I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive by Steve Earle Read Free Book Online Page B

well as those of his beautiful wife and their two small children. The Mexican tabloids followed their daily lives with a level of interest normally reserved for movie stars and unheard-of for the First Family of a foreign country. Graciela and her mother had even lit a candle for them in the parish church when they heard that the First Lady had suffered a miscarriage; they could imagine no greater tragedy that could befall a family than losing a child, especially a boy. Graciela pointed to the picture at the bottom of the page: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, resplendent in her beautiful gown at a recent state dinner. She pronounced her name the way everyone in Dolores had.
    "Yah-kee!" She beamed.
    Doc chuckled. "No, child. That's
Jack
ie." He pointed at the paper and enunciated as clearly and slowly as he could. "The president's wife's name is Jackie. It's like Jack—well, no, he's Jack, but ... oh, hell!" It was obvious that the little pantomime wasn't getting him anywhere, so he finally gave up. "Never mind, child. It doesn't matter anyhow. Any coffee left in that pot?"

IV
    Sometimes Hank doesn't know what to make of Doc. Just the sort of yahoo that a feller meets on his way down. There's Hank, fired from the Grand Ole Opry, back down in Shreveport playing the
Louisiana Hayride
every Saturday night, just like the bad old days. He's down on his back after the show one night, and some wannabe hillbilly singer shows up backstage with this tall feller in tow. Introduces him as Doc. He looks the part, all right: forty, forty-five, wire-frame glasses. Got on a nice suit, if a little on the threadbare side. Gives Hank a shot of morphine, fixes his back right up, and then asks him for his autograph. Oh, yeah, he's a fan, but not like all those kids that holler for "Lovesick Blues" all night. Knows every record Hank's ever made but his favorites are Hank's songs, the ones he wrote himself: "I Can't Help It," "Cold, Cold, Heart," "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Doc's even a fair hand with a spinning rig, and over the summer, the pair catch their weight in bass and crappie together during long afternoons out on the lake. Then, for no good reason that Hank can figure, Doc has to go and spoil it all.
    Cure for alcoholism, my ass. What's that Doc calls them horse pills of his? Chloral somethin'-or-other, or some goddamn thing? Horseshit, in concentrated form, if you ask Hank. Oh, they help with the shimmies and the shakes and all, but they don't do a damn thing for what's really ailing Hank, and besides, who ever asked Doc to cure anybody of anything in the first goddamn place? Hank don't need a sheepskin from some fancy college to know what he needs and when he needs it! Just give him steak and taters when he's hungry, whiskey when he's dry, pussy when he's lonely, and maybe a little old-time religion when he dies.
    See, Hank reckons that when his time comes, he'll see it coming. Some kind of a sign, so he'll know it's time to get right with God.
    But Death's not playing fair that night, nine New Year's Eves ago. Sneaks up on Ol' Hank like an Injun while he's sleeping in the back seat of his own Cadillac somewhere in West Virginia. Or is it Tennessee?
    Even Hank doesn't know.
    He's booked to play two shows that weekend, one on New Year's Eve in Charleston, West Virginia, and one the next day in Canton, Ohio. He hires a kid to drive him up from Montgomery, but by the time they make Chattanooga it's snowing like a son of a bitch. Takes more than four hours to make the hundred and ten miles from there to Knoxville and now his only shot at making the Charleston show is the three o'clock plane. The weather goes from bad to worse, and the pilot has to turn the little puddle jumper around and lands Hank right back in Knoxville where he started.
    They check into the Andrew Johnson Hotel and ol' Doc's waitin' there and Hank's never been so glad to see anybody in his life. Doc says it was Hank's mama sent him. That she rang him up in Shreveport