I had just logged onto AOL this morning to check my email when I saw it! There, in the headlines of their eye-catching, rotating parade of news bits: “Willie Nelson Cut His Hair.” A bob cut, no less. To make matters worse, the bob is red. Oh, say it ain’t so, Willie!
I met Willie nineteen years ago when my good friend, Carolyn, and I set up a stake-out at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California. Carolyn was a songwriter and had made a tape of some of her best songs which she wanted to give him, you know, in case he was in need of a new hit and wanted to make Carolyn rich beyond her wildest dreams.
We set out from Berkeley in my little red Sentra, the evening balmy and promising. We arrived two hours before the concert and using our crack detective skills figured our best bet was to park near the rear entrance. Willie was sure to come rolling up in his touring bus to enter the theater from there.
Our instincts were confirmed when we saw several big men guarding the door. Gargantuan hulks in red silk satin jackets. I’d read somewhere that when in town, Willie always used the local Hells Angels’ security team.
“Oh, my God,” Carolyn said. “How are we going to do this?”
“Well,” I said. “I think we should…”
I had no idea. It wasn’t as if we could just trot up to Mr. Hell’s Angel and say, “We’re here to meet Willie. And, oh, by the way, Carolyn packed some chocolate-chip cookies in this bag here, along with a tape of some fabulous songs she wrote, so would you mind awfully if we had a minute with Willie?”
“I have no idea.”
“I have an idea,” Carolyn said.
“I’ll bet you do,” I said. Carolyn was by far the more adventurous one. At 4’11” and blonde, she could get by with most anything. I, on the other hand, at 5’9” in my stocking feet, was more likely to get nailed.
“Why don’t you take one of these bags,” she continued with excitement, “and I’ll take the other one. You go through the back door and wait for him backstage. I’ll go up to his bus when it comes.”
“Uh, Carolyn,” I said. “Is there something about those giants lurking by the door that you don’t understand?”
“You can do it!” she said and pointed. “Look, those people over there just walked in past the guard…piece of cake!”
“All right,” I said, thinking back to the Tony Robbins workshop I’d just taken. I pumped myself up. I am Tony, hear me roar! “Give me the damn cookies!”
She watched me stride across the parking lot, all 6 feet of me in heels. What’s a few Hells Angels more or less to a tall, confident woman? I got within twenty feet of the back door, hands sweaty, heart pounding, and fell in line with three other people walking in the same direction. I strode behind them up the cement stairs (no eye contact, whatever you do, no eye contact) right under the massive armpit of the Angel From Hell holding open the door!
I was beginning to hyperventilate, waiting for the Goliath to reach out with a steroidal hand, and growl, “Wait a minute, sister, you don’t belong here!” I pictured myself in handcuffs, hanging in some dungeon as he prepared to beat me. “It was her fault, Carolyn’s fault, she made me do it!”
I’m inside! Now, what? I clutched my purse and the bag of cookies with the cassette tape inside, and glanced around. Ten minutes ‘til show time. I nodded and smiled to the others who were waiting. Oh, Willie and I go way back, I imagined myself saying and winking, if asked. You know… They would not press for details.
Eight o’clock—show time! No Willie! Eight-o-five. Eight-ten. Eight-fifteen. The men with the walkie-talkies were getting nervous; we could hear the audience above us begin to clap and stomp their feet.
Finally, two bodyguards pushed through the door, and strolling right behind them a smiling Willie, blissed-out and glassy-eyed, guitar slung over his small frame.
NOW! I lunged forward, breathed deeply, and smiled.
“Hi, Mr. Nelson! I’m a big fan and I have a present for you.”
“Why, thank you,” he said, accepting the bag and moving quickly toward the stage door.
I scurried outside. On our dash to the front entrance, Carolyn said she’d staked out the bus, and tried to sweet-talk a guard into letting her on. Turns out that Willie was already “entertaining” someone. We found our seats just in time to see Willie the Great slide onto the stage, and break into “Whiskey River.”
Now, in honor of Willie’s sweet response to a tall girl handing him some cookies, I must find a way to forgive the red bob. It’s only fair.
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Rosie Sorenson is an award-wining writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and other publications. Her new photo essay book, They Had Me at Meow: Tails of Love from the Homeless Cats of Buster Hollow, is about her thirteen years of loving and being loved by a colony of smart, funny feral cats. To learn more and to purchase the book, please visit her website: www.theyhadmeatmeow.com. Also check out her “store” at www.zazzle.com/theyhadmeatmeow, where you can purchase Buster Hollow Gang greeting cards, tee-shirts, mugs, and more.
