Nashville

A Story by Gaz

A short story from a long road trip.

We had already passed St. Louis, been through Arkansas and Memphis by way of Atlanta. Places I had heard of in books, films and music but had never previously had cause to even investigate on a map. The days had been long on the road. Driving for hours on repetitive looking highways, punctuated only by repeating gas-stations and billboards. We broke the journey for fuel; gas for the car, junk food for us. The foot wells in Jeff’s Honda were becoming a sea of fast food wrappers, receipts and leaflets, the debris of a week on the road, the flotsam and jetsam of our trip. We stopped at the last gas station on the highway before entering Nashville. THE Nashville, the city made famous by a thousand songs and stories. The city of Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn and Willie Nelson. The Hollywood of Country Music.

As we meandered towards the high-rises, the sun began to set throwing pale, crimson, orange and pink light over the city, adding to the surreal quality of entering such a famous place for the first time. The windows on the buildings glistened in the waning sun, twinkling in time to our passing motion. It was a Sunday and as all good ‘bible-belt’ towns, Nashville was at rest. It took until the shadows were long and the dusk was a dim orange for us to find a hotel with vacancies. Jeff parked the car while the Beehive Hair wearing receptionist told me she loved my accent and took my credit card to secure our booking.

She was glamorous beyond her hotel’s corporate uniform and I felt like back in her younger days she must have been a singer or a starlet. I wondered what sort of life she had led, had she chased her dreams or had she settled. Was it circumstance, fate or luck that had delivered her to this hotel. What had she done before or had she done this always? I decided she was too glamorous, too full of life that this was her only existence and consigned myself to the thought that she once sang beautiful love ballads fronting a fine country band. Steel pedals, guitars and her sweet, sweet voice.

Maybe she lived the high life for a while, had a song or two on the radio or pressed in wax. Perhaps she was then cast aside by an uncaring industry, or perhaps she found it too shallow and left it all behind for the man she loved (the same man she sang about in those songs). Perhaps she then started a family and lived a more modest but happier life. Yes, I thought, she had led a happy life and now she was spending her near-retirement years greeting people from all over the world. Welcoming them to her town where she sang, loved and lived. And just maybe, in some bar on the edge of town, on special occasions, she still sang. She still sang just for the love of the song.