“Great,” he said. “I shall come at once.”
I ended the call and then dialed Vicki, but she didn’t pick up. It didn’t matter though, because five minutes later. I arrived at Slingers, and on a Saturday evening, it was just gearing up. I pulled into the gravel parking, and the live honky tonky filtered even out into the parking lot. I’d always hated this bar, it always felt like it was just trying too hard with the outlaw rebel motiff.
“Christ almighty,” I muttered as I made my way to the door. “Merle Haggard, really?”
I recognized the twangy picking guitar strains of his classic Mama Tried. I grew up around musicians, I didn’t know how I knew half the music I did. But I did.
This was definitely going to be a quick drink.
When I walked in, I saw our table quickly. My dad and all his buds, a few beers in, stood and cheered for the band. How a bunch of hippie rock and rollers grew to love Merle Haggard and cowboy bars, I didn’t quite understand, but I chalked it up to reverse irony. They started out making fun, and then the line dancing and guitar picking grew on them, and now it’s a Saturday evening past time.
In the dark room, I navigated past mahogany booths with framed photos of Roy Orbison and John Wayne on the wall, spaced out between mounted pistols. A bouncer with a gray handlebar mustache and wearing a patriotic t-shirt and a leather vest nodded to me with a severe expression. I wondered what he would have thought of Jerry’s film.
I ordered a Corona from the waitress dressed in a classic bar wench costume. I wasn’t staying long. Then I found my dad in the crowd and snickered at his LEGALIZE IT t-shirt.
“Wrong crowd, Dad,” I yelled above the noise.
“Huh?” he shouted back.
I just shook my head. The joke was lost.
“You hear this?” my dad called out to me. “Their lead guitarist is one of the best in Sedona. Listen to him.”
I stood, watched the lead guitarist for a minute, and noticed he was actually quite good. He launched into a long complicated solo that would have made Merle proud. Or offended. Artistic types don’t typically take too well to being one upped.
The guys were all clapping with their beer bottles, and I stood and listened with them. Then I saw The Count enter the bar, and I nodded at him.
He smiled and clearly looked out of place channeling Jim Caveziel in his Count of Monte Cristo getup. But he instantly recognized the waitress, and I noticed a longing glance pass between the two.
I raised an eyebrow. The Count was lonely.
Then Alfred offered a gentlemanly hand to the waitress, and she looked like she would melt. The next thing I knew, they were on the dance floor. He glanced at me with a smile, and I returned and toasted him with my beer bottle.
We listened to more really awful honky tonky, and then it wasn’t long before Vicki arrived.
But I barely recognized her when I saw her.
“Holy shit,” I told her, and she laughed.
She was fully decked out in a cowboy hat, western shirt, and pink cowboy boots with spurs.
“You like?” she yelled over the music.
I just laughed harder. “It’s different!”
She had a black Stetson in her hand, and before I knew it, she popped it on my head, and I laughed.
“Howdy, pard’ner,” she drawled with a wink.
The band launched into the quintessential line dance anthem, Achy Breaky Heart. The whole bar cheered with the opening notes, and Vicki and I doubled over in ironic laughter. Then a spontaneous line dance broke out, and Vicki smirked at me.
“Why not?” I shrugged.
So, Vicki and I joined the line dance. We laughed over grapevines and heel digs, and I had to admit, Billy Ray was onto something. It was shit music, but it sure was fun.
The Count and the bar wench danced near us, and he was so uncoordinated he nearly fell over. But the bar wench laughed and caught him before she pulled him against her again.
I grinned at the sight, and as I turned in time with the music, I even caught my dad cutting loose a bit.
But it was Vicki who kept my attention. She laughed and clapped and shook her tiny little hips to the country anthem. She was mesmerizing.
So, here I was, in a Sedona cowboy bar, wearing a Stetson, and line dancing to really, really, bad country music.
Man, I was in love.
Chapter 20
“So, we cracked another one,” AJ sighed as she laced her fingers behind her head and leaned back in her chair.
It was Monday morning, and the three of us were back at the grind, minus a murder case on our hands.
“Go Team HAV,” I said, and Vicki and AJ laughed.
“Was it always like this, even when you guys were back in L.A.?” AJ asked.
“Uh, no,” I chuckled with a shake of my head. “L.A. was different. We weren’t doing criminal law, so it was a different energy.”
“Huh,” AJ hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve always imagined the life you guys led back there was super glamorous. Kind of like in that show Californication.”
I laughed really hard. Californication was a David Duchovny show about life as a writer in L.A. He mainly just had sex with half of Orange County, and occasionally wrote some half decent cynical ramblings on his vintage typewriter.
“A little bit,” I admitted, “but we actually had to work, too. And there were people who lived like the David Duchovny character, but they didn’t last long. If you wanted to make it, you needed to know how to dial down the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll elements.”
“I mainly
