Three Chords and the Truth

“Now I know it ain’t somethin’ I said ‘cause we ain’t barely said nothin’ at all,” Laura served her best offense as her defense, “I just don’t understand it. It’s like I don’t exist no more.”

Billy stared blankly into the fire, partly wishing she’d stop looking to him for all the answers and partly wishing he had them. “Ma, you’re probably reading too much into it. You have a real talent for that, you know?” 

“There was a time he woulda dropped anything, even his own mother to be with me. Woulda left work early, told-em he was sick, just to be at my side,” Laura sipped her chardonnay and smiled; drunk on the thought. “When your Pa and I first met we’d sit and talk for hours about nothin’ much at all. Oh, we was so much younger then.  

We used to play them guitars over there on the wall ‘til daylight broke up our party and morning called us home. Just us, three chords, and the truth. Truth is, these days, we’d be lucky to string together three words. Besides that, them guitars ain’t even got no strings so as the neck don’t warp or break. They ain’t got no purpose no more,” Laura took a long haul off her hand rolled cigarette, her eyes as dark as the panelled walls behind her.

Billy knew he had nothing that would heal his mother’s wounds and he also knew she still had more trouble in mind to pour out so he just sat quietly and let her cry.

“It was all so much better then. We was so full of life and love and big dreams. Such big dreams. We was gonna be big stars in Nashville, Tennessee, just as soon as we had enough scratch to get us there. Your Pa never planned to stay on at that plant, you know?” Laura raised her eyebrow like she was spreading gossip but Billy knew the story all too well, he’d heard it a million times.

“No sir, it was only to save up enough money to get us by but then the babies started comin’. Now, we ain’t got no regrets about havin’ none of y’all” she lied “but babies, well they do come with certain responsibilities. The likes of which we wasn’t ready for, maybe” Laura confided.

“No one ever is Ma” Billy affirmed.

“Now, ain’t that the truth?” She smiled. “But you was all so beautiful and made us both so proud.” She beamed as the thin blue smoke curled up around her cheekbone and danced up toward the ceiling; yellowed by nicotine and time.

“It ain’t right what they done to him. They shoulda put a bullet in his brain and laid him out to pasture, save him all this pain and sufferin’. Sure, they gave him a fancy gold watch to keep in his dresser drawer and pretty placard for the wall but they took away his self worth and that ain’t somethin’ a wife’s got in the medicine cabinet to mend her man with, you know?

Forty-seven years he worked at that plant only to have a boss thirty years his junior tell him his services ain’t required no more. Well how do you like them apples? Can you believe that? Your Pa knows every square inch of that plant like the back of his own hand. Not needed no more.” Laura spat the words “You know, that boy might not’ve even been a glint in his daddy’s eye the day your Pa started workin’ there?”

“Ma, Pa’s nearly 70 years old, he ain’t a kid no more and that’s back breaking work he’s been doing” Billy began to justify.

“That don’t mean he ought to be tossed out on his ass like the trash” Laura retorted.

“And he wasn’t Ma, he was treated with dignity and respect. They gave him a right proper ceremony and a handsome pension that’s gonna look after you both for the rest of your lives. Would you rather you got the call telling you he ain’t coming home again?” Billy hammered the point hard.

“No, no. I just want my husband back, is all, not this broken man who ain’t got the will to live no more.” Laura sighed, defeated.

“Just give him a little time to adjust, Ma. That’s all. He just needs a little time,” Billy pleaded.

“We’re old son, we ain’t got no time,” she hissed.

The loud creak of the front door broke the intensity of the moment as William senior’s heavy boots stomped across the threshold and over to the firewood box. The armload of dry firewood fell into place with a few thuds. The heavy boots made their way to the refrigerator and as he reached in for a cold one, he turned to Billy and asked, “You want one?”

“No thanks Pa, I’m gonna be hitting the road home to Sarah and the kids soon enough,” Billy answered.

“Hmph,” Pa nodded, happy he wouldn’t have to share, then headed over to his favorite chair to click on the rot box and let the sportscasters drown out his thoughts. He grunted as he pulled the laces and the boots loose from his aching feet then he reclined back into his evening position.

Laura looked at her son as if to say “See, what’d I tell you?” Then she stood up, glass in hand, and waltzed on over to the guitars on the wall. She ran her fingers down the worn out fretboard of the one she used to play and said with a light in her eye that Billy hadn’t seen in a good long while, “Boy, when we was young we would sure make these old guitars sing, your Pa and I” she looked at her thumb and forefinger without feeling as she rolled the grit of the dust between them and then went on to say “I think I’ll fix us up some chicken and rice for dinner tonight” as she dropped her hand and her nostalgia in one fell swoop, then turned toward the kitchen to her evening place.