Janice Amos was a singer of some regional renown, playing mainly lounges and bowling alleys in and around Fort Stockton. Attractive in her prime, she still held together pretty well for a woman who’d been rode pretty hard and put up wet.
Over the course of her career she’d recorded a handful of LPs, none of which sold in any numbers outside family, friends, and those who were three sheets to the wind by the end of her set. My Liver Hates My Guts, Jesus Forgave Me; Why Can’t You?, and You Can’t Cage My Beaver were some of her more popular songs that actually got some play on the radio in Fort Stockton and Marfa.
One of her biggest hits, Let Me Check You for Ticks, got quite a bit of play on the radio and even was heard on some stations in Houston and San Antonio. But the lyrics in the third verse that involved “parting the hair on your scrotum, if I find any I’ll smote ‘em, and we’ll fall asleep in the moonlight” stirred Brother Bob to take action when kids from the youth group started singing the tune around the campfire at the Fall Retreat. He caused a big enough stink that it was jerked from the playlist.
To say her career had been rocky would be an understatement. But it was representative of her life, overall. She’d had more twists and turns than a roller coaster at Fiesta Texas. Men, in particular, seemed to be the cause of her greatest ups and downs. After a particularly nasty courtship, marriage, and divorce, her second husband whom she’d met in the Southwest Texas lounge circuit, cut a song reported to be about her called I Hate Every Bone in Your Body But Mine. Ironically the royalties from that song, once it hit the Top 40, made him a wealthy man.
Janice’s third husband, kind of a self-promoter, convinced her to record a holiday album complete with many of the old standards. It was his idea to include a new single Janice had composed called It’s Your Name in the Snow, But the Handwriting is Mine. Folks tried not to like it but damned if it wasn’t a pretty catchy tune. It found its way into the rotation of Muzak songs and you could hear it at the Piggly Wiggly about 12 times a day starting at Thanksgiving and going all the way through Christmas Day. It was only an agreement not to play the song right before or right after any songs that mentioned the Christ-child that avoided a repeat of the baptists getting a bug up their butt.
Janice’s fourth husband, Doyle Lipscomb, was the one that bought her the Escalade. He walked into The Elbow Room while she was singing her version of Whiskey Business and was captivated almost immediately. Janice found herself being love-bombed like a teenage girl. He was several years older, had kids that were already grown, and had spent enough time outside Texas on business that he’d developed an accent that Janice found intoxicating. He neglected to tell her it was the result of a root canal gone bad rather than extensive travel. Before either one of them knew what had really hit them, they were checking into the Austin Motel, Doyle’s manhood replicating the neon sign out front.
Six weeks later the couple was getting married at The Knot, a wedding venue halfway between DeLeon and Fort Stockton. To say Doyle’s children were surprised would be an understatement. Their mother had only been departed a short period of time and they didn’t feel their father had really even had a chance to grieve yet. When Doyle introduced Janice to his oldest son he remarked, “This woman has a throat of velvet!”
His son, being one that held his tongue about as well as he held his liquor, noted “I’ll bet she can sing, too.”
Doyle’s two daughters, normally known for their discretion, couldn’t help but chuckle at their older brother. They noted that Janice wasn’t too much older than they were, although her age was never completely pinned down. The middle daughter noted, “With all the Botox she’s had, she gives a whole new meaning to the term, poker face’.” Let’s just say that first Christmas was awkward.
As with her other marriages, things started off all happy as a hog in a wallow. Janice told friends when they’d get together at the club for lunch, “If I felt any better, I’d drop my harp plumb through the cloud.” And, to be fair, that was probably the case. A new volunteer corking the onion always spiced up what had become boring with her previous partners. And then, there was the Escalade of course.
One morning when they were back at the Austin Motel rekindling some of those early passions, Doyle woke up to Janice standing over him on the bed completely naked, doing her version of Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing. What followed was an experience that, if it wasn’t so raw in nature and involved so many things that were no doubt unbiblical, Doyle would have called the episode a religious experience. At the conclusion of the coupling the two of them laid in bed sipping screwdrivers with long straws directly from the motel ice bucket. Janice had brought the ingredients and whipped up a bucketful in the bathroom as Doyle attempted to regain his composure and catch his breath.
At some point, he muttered the words, “How can I show my gratitude?” That’s what he was attempting to say, anyway. His tongue was thick and swollen, making the words slurred. That’s what Janice thought she heard though, and they were at the Cadillac dealership down the street as soon as Doyle was able to stand upright and his breathing returned to normal.
Kent Borden, the salesman who was in the showroom when they walked in, had been selling Cadillacs long enough that he was able to sum up the scene almost the minute the couple walked through the door. Wealthy older gentleman. New younger trophy wife. The husband wanting to show gratitude. The new wife had earned it. Based on how Doyle was dressed and the size of Janice’s enhanced bosom, Borden ran a mental credit check and determined the White Diamond Tricoat Cadillac Escalade ESV Premium AWD would be right up their proverbial alley.
A sunroof, power-retractable running boards, a power-operated liftgate, 22″ wheels, heated and ventilated power front seats, heated second-row bucket seats, three-zone automatic climate control, and second- and third-row entertainment screens rounded out an options list that was longer than the list of men who had been familiar with Janice’s talents. Cashmere nuance leather with Cocoa accents could have been a metaphor for any number of things that had taken place in the motel room, but also described the cabin of the Cadillac.
Other appointments included second and third-row entertainment screens as well as a rearview camera, a 10-speaker Bose surround-sound system, power-adjustable pedals, three-zone automatic climate control, and an 8″ infotainment touchscreen with navigation. In other words the Cadillac had every single option Cadillac could throw on it as it rolled down the line. As Borden gave them the tour of the cabin, he was particularly dramatic when he gripped the steering wheel, looking Doyle dead in the eye, and talked about how it was ‘heated wood’. He glanced at Janice as he said the words ‘leather trimmed’.
It was more a performance than a sale.
Doyle was writing a check for $80,225 plus Texas state sales tax before Variable Valve Timing was even mentioned. The only thing that made Borden even the least bit uncomfortable was when Janice winked at him as he was entering the information in the system for the sales contract to be printed out. The woman’s courage and audacity was equaled only by her enhanced bosom.
The couple exited the dealership to have dinner and a few drinks while the Escalade was taken back to the Make Ready Department and prepared for them to pick up later that evening. Borden and a couple buddies from the dealership watched them walk down the street till they turned the corner and disappeared. Well, not ‘them’, actually. Just ‘her’.
“I wish I had that swing in my backyard,” one of them said to Borden.
Borden nodded, captivated but wary. He wasn’t sure exactly what to make of his newest customer. “She definitely is a looker. But she dances to a different beat,” he said.
2 responses to “A DIFFERENT BEAT, Chapter 2”
I had to smile at this one. Friends of mine who ran an auto dealership in Eastern Kentucky had a son who did pretty well for himself playing the bars in Key West. He cut a couple of CDs that had luke-warm sales until he finally gave it up for the real-job-and-family gig; but he was best known for “Getting Lucky In Kentucky”. His mom was proud of his music career and, for a while, used the song to replace the ‘elevator music’ on the dealership’s phone system… Needless to say, it got quite a few comments from the customers!
Is this the same Janice Amos who also sang “He Was Out Getting Hammered While I Was At Home Getting Nailed?”