The point at which my daughter realizes he is the son of the man who wrote Lonesome Dove came much later than I thought. Her eureka moment occurs while white clouds sail past a gibbous moon that’s casting a light on a gray Texas sky that doesn’t promise not to drench my leather jacket or my daughter’s silken dress. And thank God the truth didn’t crash like a lightning bolt because we were sitting on metal bleachers at Threadgill’s.
An hour had passed since my drummer friend patiently flipped through the pages of the Austin Chronicle with us at the bar in the Saxon Pub, looking at all the shows for the night and making important commentary about their relevance. Jazz at the Elephant Room or authentic Texas songwriter stuff at Threadgill's: Those were our final choices in Don’s opinion, but in my mind there really was no choice.
I was hell-bent on taking my daughter to hear James McMurtry. I even explained to her that he was Larry’s son, but there must have been too much neon shining in her eyes for the message to take seed.
I wasted no time on the ride to Threadgill's. I launched right into my first Janis Joplin song in preparation for all the photos of Janis I knew we’d see at the venue. My daughter didn’t recognize “Bobby McGee.” And not because I don’t sound like Janis, because I do, er, can, with minimal effort, (unfortunately) croon just like her. But it turns out it was “Mercedes Benz” that my daughter recognized. Or maybe she said she did only to keep me from singing more Janis. We’d already passed Peter Pan Golf, and she probably had no idea how much longer she might have to ride in the car with a woman intent on singing Janis until the cows come home.
“Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz/My friends all drive Porches I must make amends.”
We pull into the parking lot at Threadgill's, and even though the show was on the lawn, I direct my daughter inside to do some sightseeing. And there was Janis, on the wall,singing from about a dozen photos. My daughter takes one look and says, “Oh, she looks as obnoxious as she sounds.” And that just singes a wee bit because I did look up to Janis once upon a time. But as I told this story the next day, my brother-in-law offered that Janis was voted ugliest man at UT. So my daughter’s opinion is not an outlier.
We make a stop in the loo because that’s what girls do, and on the way I point out to my daughter that the man sitting at the bar wearing a black hat is none other than James himself.
Outside there are only a couple spots open on the bleachers. I lead us to a group of men, closer to my age than my daughter’s, that are seated just far enough apart to make it obvious they did not come together. I see no reason for homophobia to keep us from sitting for the show so I ask if we can sit next to one of men, and wouldn’t you know, he scoots a little closer to the nearest man to accommodate some female companionship.
When the band begins to play, I have the unexpected delight of seeing Cornbread on bass. And just as this realization sets in, my daughter reacts to the music by leaning into my ear and saying, “Now I feel like I’m really in Austin!”
James is in the mood to tell stories, and he relates a border crossing story that casts the Canadian border patrol officers in a bad light.
The music continues and James winds the crowd up with “Choctaw Bingo:”
“Strap them kids in and give ‘em a little bit of Vicodin ‘n cherry Coke/We’re going to Oklahoma to see the family reunion for the first time in years/It’s up at Uncle Slaton's cause he’s getting on in years.”
James has got a blonde with her arm in a sling dancing so wildly that you just know she used to strip or the doc has her on Vicodin for the arm.
“He’s got a Airstream trailer and a Holstein cow/ Still makes whiskey cause he still knows how/He plays at Choctaw bingo every Friday night /You know he had to leave Texas but he won’t say why.”
The men sitting around us begin to critique the dancer's technique, and my daughter shoots a movie of the gyrations with her new camera.
“He cooks that crystal meth because the shine won’t sell.”
I look back at the crowd to see all eyes are on the dancer, none on the band. James doesn’t seem to mind cause he’s watching her, too. He just keeps playing his guitar and spinning the yarn.
Back home in Pennsylvania, I have a couple books on my shelf written by James’s dad that are memoirs of sorts. On the first page of one book, Larry states that he is sitting in the Dairy Queen in Archer City, reading an essay by Walter Benjamin on the “examination . . . of the growing obsolescence of what might be called practical memory and the consequent diminution of the power of oral narrative in our lives.” But as I sit and listen to James, it strikes me that his songs are living proof storytelling will not die in the hands of our generation of Texas songwriters.
I comment to my daughter that the songs are not just hooks, but real craft, and mention the McMurtry family proclivity for storytelling. Her eyes get real big and she says, “You mean this is Larry McMurtry’s son?”
I suppress a giggle.
James starts another song, and I look over at my daughter. She’s intently listening to James sing his tribute to “Levelland.” Levelland sounds a lot like Archer City, Larry's town. Archer City is the place my daughter calls “that godforesaken, cricket-infested town” because she does remember the day her mama drove her two hours off course from Amarillo to Fort Worth just to have Larry sign a copy of Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, only that day my she was a little girl in ponytails. But on this night of acoustic memories with Larry's son, my daughter shines brighter than the neon light.
