WHEN THINGS GO SOUTH

Chapter 7- Daddy Let Me Drive

I am only nineteen and a widow, with a little girl to be Mommy and Daddy to. My sweet little Jordy is too small and doesn't understand what is going on, but one day she will. My heart hurts for that girl.

The five-year-old Jordy that's Daddy isn't there to teach her to swing a bat or hold her hand on the first day of school, to embarrass her in her preteen years in front of her friends. The sixteen-year-old Jordy, whose Daddy isn't there to intimidate and size up the first boy that comes along. The girl who will need a daddy to check the oil in her car, show her how to change a tire, and teach her to drive.

I remember all the firsts my Daddy was there for. Daddy taught me to drive at eight years old. When Daddy was working on the pipeline, I would visit for the summer wherever he was. Eunice, Louisiana, would be where I got the most driving experience. We'd stay in his RV at Cajun Campground. Daddy would leave out early for work and leave me the keys to his brown Ford four-wheel-drive truck (a manual shift in the floor, mind you), a hundred-dollar bill on the kitchen bar, and tell me to go to the grocery while he was gone. I was just twelve years old, but Daddy had been teaching me to drive before I could even reach the pedals. I would pull out onto Highway 90 and head straight to the supermarket. I would always get double takes driving down the road, and from the cashiers at the store.

When Daddy would get home from work, we'd go a few miles down the road to some local bars where Daddy would meet up with the guys for a few beers.

Daddy's girlfriend at the time owned one of the bars we would frequent. Daddy never had any trouble with the ladies. He was a handsome man, a cross between Sam Elliot and Dennis Weaver.

Every time Daddy would order a beer, I'd order a coke. I would sit there for hours dropping peanuts in my coke, listening to men talk about what an asshole their supervisor was, how their ole ladies had kicked them out for staggering in, or how they'd lost their whole paycheck in a poker game.

Sometimes I got to join those poker games, and sometimes I would hide behind the bar when a fight would break out over someone thinking someone else cheated. But most of the night, I would just drop quarter after quarter in the jukebox. If there is one thing I got from my parents, it was good taste in music. Daddy would call me his little music connoisseur. Thanks to Daddy, I knew every Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson song ever written. Momma would introduce me to Bob Segar while dancing and cleaning the house on Saturday mornings.

I had sat on more barstools by the time I was thirteen than I would sit on the rest of my life. If Daddy had one too many, I would just drive us back to the campground.

My parents weren't conventional parents, they were far from The Cleaver's, but I knew they loved me and were always there if I needed them. I experienced some things I probably shouldn't have. Still, I got to experience lots of things I never would have, if bedtime was at eight, supper was at six, and if my homework had to be done at the kitchen table with Momma, instead of learning long division from the bartender down at Bobby Bailey's bar and lounge.

I wouldn't change a thing, but growing up, I wanted nothing but to change things, to have a normal home life like my friends. Momma would always say stuff like, If God had made us all the same, then what we would even be here for. And no family is normal like you think, Riley Blair; they all have their own crazy.

I was a Daddy's girl; anything I ever needed; he was there. Jordy will never have that.

Jordy won't even remember Nick, his laugh, how intelligent he was, how he always had a smile on his face, how he loved life and loved her. At least one thing I know for sure, I won't ever have to worry about Jordy having a stepmother. They were always a problem.

The stepdaddies we had were all good to Lyle and me, and I'm sure I learned something from each one. But of course, I did have my favorites, one being Daddy Number Six, he was like a big kid himself, which didn't work for Momma, but it did for Lyle and me. But, of course, being the big kid he was, he wasn't big on working and being a provider, which was Momma's main qualification for a husband.