Transcription
Around the Cosmic Campfire by Tony Wright
Chapter 2: The Deputy
I used to be an entertainer. It was such a long time ago now, but it is an interesting and delicious segment in time for me, and a rich one for sure, towards learning who I really am. When I was on the road, singing in clubs, things happened I could not explain. Weird things just happened, seemingly all the time. All kinds of unsavory stuff can definitely occur in the wee hours of the night. Dark alleys and bars often seem to invite the worst parts of mankind out into the open from their hiding places. At two o'clock in the morning, I had many startling experiences as a singer on the road that are beginning to fade now, but one instance in particular is something I will never forget. It changed my life and my awareness of the presence of other beings, and I have always been grateful this past 40 years for the unbelievably enlightening experience. It took many years to eventually find the words, but I'm now able to share it with you.
I was a little over 20 years old when I started shyly playing in some clubs in my hometown of Des Moines. Danny and I were a young married couple but were already spending serious time apart. I was surrounded by the pleasures of the 70s, and Vietnam was coming to a close, and the Beatles, already separated, were still ringing their brilliance in my ears. I was strumming on a 12-string harmony guitar and singing passionately in a high-rise inn that I don't really need to name here; in fact, they probably would not appreciate it. I quickly learned enough songs to make it through a night—all kinds of music, from Judy Collins and Gordon Lightfoot to Neil Young and, of course, Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Somehow, Roger Miller even got in there, and I don't know how. I presented a hodgepodge of tunes that had lyrics that genuinely all meant something to me. I enjoyed sitting on that tall bar stool, long dresses with side splits, frantically working to remember lyrics that I somehow had just drummed up that very day. I knew I was probably meeting people I would more than likely never see again, for the most part. My singing gig revolved around a transient hotel crowd.
I started my not quite illustrious career before that in a tiny French cafe near Drake University. I would play all of Sunday night for 10 bucks and a crepe dinner, and it was worth every bite of it and every song of it. In the summer, they made strawberry crepes with hand-cranked vanilla ice cream, and I was certain I had dined and died and gone to some sort of confection heaven. It was my first time really performing live for money, and I had to adjust myself to being viewed, critiqued, and yes, even applauded for it. It was quite contagious. It was there that the manager of the high-rise hotel in town, a suit and tie displaying a very large black mustache, was eating crepes and gave me his calling card. He invited me to come and audition for them, opening a bar at the top of the building that had been closed for years. It was just down the hall from the revolving restaurant where name-brand artists of the recent past would come to entertain. The audience patrons were eating dinner and viewing the night sky and city lights while revolving at their tables around the room. It was fairly spectacular for a girl from the Midwest, and I was honored they offered the job to me. I said yes.
I took the club gig and continued my day job in an office, as I was fairly certain I was soon to be divorcing. I had a small son, and I was determined to provide a really nice place to live for us. Russ had his own little room and a collection of goldfish in a beautiful aquarium tank, a cat, a dog, and I even had a fireplace and a stash of firewood residing all nice and safe and dry in the garage. We seemed to be styling. I found an amazing older woman to nanny while I went off in the evening to sing and to make more money in a week than I did most of the month at my day job. I could not pass it up, and we were on our way to a new adventure, just the two of us. I signed on with a contract, month to month, to see how the people liked me, and ultimately I stayed for over a year to build up their business in the once dormant Sky Lounge—Skyline Lounge. In no time, I had a group of local followers, and one of them, who owned a large auto dealership, helped me qualify to buy a car that actually ran. It was amazing, as it was an older Fiat—a 600 to be exact—and life was good, very, very good.
But there I was, almost a kid myself with a kid, two jobs, a condo, a fireplace, a cat and dog, some fish, and a car payment. I was already the oldest 21-year-old that I knew, but I had my own stage. I had unlimited Scotch sippers who found themselves stranded in the Midwest America on business who tipped me very, very well in the winter when snow bound every intelligent being to the inn. I had a very captive audience. I had it all. I became part of the family of workers there, dining together, sometimes hanging out with all of them who kept the end going. They welcomed me as a young mentor who helped bring in more business, bringing in more bar revenue and tips into the establishment for all of us. On my breaks, I used to slip quietly into the big entertainment room where the revolving restaurant was cleverly going around the starscape. There was a large stage in there and lights for me to admire and dream about, as it was just down the hall from my little lounge. I would watch and listen with very big ears and eyes as how the big kids would perform and sing there. I slipped in on every break. I couldn't wait to see how they did it all. They were people who had once had major hits or a serious series of hits on major record labels in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. I somehow, in time, became a bit of a goodwill ambassador to the road performers who would find themselves exiled by contract to this Middle America part of the world. They were sometimes exiled there for a painfully uneventful period of time. I often would take them shopping or show them the limited sites of my sweet hometown. I shared some time with the Ink Spots, Maureen McGovern, Johnny Tilson. I rode elevators with Leslie Gore, Billy Joe Royal, and became acquainted with Randy Sparks of the New Christy Minstrels, then renamed the Back Porch Majority, also with Bobby Riddell, just to name a few. I later joined Randy Sparks as part of his new troop and moved to his place in California. It was definitely a time and a period to realize the fleeting nature of success in the music business, the business I was falling so deeply in love with.
I finally became comfortable with what I was doing. At the end, my son was tucked safely at home asleep with his wonderful sitter with flaming red hair named Pinky. We had finances for the first time. People liked my style. I could sing a really good song, and my heart would just explode. I was so happy to be doing it. I sang at the inn every night except for Sunday and Monday, and often on Monday I went to the rehab center for an hour and played for free to the horrendously afflicted and people who were no longer using their bodies correctly. It was a gift I could give when my son was with his dad. I played the children's hospital, in the nursing homes. I just sang and played whenever I could, trying to be as generous as I could.
On one particular night, I learned that I have a guardian. I never saw the guardian that night; I just heard her voice. It was a sound almost whispered in my ear, and the most, most important message in my life. It was very late in the night, but not quite time for me to sign out of the club. I was in the middle of a song when I heard the voice gently say, "Get out." I looked around, and there was no one near, only a few patrons still hanging out until the bitter end, scattered sparsely around the room. I played on, sitting on the tall stool in front of the giant windows behind me, sharing the night sky, shrugging it off and continuing into a new song. But then I heard it again: "Get out now," and this time it was loud, adamant, and shouted at me, more on the right side. I almost fell off my stool; still, no one was there. I knew then that I had to go. I suddenly was stricken with this knowing that I needed to flee, and the hair was standing up on the back of my neck, and something was pulling at me. I got off my bar stool, packed up my guitar, and told the bartender I needed to leave. It was quiet enough and late enough, and he nodded, saying that it was fine and said good night. I got in the elevator and went down 22 stories to the lobby where I grabbed who I teased to be my personal bodyguard, Danny. He was a very young security guard and was on-site every night, all night, mostly keeping the peace and quiet during conventions and bachelor parties and making sure no one was smoking dope in the halls. He walked me to my car each night, as the parking lot at the inn had no lighting at all, and it was known that the establishment was able to save some money as they kept the place dark and the patrons fumbling their way to the door. Danny was a kind young man, even a year younger than I was, and he was a newlywed with a baby on the way. He was putting himself through community college by walking me to my car, seeing the drunks to their rooms, and occasionally sniffing out the dope smokers. It was a fairly easy job. I had always wondered if that sweet young man, in the face of real danger, would even know how to grab and effectively use that big piece resting in his holster on his right hip. I knew nothing of his actual skills as a guard that night. I hugged him goodbye as usual, strapped myself into the red Fiat, and drove out of the parking lot through the back exit and out onto the side street and the through-town freeway. I remember "I Shot the Sheriff" was playing on KIOA radio at the time, and I had it up loud and was dominating my trek home. I started to feel antsy and pulled in some feelings that were a bit mysterious. I had no idea what was actually going on; it was indeed mysterious to me as I had fled my routine and headed for home and to my bed, still wondering what it was all about, as everything at home panned out to be just fine. I just went with it, and that was that. I had no idea what I had just left behind me as I finally fell asleep.
I would eventually remember that I had seen a person walking up the sidewalk as I drove out of the parking lot of the inn in that very dark night. I did not see his details at all, as it was so unlit thanks to that corporate budget, but someone on the sidewalk next to my car had been approaching the inn as I was pulling away. Was he the one? It turned out that when a man got to the big glass double entrance doors into the executive lobby, two business patrons were leaving the inn to go to their cars. Apparently, I learned the sidewalk person drew a handgun and shot them both down as they unsuspectingly passed through the entrance doors. He had never seen them before in his life. He nonchalantly walked through the lobby and went behind the registration desk and demanded money. Two of my friends were working tandem that night, and one of them had erroneously left the side door to the desk area unlocked. The sidewalk person held a pistol to the temple of one of them as the other stuffed all the cash he could locate into a bag. The trigger was pulled anyway; no one can even figure out why, but suddenly the compliant young clerk was executed without notice or reason. His work partner was shot next, and in the head as well. Our dearest night guard, Danny, was helping to close the lounge in the area next to the lobby, and the piano bar was still in action. It was full of people, and the music and drinks were still flying when he heard what he believed to be firecrackers in the lobby. He ran out into the open and was shot by the sidewalk person on the rampage, and Danny was hit directly in the chest. But the young guard dragged himself across the lobby with a bullet-severed aorta and managed to yank the lobby phone down off the desk as he called the bartender in the next room to warn them to stay in hiding back there. That sweet young hero promptly and sadly died where he was. The sidewalk person ran out into the night; he had the money bag containing $61.61. He was never found. There was a handful of bodies everywhere, and blood staining the entire decor masterpiece lobby of the fanciest inn in the state. There was bedlam. I swear there must have been pre-bedlam vibes that alarmed my guardian, who then beckoned me to be gone quietly and safely only a short time earlier. I felt her tug at me, and I heard the voice say, "Get out now." I finally listened. None of it made sense, but I knew I must go. Could I have been walking out those double doors, greeted by the handgun, if I had not strummed my last drum when I did? I had no idea what it all meant or that there was a need to warn anyone else of impending doom. I just knew I had to go, and so I did. If I would not have trusted the sound that came from within my own head, through my own vibrant divine radio station's antenna, I might have been caught dead in my shimmery low-neck dress made by my mom and the wonderful tan that I worked so hard to get. My son would not have me now, and my daughter would never have been born, and I would not be here to teach others about listening to the angel voice within.
The next morning, my telephone started to ring early. People were wondering if I was all right, and that was the first I had heard of the tragedy when they called and the loss of our friends. I almost fell down when I heard the news. I was sickened; I was frightened, after the fact, feeling lost, confused, and most of all, feeling incredibly grateful. I cried tears of deep soul sadness and those of complete and utter gratitude. After processing it for some time, I swore I would for certain never disregard the messages of my guardian if I ever heard her again. Since then, I have been told by my divine guides that everyone has a guardian; we just have to learn to turn our radio dial to that station within and keep our antennas open for signals. Incoming messages are always abound. How do we tune in? We just have to know that we can; then we simply get quiet and request it.
Decades later, I don't wear May West-type dresses anymore. I don't focus myself on how tan I need to get or on smoothing out my stockings to accentuate a well-turned ankle for the big lug at the front table. It's been years now since I played a club. I don't think anymore about the man who got away because not one single witness was left on the premise to identify his apparently drug-induced state of mind and body. But I had to stop thinking about the lives of my friends that were worth so much more than 61 dollars. Sooner or later, we have to stop thinking of the past events that no one can possibly change. I wrote a song for my friend Danny and recorded it. It was called "Isn't Life Worth More Than Just 61?" The inn promptly demanded it be removed from the local radio station, and so it goes. Thank you, Danny, for what you did for others so long ago.
Thank you. All these years later, I can confess that that was not the last time my guardian came to help me. She has helped me a handful of times with her voice as loud and clear as the first time, but she lives silently and still most of the time deep inside me, trustworthy and vigilant as she navigates the sometimes nearly careening ship of mine. She keeps me out of dangerous waters and away from jagged shorelines. I know now that she is always there, and I'm endlessly grateful. I'm so grateful. One night she just had to speak up, as she shouted out my spirit to awaken, and she helped me to be the deputy—yes, like that deputy. He got away, amazingly. I was the lucky one in the red Fiat, blasting rock music to the dark and uncertain night. I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy. I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.
Erica Clapton