The following Friday evening, Corrina and I visited Mama as we had planned.
Corrina was a mystery, that I was learning. In that way, she was like Doocy himself.
I have to admit that, when we started narrating this tale, I never would’ve imagined that we would make that comparison, not in 10,000 years.
How do you compare the beauty and the beast, but, as you well know, that’s the summer of ‘73.
Part of the mystery would be in this: I can’t say that things were exactly the same after our backyard basketball court talk. I cannot say they were worse, though. Life is always changing, and different does not always mean worse.
Who’s to say even that unchoreographed blip did not give the moments of our summer added depth or even make things better? The sun does shine brighter after a shower.
Corrina did sit closer to the door – more of the way she had done on that first date that now seemed an eternity ago – and I didn’t reach my hand over and take hers the way I always did before we turned the first corner, not from not wanting to but from not knowing if it was the best thing to do.
I was learning early in life that ambiguity is seldom your friend. Oh, she wouldn’t have refused it – no, not in 10,000 years and 10,000 more – but it might have added confusion to her gentle, delicate mind. When we sang and shared the “I’ll Take Care of You” song earlier, we both meant it. We were going to take care of each other, one way or the other. That was the magic of ‘73.
It may not have been often that I had other things on my mind besides Corrina, but that night I did.
We drove quietly down our Roanoke Road and drove by Cooley’s General Store at Standing Rock on the corner on our right and the old white church with a steeple and a cemetery that was across the road and a little to the north.
I reached down and picked up my eight-track tape of Floyd Cramer’s “Super Country Hits” – ah, even now I can’t get over how every drive down that road had an aura about it marked by a tape, song lyrics and the rare excitement of a young love in the air – and plugged it in, making sure it was not too loud.
It would be a Floyd Cramer night. I noticed that the further we drove down the old road and listened to the rich, gentle sound of Cramer’s piano, Corrina loosened up, moved a little closer, and, occasionally, as we talked, would reach over and touch me the shoulder when she spoke, which was her trademark.
I remember listening to “Battle of New Orleans” – that livened our spirits for sure – and when “Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’” popped on, I couldn’t help but look over and give her a big smile. She knew.
“Do you know my favorite Floyd Cramer song?” Corrina said, surprising me.
“I didn’t even know you knew Floyd Cramer at all, Miss Belle.”
“Pup, you forget that I have a daddy who likes all the old singers and, in this case, instrumentalists.” I glanced over at her to make sure it was still her and not a music expert who had slipped in her seat.
“Many evenings, to this day,” she went on, “we sit around and listen to music, and when Daddy wants something soft and maybe a little melancholy, he’ll put on his Cramer album.”
I listened, wondering where she had been keeping all this information.
“Oh,” she said, excitedly, “do you know what Cramer is famous for?”
I raised my eyebrows, “Playing the piano,” I deadpanned, earning a well-placed jab in the ribs.
“Yes,” she said, “but he also is famous, so says my daddy, for what’s called the ‘slip note.’”
She paused, I supposed waiting for me to ask the question I needed to ask. That was another way she was a lot like Doocy.
“What’s a slip note?” I asked on cue.
“Well, I’ll tell you smartie pants,” she teased, “it’s a note where the pianist hits the wrong note on purpose but slips it to the right note. You can hear it in almost all his songs, Daddy says.”
I pondered on it.
“So,” I said, after a moment, “it’s like when I took that Newnan girl Mary Lou out to the drive-in two nights ago, but I realized ten minutes in that she was the wrong ‘note,’ and so I’m taking you out tonight, hittin’ the right note, you see.”
My ribs took another blow, then I thought of something.
“You know what I said to that Mary Lou when I went and picked her up, don’t you?”
“No what?”
I smiled, so she knew something was coming. “I sung, ‘Hello Mary Lou,” then just about ran off the road laughing. Corrina got tickled, too, more because I was laughing than anything, but she had to admit it was funny. For the next mile we sang a duet of that song “Hello Mary Lou,” which led me to believe that the dark-haired beauty was no longer jealous of Mary Lou from Newnan at all.
After a minute, Corrina crushed that thought by bringing her back up: “Now, about this Mary Lou ...” she said, causing me to cringe. But she ignored it and kept going. “I betcha I know what song you played for her that night.”
“What?” I asked a little nervously.
“There’s only one you could’ve played, Pup, if you wanted to live a long and prosperous life. You played ‘Last Date.’”
“Absolutely,” I said, “and it was so over that I didn’t even walk her to the door and kiss her goodnight,” I said emphatically.
“You better not.” Corrina looked at me squinting her eyes, then added. “I will give you this. You did one good thing. You’re like that slip note. The main thing is that, despite straying the way you did, you ended up on the right note.”
I smiled, and Corrina scooted over close and grabbed my arm around the bicep that I hoped had bulked up some from the summer. I was feeling fortunate that I had survived that exchange and lived to fight another day.
We crossed the Chattahoochee, the road smoothing out once we were over the bridge, and we turned Cramer back up as he played “Lonely Street,” an Andy Williams hit from the 1950s that was more melancholy than I normally wanted. However, it fit, with the sky overcast – and life sometimes overcast, too, as it was by the last week of July. I asked Corrina if she knew the song, and she thought she did but wasn’t sure, but she knew the title.
I said, “Let me tell you why I like this song. When I was maybe three, or four …” I began. Corrina sat up just a little and gave me that soft look through her green eyes that told me that she was fully engaged, displaying again that rare and natural talent. I wonder still if she ever knew she had that aura about her. I doubt she did.
“… we lived on a street called Lonely Street,” I said, “I don’t remember much except it tee’s right into the west end of my Southwest Elementary School. I sure would’ve had a shorter and less freezing walk to school on those cold and icy winter days if we had stayed there on Lonely Street. One of my earlier memories is livin’ there and playing in the yard. I wonder if those vague memories were before or after I got lost at the amusement park in Columbus, which may have been my earliest memory. Somehow, as I think back, it seems that somethin’ bad happened while we lived there – Pa, my daddy’s father – may have died while we were there. That would’ve been about the time that song came out, which the tape says was in 1959, so that would fit.”
“It’s funny,” Corrina said, “how you remember places years after you were there, and you remember whether they have a joyful sound or not. I’m that way, too. I’m thankful that most of mine have been happy, though.”
I glanced over as she fidgeted with the yellow ribbon in her dark hair as she talked.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “I think this road right here is always going to have the best memories of all for me – I mean, all these drives and seeing the scenes, and being with you. It’s like that free-standing chimney at the crossroads we passed,” she said, referring to the one with the house burned down and only remnants of wood and metal remaining. I’ve noticed it every single time you and I have driven together down the road. I always think of you when we pass it, mainly because of your work with the bricklayers. I’ll always think of you when I see the brick on our house, or walk up the brick steps, or burn a fire in the fireplace. That chimney on that burnt-down house will always be you to me, too, no matter what – and the chimney on our house, that’s doubly you. I’ll never look at it that I don’t see you at the window handing a heavy bucket of that mortar from the inside.”
I had not expected “Lonely Street” to take us down this “brick” road, but I was glad it did. We talked for a while about how we built that chimney and how strong it was and how it was able to withstand almost any storm. It had already had to hold up to a couple.
After a bit, I changed the subject as I thought back to the Andy Williams song.
“You know, Corrina Belle, I’ve been thinkin’ about that song all the time we’ve been talkin’. I did live on Lonely Street when I was a little boy; but …”
“… But you don’t live there anymore?” she said, half as a question.
“No, I don’t,” I said, “I moved off of that street a long time ago, a long, long time ago.”
I let it sink in.
“Actually, I moved off of that street when a certain dark-haired girl moved into my life about, oh, two months ago, and that’s the truth.”
I don’t think I ever saw her smile any brighter than she did in that moment. I sealed the million-dollar smile in a bottle with all the others and drove, satisfied, down that old Roanoke Road.
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently spent two years teaching and coaching at Ferris. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) served many years with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, but now spend time evangelizing in several states in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the writing of the ongoing novel/memoir here in the Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, or email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, or see frontporchgospel.com.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.