LOOK AT LIFE / COCO HAMES

Get Rhythm... and Get the Fuck Out: A long black night of the soul.

By COCO HAMES

I got a scholarship to the University of Florida, a big state university where I felt like a total freak and was so overwhelmed I'd get panic attacks, so I took solace as resident sad sack country singer at a small dive bar near campus. There were never very many people in there, and if there were, they were just the kind of run-of-the-mill creeps you'd find at any north Floridian shithole.

One night, after my set, a guy came up to me and asked if he could buy me a drink. I was 18 and took every opportunity not to have to show my weak fake ID, so I accepted. The guy was small, tiny even, and was on crutches. He had a scraggly beard and a cowboy hat. I figured his age to be somewhere in the early 30s.

 
We sat down, got to drinking, and talked about country music. He said he had an amazing vinyl collection, stuff no one else had, and asked if I'd like to come over and listen to some records. After a few pitchers of beer, that sounded like a great idea. He said I could ride with him, but I'd brought my car and would need to move it anyway, so I said I'd follow behind him.

 
We drove for about 15 minutes, way past the interstate and into what we old Floridians call "a place where nothing good happens." It was beyond rural. I was evenly weirded out by now, just about to turn around and bail, when he signaled and turned into a patch of burnt land with a tiny trailer on it.

For some reason, I turned in behind him.

 
He got out of his rusty truck and assembled his crutches, then led the way into the trailer. I was nearly laughing by this point because I was thinking, this is such a very, very bad idea. But I was kind of stuck now.

To say that the place was a mess would be an idiotic understatement. Save for a sunken-in, cushionless couch, there was no furniture in the main room. The window was broken. There was no kitchen. The floor was littered with beer bottles and newspaper, and a shower curtain hung over a doorframe that evidently led to the bedroom. That just so happened to be where he-and by default, I-was headed.

Sleeveless LPs were strewn about the floor. He produced a small record player and set it among them. I didn't know what to do so I kind of perched on the broken sofa arm. That's when I noticed the hypodermic needles all over the floor and, propped against a rickety shelf opposite the door, a small black handgun.

Before I could react to these discoveries, Johnny Cash's baritone filled the room. I looked over at the guy. He was balancing on one crutch, pointing the other at the spinning, wobbling LP.

 
"Name it."

 
"What?"

 
"Name it-name this song."

 
"Uh... ‘Long Black Veil,' I said.

 
"RIGHT!"

He knocked the arm off the record and picked up another one, setting it on the player. Another Johnny Cash song swelled up, and I was asked to name it, too. This went on for a couple of songs, all Johnny Cash, all songs I knew. I started to notice, every time he'd ask me to name a song, he'd glance at the gun. If I guess wrong, I thought, is he gonna shoot me?

At some point, he ducked into the bedroom to look for more records. I got the fuck out of there.

*****

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes, whose latest album Look At Life Again Soon (Take Root) is still a hot item-but look out for a new EP, "Danager Is," and a Dan Auerbach-produced limited-edition single in March 2009. And catch ‘em at SXSW, too.

Incidentally, we had to ask Coco what the hell was up with the photo, above. She advised us that it's of her having just won "the coveted "best performance" award at the punk rock night at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis, one of our favorite sweat boxes!  So proud!" We're proud of ya too, Coco.