Ace Boggess

Second Encounter With Billy Ray Rose
(excerpted from the novel, A Song Without a Melody)

When I came face to face with country singer Billy Ray Rose the second time, I almost felt sorry for him. In the two years since my story on him ran, his career went down hill so fast it would've made an ideal subject for a country song. I read all the wire stories about the many ways he continually stumbled and fell. I took careful note of every failure, setback, and inch Rose traveled up Shit Creek: how his second album sold less than two hundred thousand copies; how his agent dropped him, his manager dropped him, his label dropped him; how he spent two months in an Arizona jail for punching a lady cop before a show in Phoenix; how radio stations now refused to play his songs after on-the-air racist jokes; how he spent three weeks in a local hospital because he made similar comments on a public street in Youngstown, Ohio; and how he served two terms in rehab for powder. I also kept up with his recovery: a rumored course in sensitivity training; the two-million-dollar judgment he won against his record label for breach of contract; how he used all that money to clear up his problems with the IRS, then spent what was left to self-produce a third album, promoting and distributing it himself; and how the first single, "Back from the Badlands," was slowly getting some airplay on stations not afraid to "test the waters."

Despite Rose's new luck, however, I was surprised as fuck that first Saturday of the new year when I heard his voice on my telephone. He didn't have a critical following these days, and no self-respecting reporter wanted to talk to him, not even just to call him a freak or shout "Fuck off!"

Needless to say, I took the call.

Rose had a gig at some hole-in-the-wall redneck joint called The Black Dog, The Big Dog, The Dead Dog--something like that. It was south of Pittsburgh near Morgantown, West Virginia, where Rose spent a few years in college. It'd take me an hour and a half to get there, which was a good reason to say 'No' when Rose asked me for another interview. But he did ask this time, which intrigued me. "But why'd he choose me?" I wondered. "What could he say that I'd find worth the ink it takes to quote him?" Perhaps he thought I owed him one, or maybe he remembered me well enough to know I'd be fair despite my personal distaste for him. Anyway, it took balls for him to make that call. That deserved some small measure of deference. The least I could do was show some balls myself.

"I'll be there," I said, and headed for Kathy's office to convince the Queen of the Damned that Billy Ray Rose, one of the all-time ugliest people inside, deserved a listen.

"Get fucked," was her response. "Billy Ray Rose wouldn't merit an obit in this paper if he died saving a drowning puppy in a hurricane."

Even with her dislike for Rose, it just took a touch of the old Logical Philosopher routine to change her mind and send me off to Morgantown. "Look at it this way," I explained. "If the story doesn't pan out, if Rose has nothing significant to say, we trash the interview. Nobody'll know we considered it. You lose nothing but mileage expenses and my time--a few hours I can spend on the road doing what I do best or back here at my desk doing next to nothing. But what if there's a scoop? Suppose this nutball has a tale to tell that no one else will touch. We can win big, can't we? It's a gamble, but it's a small one--more like a dollar on a lottery ticket than a day's pay at the track."

"Interesting concept," she agreed, though still reluctant. Her crooked grin had grown from an equally crooked grimace, and I knew she found me aggressive and ambitious today. Kathy approved of aggressiveness. She respected ambition.

"Trust me," I said, "it's a sure thing."

She hesitated, staring down at her right hand unconsciously toying with a red company pencil. She wanted to say yes, but first she had to let the business and news portions of her brain fight it out.

"It's a Saturday night. What else do I have unless there's a murder, a rape, or a riot? You can pay me to hang out by the telephone, chatting it up with secretaries and sheriff's deputies. I might get a brief about purse snatchings and prostitution stings. Or, you can pay me to do what I do best."

"Get going," she said. I was out of my chair like a whirlwind and heading for the door of her office when she called after me. "Take the Keg and the Cups," she said. "If you get anything, mix us an Electric Cocktail. Otherwise, give us a call and tell us you've sobered up."

"No problem," I said, as I closed the door behind me.

The Keg was intraoffice jargon for a cheap Japanese laptop bearing the obscure trademark of the Kigami Corporation. Our publisher purchased this toy computer eight months earlier. It was only slightly less complicated to use and nominally more sophisticated than a block-plate printing press with carved potatoes for letters. The Cups were two rubber cradles connected by a short cord which, when plugged into the Keg, served as a crude modem. This modem worked by placing the receiver from a standard telephone firmly into the Cups, thereby allowing the story, or Electric Cocktail, to be sent across phone lines by a cacophonous series of sonic bleeps and crackles directly into the main queue in the newsroom. It always came mixed, meaning completely backwards with the first letter on a newsroom terminal being the last letter typed on the Keg. For some reason, the Cups transmitted from bottom to top, sending every story across the phone lines inversely. So, frustrated editors would have to work through a long series of complicated computer codes to get the story straightened out, or else have a part-time staffer type the whole thing from scratch after sifting through all the backwards tripe. Either way, it took about the same amount of time and effort. That's why the editors despised the Keg and Cups--that is, all except Kathy who considered them useful. Needless to say, those who actually dealt with mixed Electric Cocktails preferred that their story-drunk reporters 'sober up'--which is to say, that they admit they have a problem and quit the story cold turkey.

I was an alcoholic. In several months of mixing Electric Cocktails, not once had I sobered up. I drank my fill. True, every now and then a story I sent wouldn't be worth printing, but I sent it just the same. Whether I was covering campaign speeches or county fairs, improv poets or doomsaying street preachers, my copy always arrived on time. I drank and drank, and the Keg was always full. I left decisions about sobriety to the editors. They knew that, so every time they saw me lugging the Keg at my side, many of my colleagues probably wanted a drink. A real one.

A wreck just after the switch onto I-79 south backed up traffic, so the trip took more than two hours. I wasted another twenty minutes or so finding the club. I stopped at three gas stations and a Dairy Mart before I met anyone who could give me directions. This is partly my fault for inquiring about The Dead Dog when, as I later found out, the actual name was The Angry Bulldog. I finally asked an old man at a Chev-Elev who corrected me and guided me on my way.

The Angry Bulldog's owner must have been more fond of being anonymous than making profits. At the Chev-Elev, I scanned a phone book searching for enlightenment but found none. I even bought a copy of the local paper which turned out to be useless in my quest for an address. Resigning the newspaper to my passenger seat with the Keg, I drove around until I found the bar which, I realized, I'd passed at least once along the way. Not that I would've recognized it. How could I guess the club playing host to a former country music superstar would be a graying wreck of an old barn with a dirty glass door on one side, marked only with glued letters A-N-G-R-B-U-L-L-G? Truth is, I expected a glowing neon sign with a big-breasted cartoon mascot, or at least a picture of some filthy mongrel snarling at the passersby.

I pulled into the gravel parking lot, empty except for one rusted heap of an old van. I guessed that was what remained of the Billy Ray Rose Traveling Circus. I knew I had a story even before I heard a single word from Billy Ray. For anyone else, a gig at a bar this small wasn't worth a two-inch brief. For the former Grammy winner for Best New Country Artist, a booking in this rat trap was the fifth act in a Shakespearean tragedy, the point where the hero's character flaws finally bring him down. And Rose had many flaws.

I got out of my car and walked toward the door, lugging the Keg along like a heavy bucket of cow's milk. The door was unlocked, so I went in.

This dive was one large room with a worn red-orange carpet, semi-round tables, a raised stage in one corner, and a well-stocked whiskey bar along an entire wall. The place stood empty except for a golden-haired young man with a matching thick blond beard. He was wiping down the bar with a wet rag. As I approached, he looked at me and grinned.

"Hey there," he said. "What can I get for you?"

I plopped the Keg down on a barstool. "How's it going? I'm Collin Hearst, a reporter with The Domestic-Chronicle in Pittsburgh. I'm here to meet Billy Ray Rose."

He nodded. "Said you might hightail it up here. Said he could count on you. I guess ole Billy Ray still has a little magic left after all."

"That's what I'm here to find out. Is he around?"

"He's in the back. Be out in a minute. Get you a drink?"

Alcohol sounded agreeable. "How about an Absolut Screw?"

"Sorry, Buddy. We ain't got Absolut. Got Gilbey's, Popov, Vladimir. . . ."

My stomach churned. "Make it a Jack and Coke."

"No problem," he said, reaching for the bottle. He poured the whiskey into a short glass, then opened the icebox looking for soda. Groaning, he shook his head.

"Yeah?"

"I'm afraid we're out of Co'cola. We got RC, or you can have it straight."

"RC's cool," I said, just wanting the damned drink.

He pulled a two-liter bottle out of the icebox and filled my glass to the rim.

"So small they can't even afford a soda fountain," I thought. "Billy Ray Rose, you're going places."

As if in response, I heard a long series of sneezes followed by an oath: "Sheeit!" I recognized the voice right off. Rose appeared from behind a curtain to my right. He was dressed in fake cowboy clothes including white chaps with pink stripes and frills, a pair of dirty white boots, and his traditional straw hat. He looked more like Roy Rogers than Clint Eastwood. You're no cowboy, I thought.

The bartender dropped my drink on the counter. "Buck fifty," he said.

"Good price," I replied, dropping a couple dollar bills on the counter. Then I took a sip as my eyes filled with tears. That was one hell of a strong drink. "Real good price," I coughed.

"Hey hey," said Rose when he saw me. "You made it." His voice sounded more nasally than I remembered, and he sniffled a lot as he spoke.

"Same old Billy Ray," I said.

Throwing me a puzzled glance, he shrugged and said, "Listen, Buddy Boy, I'm glad you came. I've got a lot to tell you, don't you know. I'm on the comeback trail, the road to recovery, the highway out of the old town into a big, bright city. You know, this time I think I'll do okay. I won't let the slum lords and sewer rats stop me. You know what I mean?"

Actually, I had no idea what he meant, though there was a vague impression in my mind of Rose's previous racist comments and his habit of espousing them in front of television cameras. I figured he was spouting off another coded epithet. Looking back, I don't think that was it.

"I learned my lesson," he said. "I'm a changed man, and you can print that!"

"What do you mean by changed?" I asked, trying to pin him down.

"I'm different. Just look at me."

I did, but I saw the same crude shell of a person I'd seen two years before and on so many trashy talk shows and gossip programs since. "I need details, Rose. I'm not your P.R. man. You've got to make me see it, understand it, believe it. Otherwise, you're wasting my time. You won't make the paper, not even a brief on the back page. Pretend I'm your priest. Confess, repent, and then we'll see if the world thinks you're worth forgiveness." I said the world as if as many people would see this story as had seen the first one two years ago. But the world wouldn't see this one. After all, I doubted he'd compare himself to God a second time. Still, my world was the Pittsburgh music scene, and I could at least promise him my world would decide whether he should be forgiven.

Of course, if I'd said what I said two years ago, the interview would've been over. Rose would've shown me the door, or worse. He might have hurt me. But our roles had changed. He sighed noticeably and dropped down on a bar stool. "You're right," he said. "No playing it cool. The fact is, I'm lucky you're here. Damned lucky. I called up a whole shitpot full of reporters this time around, and I couldn't get past hello before they hung up on me. True enough, Buddy Boy, most papers won't even list my name with the upcoming events when I'm in town, and they'd do that for anybody. Satan playing a banjo could make the upcoming events list. So, I got it. I owe you. That ain't no lie. You tell me what you want, and I'll give it to you."

"I don't want anything. I'm just a storyteller. If a story's worth telling, I'll tell it. If not, I'm out of here. I can just go home and get some sleep. Remember, you called me. So you must have a story you think I'd want to tell. What've you got?"

"Where do I begin?"

"Well, you said you've changed. Most of America isn't prepared to believe that. At this point, I doubt that I will either." I downed the whiskey, gasping as it burned my throat. After slapping the empty glass on the bar, I reached into a coat pocket for a notebook and pen. "Convince me."

He closed his eyes and his face tensed, making him look as if he were wishing on a pitched penny. When he relaxed and opened his eyes, he cleared his throat with a cough. "I guess it's best to get it out straight-away. That's what they told me at the clinic. Course, that's was the cocaine and boozin' and stuff. This is different. Well . . . here goes." He paused for a breath. "I'm a bigot."

His last sentence set my hand in motion. "Go on."

"A bigot," he said again. "My daddy was a bigot. My granddaddy was a bigot. All my brothers and sisters, too. When I was a kid, my friends were bigots--every last one. Hell, more than half the folks I grew up with, you know? And all this time I didn't reckon that meant a thing to nobody. Figured it was just normal. Never stopped to think about it."

"You're saying you don't think it's all that normal now?"

"No, Sir," he replied. I misunderstood at first, thinking he meant, "No, Sir, I'm not saying that," until I glanced at him and, just for a second, saw this sort of deep, numbing sadness in his eyes. It was a look that couldn't be faked--not by a professional actor, and sure as hell not by a moron like Rose. In that instant, I understood what he'd intended: "No, Sir, it's not normal at all."

"What changed your mind?"

Hesitation. "Rushanda," he said, a word he pronounced "Rush into."

"Say again?"

"Rushanda. Rushanda Johnson. She's the colored girl. . . . sorry . . . the African-American lady that's been teaching me what nobody else ever did."

"Can you spell that name for me?"

He did, adding, "I think that's right."

"Okay. Now, she's been teaching you what kinds of things?"

"Been helping me to understand where I come from, where she comes from, the differences between us, and the similarities."

"That's good," I said, encouraging him. "How did the two of you meet?"

He massaged his chin nervously while he stared at the floor, but he resumed eye contact before he said, "She wrote me a letter after she saw me on the TV. About six months ago. Don't even remember what I said, you know. Just talk. Lot of folks didn't see it that way. Must've been pretty mean. I got a lot of letters. I always do after I chew my toenails on TV. This time wasn't no different. Folks cussed me, threatened to bust me up again. This girl, Rush, she wasn't like that. She didn't act like those folks. She just wrote letter-type things. You know? 'Hello. How are you? Hope all's well for you.' Then, on the last line, she wrote, 'Why do you hate me so much?' like she was one of my old girlfriends."

I wrote down his words so frantically that my hand cramped. I didn't pause to shake it, knowing I could profit from the pain.

"She didn't ask why I hated black folks. I probably could've answered that'n. I had lots of reasons. Not GOOD reasons, but they were the ones I heard since I was in powder and Pampers. No, she asked me why I hated HER. And you know, I didn't. Truth is, I didn't hate nobody, 'cept maybe my manager and those pricks at the record company. Some of you guys, too. No offense."

I grinned and kept writing.

"I was confused, and a little lost. So, I wrote her back, telling her what I just told you. Sent my number, too. She called me up just a few days later to say she understood."

"That's touching," I said with all seriousness.

Rose either didn't hear or flat out ignored me. "The two of us met for lunch. Since then, we've been talking a lot, hanging out. She's been explaining things."

"So you're not a racist anymore? That what you're saying?"

"No, Sir," he said. "I'm still like I was. Probably be a bigot the rest of my days. But with Rush's help, I'm trying hard to fight it. She's teaching me to see how other folks feel when I say things like I said in the past, when I act the way I acted. Don't know if I'll ever not be a bigot, sure as sunshine. The best I can do's try not to offend folks, not to make'em sad, and hope to somehow get past my roots."

Sarcastically, I said, "You blame your family?"

"That's not it," he replied with a tired sigh. "I'm just like'em. I'm a bigot. I said that. I learned it from my daddy, sure. But then on, it's my mouth talkin' and my brain that won't make it stop. Besides, that's only part of it. I'm also a druggie. I learned that one all on my own." Rose went on to chronicle his journeys through addictions, having gotten intimate with heroin and crack before falling into the outstretched arms of his current love, powdered cocaine. He went into explicit detail, describing the pleasures, problems, related illnesses and recoveries, sharing each scene as if it were unique. There's something about a man who admits his flaws and takes responsibility for them that merits a little sympathy. Rose wasn't trying to hide his problems. He wasn't trying to lie and say, "I'm clean, Man. Look at me. I've been through treatment so many times there's nothing left to treat." I felt like Rose didn't want to manipulate me, to pull the wool over my eyes. He seemed more concerned with truth than publicity. He didn't waste time convincing me of his genuineness, and that made his words seem genuine. It may have been a con, but if so, it was the best I ever saw. "Don't know that I'll ever clean up," he said. "Don't know if I want to."

"I see what you're saying. You don't like who you are, but you're afraid if you change you might like yourself even less. Sound accurate?"

"Yes, Sir. Least, mostly. Buddy Boy, I got a lot of problems. May never get rid of them suckers. Point is, I'm trying. I'm trying like heck to just stop and think before I talk, and I'm trying just as hard to catch on and apologize real quick if something stupid slips out. With a tons of help, somewhere along the way I might be able to give up the drugs. If I fall back from time to time, it's still fine and dandy. I'll have a friend right there to straighten me out. Folks might read your story and say, 'Well, hell. Old Billy Ray just wants to sell his tapes. He ain't different.' That's okay with me, honest to God. It ain't important if they get it or believe it or whatever. It just ain't."

"How are you different?" I said.

Smiling for the first time in a while, he looked me in the eye. This time I saw hints of peace inside that stare. Without pausing to consider his words, he told me, "I have a friend."

I wrote that in my notebook in big, bold letters, underlining it seven times for effect. That wasn't the end of the interview, but it was the end of the story. For twenty minutes more, I questioned Rose, collecting more basic information. "What about the new album? Where will you be playing? What are your plans?" These asides were filler for the real story: Billy Ray Rose has a friend!