I've met Dusty and Billy out in the streets of Houston. They used to come into live music club I use to own and run, Dusty more than Billy. Frank, the drummer, is a family man and a golf nut. He basically just golfs, spends time with his kids, and tours when he has to.

This is a true story, 'cept for the parts that I made up. :-) Names changed, except for the famous folk.

Billy, who plays lead guitar and sings most of the songs, is a recovering-from-everything-bad-for-you kinda guy, mostly because a girl named D., whose dad I used to work for, broke his heart.

I met him, (Mr D.) a wealthy automobile dealer, at a Rotary banquet in 1979 when I was selected Marine Recruit of the Year. (I think I was the only Marine in town the day of the ceremony and won by default)

He offered me a job when I got back off active duty, which I took. Diane worked for SugarDaddy BigBucks, too, as the receptionist at one of his dealerships.

D. was a looker, a stone-cold solid ShowPony. Billy, who went to high school with the guy that taught me CPM (pre - DOS operating system) and how to bartend, fell in love with her, but she was bad news, a porcupine girl. [1] She was basically a Club Kid, liked nose candy, and ran remudas of Daddy-bought Mustangs right into bodyshops and wrecking yards like you and I eat tater chips.

I used to go to a club here in town, The Roxie, that was popular at the time, and would see her walking around in a transparent plastic dress with, for the first few hours anyway, her bra and panties beneath it. I even danced with her a few times, but she never recognized me as that mechanic she saw every day at the dealership, primarily because I don't think she was in shape to remember anything at all. :-)

Well, as the story goes, she drove Billy to drink and drugs. Do you know their song "Under Pressure?"

Sample lyrics, as memory serves, "She likes cocaine, and partyin' with Great Danes... She might get out her nightstick, and hurt me real, real bad, she's on the rough side..."

Well, he wrote that song about her. He wanted her all for himself, but she wasn't having any of it.

OK, here, finally, is the funny part. How do I know this? One of the investors in my first club was an attorney. About the time we're inkin' the deal on the place, his wife comes back into town from a two-month stay in one of those megabucks rehab places in the Rockies, due to a predeliction for drinking 'til there weren't no more.

Billy is in her therapy circle, encounter group, or whatever they call it, so she hears about all this. They become friends of a sort, and she got him and Dusty to come out to the club for the Grand Opening, and Dusty, at least, liked the band, and became a semi-regular customer.

Finally, just last year, Cookoff Girl calls me up needing a hand. There's this rich lady that pays her every year to decorate her Xmas tree, and well. But this year she needs some wreaths hung on second story windows, which requires a moncho ladder. Will I help her? She doesn't like ladders, it seems.

Being the former Boy Scout that I am, I agree, with the explicit stipulation she buy me a case of cheap beer, and the implicit assumption there's going to be a bit of nookie involved, too.

There usually is with Cookoff Girl. :-)

Okay, so while we're there setting up, Ms. Rich Lady comes out, and being the charming lad I am, I Make Nice. I notice that she's got a brand new Caddy with a familiar dealer emblem sitting in the driveway.

I ask her how she likes it. Just fine, she allows. Do they treat you well? Yes, why do you ask? Well, I used to work there, just checkin' up on my ol' buds, makin' sure they're still doin' it right.

She starts laughing, and then explains that she gets treated Purty Good there, 'cause she used to be married to the man that owned the place, and now her son runs it. Well, how is Mr. BigBucks? He died of lung cancer last year, though he had never smoked. Died in six weeks from the day he was diagnosed.

Oh, I'm sorry, he was a nice man, got me my first job outta the Corps there. How's D. these days? Not very good, I'm afraid. About six or seven years ago, she put herself in a wheelchair in her last car wreck.

Houston is a city of about four million people. What are the odds?

Footnote:

[1] If she had as many sticking out of her as she had sticking into her, she'd look like a porcupine. :-) Back