right. The radio reporters interviewed other hillbilly singers, and though their names meant nothing to me, there was something genuine about their heartbreak. We heard too from sobbing people in the streets of a dozen southern cities. By late afternoon, at least two women were claiming to be the true wives of Hank Williams and were described as shocked and in tears. I felt as if I’d arrived in a country where the king had just died and I didn’t even know his name.
At one point, an announcer said that a grand farewell to Hank Williams was being planned at the Municipal Auditorium in Montgomery, and Harrelson shouted: “Ah’m goin !” He slammed the desk with the flat of his hand. “Ah don’t care whether Ah got duty or not —Ah’m goin!”
And the details began to come in, too. A cop named Jamey was on the radio, explaining that he found Mister Hank Williams dead in the back of a Cadillac in Glen Burdette’s 24 Hour Pure Oil Service Station on Main Street in Oak Hill. That was in West Virginia, at five-thirty in the morning. There were two men with Mister Williams, the cop said. One of them was the driver of the Cadillac, the other a friend. They were taking him to Canton, Ohio, where he was supposed to sing in a concert that night. The weather was so bad they couldn’t risk a plane. “That’s it!” Harrelson shouted. “ They killed him! The driver and that so-called friend. They killed him cause he was too damned good to live !” The cause of death, a coroner said, was probably heart failure. “But we’ll have to wait for an autopsy.” Harrelson didn’t have to wait: “They gave him some kinda shot, you wait an see. They killed him.” Hank Williams was twenty-nine. Only twelve years older than me. “Shit,” Harrelson said. “Shit.”
As the music played, Harrelson moved around in a distracted way, singing along with Hank Williams in a low, tuneless voice. She warned me once, She warned me twice. But I don’t take no one’s advice … Becket knew the words too, but only his lips moved, and he kept working, hurrying from desk to counter to storeroom, sometimes enlisting my help. He didn’t try to explain the spreading sorrow. That was another thing I learned: I wasn’t one of them, maybe never could be one of them, because the things that were deep in me didn’t exist for them, and the things that were deep in the southerners didn’t mean anything to me. I could be quiet, that was all. I could respect them. But I couldn’t trulyfeel what they felt. I was an outsider here, as they would be in the gardens of Brooklyn.
The customers were all talking about Hank Williams too. Musta been the whiskey , they’d say. A shake of the head: All them women . Then a glance out at the airfield and heads cocked as they heard the lonesome voice from the radio. The honky-tonks got ole Hank at last .
Then I heard a Hank Williams song I actually knew. I tried so hard, my dear, to show / That you’re my every dream … The tempo was different, the accents broader. But I knew that one. You’re afraid each thing I do / Is just some evil scheme . Backed by strings, sounding like South Brooklyn, Tony Bennett sang it all through the fall of ’51, his voice aching the way my heart did then, as I tried to convince a girl named Maureen I loved her. A mem’ry from your lonesome past / Keeps us so far apart … Until I met her in the back room of the Caton Inn on a Saturday night, held her close, whispered the usual lies into her hair. On a night of bitter wind. Why can’t I free your doubtful mind? / And melt your cold, cold heart?
That was when the death of Hank Williams finally touched me too. Hearing “Cold, Cold Heart.” After that, I listened more closely, imagining that the whole South must be full of men who remembered women they held in their arms, while Hank Williams sang from the jukebox or the radio. The man’s voice was so goddamned lonesome and hurt that I felt sure nothing could have
At one point, an announcer said that a grand farewell to Hank Williams was being planned at the Municipal Auditorium in Montgomery, and Harrelson shouted: “Ah’m goin !” He slammed the desk with the flat of his hand. “Ah don’t care whether Ah got duty or not —Ah’m goin!”
And the details began to come in, too. A cop named Jamey was on the radio, explaining that he found Mister Hank Williams dead in the back of a Cadillac in Glen Burdette’s 24 Hour Pure Oil Service Station on Main Street in Oak Hill. That was in West Virginia, at five-thirty in the morning. There were two men with Mister Williams, the cop said. One of them was the driver of the Cadillac, the other a friend. They were taking him to Canton, Ohio, where he was supposed to sing in a concert that night. The weather was so bad they couldn’t risk a plane. “That’s it!” Harrelson shouted. “ They killed him! The driver and that so-called friend. They killed him cause he was too damned good to live !” The cause of death, a coroner said, was probably heart failure. “But we’ll have to wait for an autopsy.” Harrelson didn’t have to wait: “They gave him some kinda shot, you wait an see. They killed him.” Hank Williams was twenty-nine. Only twelve years older than me. “Shit,” Harrelson said. “Shit.”
As the music played, Harrelson moved around in a distracted way, singing along with Hank Williams in a low, tuneless voice. She warned me once, She warned me twice. But I don’t take no one’s advice … Becket knew the words too, but only his lips moved, and he kept working, hurrying from desk to counter to storeroom, sometimes enlisting my help. He didn’t try to explain the spreading sorrow. That was another thing I learned: I wasn’t one of them, maybe never could be one of them, because the things that were deep in me didn’t exist for them, and the things that were deep in the southerners didn’t mean anything to me. I could be quiet, that was all. I could respect them. But I couldn’t trulyfeel what they felt. I was an outsider here, as they would be in the gardens of Brooklyn.
The customers were all talking about Hank Williams too. Musta been the whiskey , they’d say. A shake of the head: All them women . Then a glance out at the airfield and heads cocked as they heard the lonesome voice from the radio. The honky-tonks got ole Hank at last .
Then I heard a Hank Williams song I actually knew. I tried so hard, my dear, to show / That you’re my every dream … The tempo was different, the accents broader. But I knew that one. You’re afraid each thing I do / Is just some evil scheme . Backed by strings, sounding like South Brooklyn, Tony Bennett sang it all through the fall of ’51, his voice aching the way my heart did then, as I tried to convince a girl named Maureen I loved her. A mem’ry from your lonesome past / Keeps us so far apart … Until I met her in the back room of the Caton Inn on a Saturday night, held her close, whispered the usual lies into her hair. On a night of bitter wind. Why can’t I free your doubtful mind? / And melt your cold, cold heart?
That was when the death of Hank Williams finally touched me too. Hearing “Cold, Cold Heart.” After that, I listened more closely, imagining that the whole South must be full of men who remembered women they held in their arms, while Hank Williams sang from the jukebox or the radio. The man’s voice was so goddamned lonesome and hurt that I felt sure nothing could have
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