What If It Had Been Elvis Instead of Lefty?

My dad didn’t care who you were when you showed up at the farm. He treated everyone equal, and the more respect you showed, the more you received in return. Simple as that. Country rules. Just like we were taught in Sunday school, that Golden Rule of do unto others. You know, don’t be mean or it’ll come back and bite you in the ass. It worked well for the most part, but boy, did my dad goof up one night. Or maybe he didn’t. No matter, it made for a good story years later.

See, my dad’s brother Ivan was a country music star of moderate fame; he toured around as Dusty Wayne and the Rodeo Boys, which we all thought was a hilarious moniker given that he was the dandy of the family. Sharp-dressed guy, always a bolo tie and a white cowboy hat, so you knew he was a good ‘un. Anyway, Ivan—I mean, Dusty—drove or hitched from northern New York through to Toronto and parts north, and always stopped in to visit my dad whenever he was near the farm.

Late one night—I mean, really, middle-of-the-night-late—a behemoth black limo drove up the long laneway under a cloak of darkness. There were no streetlights in the country, of course, so if it hadn’t been for what happened next, they could have come and gone without our knowing.

One black-clad creature alighted from the car and stumbled up to the front door of our house. Another climbed from the back seat to shake his legs and relieve himself, leaving a puddle that reflected the waning moon. Inside the car, bottles clanked against one another, and a woman giggled.

“Jack…Jaa-a-a-a-ck!” the man at the front door yelled. “…’s Ivan, yer brother, git out here!”

Silence.

“Ja-a-a-a-ck! Fer Chrissakes, I got someone fer you t’ meet!”

From inside the house, a rustling and some whispers. Thumping footsteps. A beside lamp clicked on. My dad poked his head out the bedroom window. “Ivan, goddamn it, do you know what time it is?”

“Jack, Jack, how the hell are ya…I brung someone special t’ meet my favorite brother!” Ivan exclaimed.

Unimpressed, my dad, replied, “Ivan, be quiet, you’ll wake the baby! And I gotta be up for work in the morning! It’s 2:30! Go home. Sober up,” he added.

“But Jackie, I brung Lefty Frizzell! You know Lefty Frizzell!”

Of course, everyone knew Orville ‘Lefty’ Frizzell. He was almost as famous as Elvis, that is, before Elvis met Colonel Parker, and those in the know said he was the most influential country singer-songwriter of the day. Look him up, you’ll see what I mean. You probably know the song, “If You Got the Money, I Got the Time”, right?

“I don’t care if you brought God himself with you, I have to get up for work in a few hours,” Dad explained once more, by now rather exasperated. My dad was almost 10 years younger than Ivan, but as the middle brother in the family he was the most responsible, with a regular job and wife and baby. He was the one brother who settled down.

“Ja-a-a-a-ck, c’mon now,” Ivan cried. “Let us in ‘n’ have a drink with us.”

From the back of the house, my baby brother started wailing. My mom started screaming at my dad, and my dad in turn screamed into the dark at his brother Ivan. Everybody was screaming.

“Go home, Ivan,” he yelled over the baby’s crying. “Now look what you’ve done.”

“Sorry, there, little Johnnie baby,” Ivan’s tone softened. “Can I see him?”

“You certainly cannot!”

“You don’ want t’ meet Lefty then?”

“No, Ivan, I don’t. But say hello to him for me, give him my regards. And no, you can’t come in, I’m sorry.”

Ivan paused for a moment then began walking back to the limo carrying Lefty Frizzell and his entourage.

Halfway to the car, he turned around. My dad was still at the open window, the baby was still crying, and sleep was unlikely to resume anytime soon.

“Well, if we can’t come in,” Ivan proposed, “do you have any whiskey or beer we can have?”