because he didn’t like the dinner I’d made.  He ranted and ate and then calmed down a little.  I decided it was okay to ask him about Billie’s field trip to Jackson.

            He exploded into a violent rage saying, ‘my kid ain’t goin’ nowheres with no niggers on no bus.  Don’t you dare let him go!  I’ll kick yer ass you little bitch!’  What a frickin’ jerk, huh?”

            I just raised my eyebrow and shook my head as Dixie continued.

            “Billie was crushed that he couldn’t go on the trip so I signed the permission slip and when Bobby left with his buddies in the morning I walked Billie to his school bus stop.  I kissed him and told him I loved him and not to worry about his dad.  I’d take care of everything before he got back from Jackson.  We hugged and kissed one more time.

            “Three hours later I got a phone call from the school telling me the school bus had been in a terrible accident and Billie was one of three fatalities.  The bus had been hit head on by a drunken semi truck driver.  The impact was so hard it collapsed the bus to about one third its length and then flipped the bus into the borrow pit on the side of the road.  Billie was underneath the wreckage.  I had no car to reach my son at the accident scene.  To say the least, I was devastated.

            “Bobby came home a little after noontime, drunk as a skunk and I had to tell him Billie was gone.  He violently unwound on me and beat me senseless for allowing Billy to go on the field trip.  To finish the job he shot me twice and slashed my breasts and torched the house.  I dragged myself out of that inferno into the yard and lost consciousness.  To this day, I don’t know how I made it out of the house.  If it hadn’t been for a neighbor seeing the smoke and calling the fire department, I would’ve died.  As it was, I was screaming at them to let me die while they were working over me.”

            “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said, astounded.  “What kind of a psycho animal is this guy?  Where did he shoot you?”

            “Here, Ron, take a good look,” she said, as she stood up opening her blouse to show me the scars as tears streamed down her face.

            I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard and what I’d just seen…numerous scars on her breasts and two bullet wounds in her abdomen.

            “I lay in a hospital for two months.  I couldn’t go to my son’s funeral.  Bobbie was apprehended two days later in some backwoods Klan bar and thrown in jail for assault, attempted murder, and first degree arson.  I felt my life was over and I really didn’t want to live,” she said, still weeping.

            “I made up my mind while I was in the hospital, if any man ever wanted me again, he’d have to pay for it and pay dearly.  I was never going to give myself freely to anyone ever again.  So here I am at twenty nine years of age with what to look forward to?  Wonderful life, isn’t it, Ron?”

            “What happened to Bobbie?” I asked, trying to stay composed.

            “Oh, that waste of breathing air managed to bail out of jail after a month and he and his good ‘ol boys put off a trial for two years.  He got his, though.  An attorney got me a divorce at no charge and after I was well enough I left Mississippi and moved to Los Angeles.  I had to go back and testify and relive the whole ordeal all over again and face that bastard as he glared at me while I testified.  Last year he was sentenced to twelve to fifteen years for what he did.  However, it’s small consolation.

            “Seeing Jonathan last night and this morning brought back a lot of good memories of a very special little boy in my life.  Thanks for letting us stay with you and for welcoming us into your home.”

            I got up and walked around the table to where Dixie was sitting.  I gave her a hug and kissed her softly on her cheek.  Then I knelt in front of her and took her hands in mine.

            “Dixie, you’re always going to be welcome here whether it’s for a day, a week, a month, or for however long.  As long as you’re here, no one will ever hurt you again, I promise.  You treat this as your home, your shelter, and your escape…no strings.”

            And, that’s the way it was for over a year.  Dixie and her friends would come to where I was playing music on weekends and we would spend their days off at the ranch.  Dixie developed a close bond with Jonathan and the girls always brought him nice things when they came just to spoil him and piss me off.  We were quite a family, the five of us.

            The day finally came that I had been dreading.  The girls announced they were all moving to Denver.

            A year later I received a call from Annie.  It was a short call.  Dixie was gone.  She died from an overdose of sleeping pills.  They didn’t know whether it was accidental or if she took her own life.  There had been no indication she was having any problems.

            I sat in stone silence for what seemed an eternity and then I wept.  I came to the realization I had lost someone I really loved dearly.  It is said, you never miss a drink of water until the well runs dry.  With Dixie, that’s the way it was for me and it lasted for some time.  She was a very unique and special person.

            In case you’re wondering and you probably are…we never slept together.  When she was at the ranch…she was my friend,  my sister, and Jonathan’s Aunt Dixie.