Your Cheatin Heart

Chapter Eight

Every night before I go on stage, just before the band strikes up the tune that the regulars all know as mine, I get sick. I rush for the ladies room, shove my way into a stall, and break into a cold sweat, my stomach churning like Mama's old Sunbeam electric mixer. I am just sure that I am going to throw up, but I never do.

This little ritual has not changed in all the months I've been singing at the Golden Stallion, and so I do not look for anything to be different in the near future. I figure they wrote the line "You gotta suffer if you want to sing the blues" just for my benefit.

When the band starts the set, they always do so without me. They play one song, then break into Maggie's tune. Out I come from the restroom, my lipstick fresh, my hat on straight, and a smile on my face. The second I set foot on that stage, my stomach problems vanish, my life outside of the club fades away, and I am there, live, and ready to steal your heart.

It was no different the night after Jimmy died. I ran up the five steps to the stage, grabbed the mike from Larry the stage hand, and strutted out to the middle of the stage. I threw my head back, let my free hand swing out to my side, and started to croon my signature song: "He Was Just a Lonely Cowboy till I Lassoed Him with Love."

Right in the middle of the third verse, I whip out a little lasso and make a big show of roping in one of the young studs who wanders a little too close to the stage. It's kind of expected now, so a whole crowd of them come down front, shouting out my name and trying to get me to reel them in.

Tonight was no different from all the others, except that the man I lassoed bore a strong resemblance to my ex-husband. Of course, it couldn't have been him. Vernell Spivey wouldn't have been caught dead in a club like the Golden Stallion. He had a reputation to uphold.

Nowadays, Vernell frequented the Guilford Country Club. I don't know how he got a membership, because they don't normally let uneducated country bumpkins in. I guess he must've had some dirt on somebody, or else paid a wad of nouveau riche bucks to smooth his entrance. Whatever, once he learned about me and the Drivin' Wheel, old Vernell had increased motivation to stay away from the Golden Stallion.

So, it couldn't have been him. Besides, the Vernell Spivey I knew didn't drink hard liquor. At least, I thought he'd given up the hard stuff three years ago. But Vernell came by his lyin' easy, and many's the time he'd pulled the wool over my eyes. This man in front of me was blind drunk. He was wearing a powder blue polyester cowboy suit, with fancy white cording on the lapels and down the sides of his pants, another thing that Vernell would never do. Vernell was vain as a peacock. Once he learned about rich folks and Ralph Lauren, Vernell made the switch and, to my knowledge, never looked back at man-made fiber. Of course, in his heart of hearts, I knew Vernell and his roots were country, West Virginia country.

But, doggone, that sure looked like Vernell, with his dull brown hair, his pencil-thin mustache, and his little pot belly.

"Eee-haw!" he yelled, as I threw the noose around his shoulders. "She got me!!"

The band was playing, I was singing, and at the same time roping this strange man toward me. My mouth was singing about the lasso of love, but my mind was saying something completely different. Something I really did not want to hear. My brain was saying, "This here's your ex-husband, and honey, he's lookin' volatile."

Sure enough, there was an ugly, snakelike look in Vernell's beady eyes, a look I'd seen all too often in our marriage. I looked over at the band, hoping for help. Sugar Bear was the biggest, but he was picking out a solo and totally unaware that he was even in the Golden Stallion. Sparks was sitting at the pedal steel, lost underneath his white ten-gallon hat, and too short to be a match for Vernell anyway. Jack was watching me, but he was also tracking yet another cutie who was waving to him from the edge of the dance floor. The situation was too complicated to communicate to a man whose mind was divided by female attention.

"Maggie," Vernell said, his voice slurred with liquor. "The most horrible thing has happened." Sugar Bear was picking out his instrumental, so I could speak, but only for a moment. I roped Vernell closer, which took some doing as his body didn't or couldn't cooperate.

"Vernell Spivey," I said, in my no-nonsense, mother tone, "now you listen to me. This is not the time nor the place to get into this."

Vernell looked up at me, his brown eyes narrowing and his bushy eyebrows furrowing so close together they looked like one continuous shaggy line of displeasure.

"The hell it ain't," Vernell blustered loudly. "He died in your house. I'd say you got some 'splainin' to do." Vernell was clearly out of his mind. I wasn't sure, at that moment, that he even realized we were divorced.

The young studs on the fringe of the floor were catching on that our dialogue was not exactly friendly. A few of them moved closer, their testosterone spoiling for a good fight. I looked up for Cletus the bouncer, but he was working the door and momentarily unavailable. I gave up all pretense of singing, and Sugar Bear took over with an instrumental.

"You and Jimmy," Vernell stuttered. "You and him was… was…" Vernell's face was taking on a green hue and I remembered right quick why Vernell had knocked off drinking. It didn't agree with his liver.

"Me and Jimmy was family, Vernell, and that's all there was to it."

"You and Jimmy was dogging me in my own house!" he thundered. That brought the dance floor to a standstill and set Cletus into action.

"Well, if that ain't the pot calling the kettle black," I stormed, unfortunately into my live mike.

"But kin, Maggie, you was doggin' me with my own kin."

As if that somehow made the sin worse. I gave Vernell a pitying, down-my-nose look.

"Vernell, I would no more be unfaithful to you with a member of your family than fly to the moon. But all that's really neither here nor there, 'cause we're divorced! You left me and married a bimbo!"

This clearly threw Vernell for a loop.

"Naw!" he cried, falling back a step into Cletus's outstretched arms. "Naw!" A confused look crossed his face, then pain, and finally tears. "Cain't be."

What was wrong with him? Had Jimmy's death sent him into such a tailspin that he no longer remembered anything? Was this a form of post-traumatic stress or amnesia?

The band had picked up that their lead singer was out of action and was doing its best to rock the audience away from me and back out onto the dance floor. I crouched down at the edge of the stage and motioned for Cletus to move Vernell up closer.

"Vernell, I know Jimmy's death was a terrible shock-" I said, but he interrupted me.

"Jimmy and me, we always take care of our own, Maggie. I take care of my family."

"I know you do, Vernell." Yep, he took care of me all right. Ran out on me and his baby girl, but those support checks rolled in, right on time, every month. Of course, they quit coming the day Sheila moved in with Vernell and his lovely Dish Girl. There was caring and then there was care. Vernell maintained his family, but he didn't care squat about us when he left.

"Come on," Cletus grunted, and started to lead Vernell away.

"Keep your hands off me!" Vernell shouted.

When Vernell was younger, he was bad to drink. Young and wiry, he'd been mean as a snake when he got liquored up. Soon as he sobered up, he'd forget everything that'd happened. Most of the time, he'd deny he'd ever been drinking, just block out what he didn't want to remember. Looked to me like Vernell hadn't changed much, even though I thought he'd quit the hard stuff over ten years ago.

Cletus let his eyes go flat and hard. His grip tightened on Vernell's arms and I could tell by the pinched look on Vernell's face that it hurt. Vernell had to face facts, he wasn't a young buck anymore and Cletus would take him if he had to.

"Maggie," Vernell said, his attention once more on me. "I done drove my ducks to bad market but there's no undoing it now. I got to lie down with the dogs and take my lumps."

"Vernell, what on earth are you saying?" I didn't like the way he was talking, or his tone. Something about it frightened me.

"Be careful, Maggie. There's all kind of danger in this world. There ain't always gonna be somebody looking after you. You're a woman alone. Yep," Vernell said, the green tinge to his skin suddenly turning ash white. "You never know when life'll sneak up on you and eat your lunch, sack and all." Then he clasped a hand to his mouth. "Aw, gawd," he moaned. "I'm gonna be sick!"

That got Cletus moving. With one beefy hand on Vernell's collar and the other on Vernell's waistband, Cletus propelled Vernell away from me and over to the men's room.

I straightened up, looked out at the crowd who by now had returned to dancing, and shrugged my shoulders at the young studs. Poor Vernell, I thought, but I couldn't quite get my heart into the sentiment. There was something different about him, and it wasn't just the clothes and the liquor. Something had changed and Vernell the Entrepreneur had vanished, leaving behind a shadow of the man I'd once known.