Tuesdays felt like Mondays to us. Unlike the average worker, we were usually off on Mondays and started our work week on Tuesdays. Mondays seemed to only last about 4 hours long. That was my own fault for allowing myself to sleep the better part of the day away. June 14, 1983 happened to fall on a Tuesday. I woke up at about 11:30 am, and was still laying in bed trying to conjure up a reason to physically get up when Ricky stepped half-way into the room. My eyes were adjusted to the dark much better than his, and I could see him straining to determine if I was asleep or awake. 

"Hey..." I mumbled during a yawn. 

Ricky was nervous about something. I knew his animated clenched-teeth look. It reminded me of the cartoon character Pepe LePew, when he was doing an aside to the audience before moving in on the beautiful female skunk. We hadn't said an awful lot to each other lately so it was a bit odd for him to be standing there like that. When my instincts kicked in, it felt like a tidal wave of liquid electricity flooding every inch of my soul. Somehow I knew that day was going to be the official beginning of the end for Savvy. He half asked - half ordered me to get up and get dressed so we could go "get some lunch." 

I half asked - half ordered him to give me a few minutes, and he stepped back out of the room and closed the door. A wrinkled pair of jeans from the previous day and a Savvy T shirt would have to do. After brushing my teeth, I slipped into my sandals, grabbed a hair tie, baseball cap, and my sunglasses -- and  I was ready to roll. Ricky was trying to play it cool, but he had "bad news" written all over his face. We took his Cutlass to the Main Street Cafe in Arlington. It was about a 10 minute drive, with not much said along the way other than small talk. 

The Main Street Cafe reminded me of the great old greasy burger diners of my childhood. The booths were overstuffed and covered with red vinyl, and there were punch button jukebox controls at each table. We slid into a corner booth and I immediately pretended to be engrossed in the giant menu, but our perky, skitzy waitress was on the ball for once. Before we knew it our orders were taken and the chicken fried steaks were being cooked up. The waitress took the menus and I was left with nowhere to hide.

There was no more running, hiding, or dreading it. The clouds had gathered and lightning was about to strike. I decided to make sure it struck hard and swift. I was resolved to take it like a man. "So, what's up?" I asked. Ricky slumped down in his seat and leaned over the table, his hands clutching each other as if he were about to say a prayer - much like a conniving Tel-Evangelist on a late night TV program.  A deadly serious look came over his face as he looked me in the eyes and spoke.

"Stev-O, I wanted you to be the first to know that my last day with Savvy will probably be sometime around September 4th." He waited for my response. I was waiting too. I was stunned, not by his statement, but by one particular word he'd used; the word "probably." This was a life-defining moment for me and I'd braced myself for a lightning bolt strike smack between the eyes. Instead, I got "probably." That wasn't good enough. In fact, I surprised myself by actually getting angry, which I'm sure he hadn't expected either. All throughout this ordeal, I'd kept his secret and had been a good sport about it. He knew that I'd accepted the gravity of the situation, and had come to terms with it a long time ago. But suddenly it was as if someone was thinking for me, or I was being operated by remote control. I didn't even have time to process his words before I was already angry and speaking up. Even I was anxious to hear what was going to come out of my mouth!

There was nobody thinking for me. There was no puppet master pulling my strings. I was acting on raw emotion. "Probably?"  (THIS was the big climax? The newsflash?)  "You mean you brought me here to tell me you aren't even SURE when your last day is going to be? That's just not good enough. I can't keep living like this, waiting for you to decide what YOU'RE going to do, before I can figure out what I need to do!" I doubt I'd ever been that assertive before in my life. The words continued to surprise me as they echoed in my mind. 

Ricky looked stunned. If he'd thought this through, he hadn't done a very good job of it. I'd become a loose cannon all of a sudden and he was going to have to shift gears to get things back under control. I'm not sure if I would call his next move a stroke of genius, or a really dirty, lowdown, cheap shot. Either way, it was basically damage control, and it worked. His posture changed and he became soft and caring. A warmth burned behind his eyes, giving the illusion of sincerity as he set the hook. "You know, I didn't want to get your hopes up, but I might be needing you as my 4th member in my new band. How would that sound?"

That was all I needed to hear - what I'd been longing to hear since all the crap had begun. In fact, I felt I'd earned it by guarding his secret for so long, and having his indecision about his career ruin my vacations, and life in general.  Those words had put me in the palm of his hand until he was ready to dispose of me once and for all. In the excitement of the moment, I failed to take into consideration all the lessons I'd learned from the Texas Jam scams and other empty promises that the music business had thrown our way. I didn't think it through. I wasn't suspect of possible foul play. In my own naiveté, I wouldn't know it for a while, but I'd dropped the ball on my own foot.

He told me some of the details of the new group that he'd been putting together. So far it consisted of Tolbert Pittman on bass, and Joel "Wingnut" Parks on drums. All the angst and anxiety melted away like magic.  The muscles in my body, which I hadn't realized had been so tensed up, completely relaxed. I didn't want to hex the possibilities so I didn't press the subject. I simply nodded, as if to say without words that I could live with that. Then we dove into the platters of greasy breaded steak, smothered in greasy thick gravy. Suddenly, I had an appetite again. 

Ricky's new drummer, Joel "Wingnut" Parks.

Ricky's new bass player, Tolbert Pitman (on rt) with 
Billy Jack Marney at Savvy's.

I felt like a brand new man for the next few days. A huge weight had been lifted and my prayers, said night after night in agony, seemed to finally have been heard. I could relax and concentrate on the everyday things I'd lost interest in while being so depressed for so long. I bought a couple of cook books and started making exotic meals. I was also spending a lot of time working on learning Spanish. Chris loaned me his video camera and I started recording a few magic routines I'd been working on as a hobby. Chris told me that his new radio controlled plane was a good flyer. RJ had his 31st birthday.

With one journal already full and a second one filling up fast, it occurred to me that there might one day be a book in all of these notes, anecdotes, and stories. Soon, my newfound good spirits were shattered with the news that Uncle Okie was in a Tennessee hospital undergoing surgery for Kidney Cancer. I spent a lot of time that week with my parents waiting to hear news about Okie's condition, and assembling the weight set I'd bought for Chris the previous Christmas. It was one of those primitive wall mounted units, but the house wasn't really built for all that weight, so I had to reinforce the floor under the device. I tried to explain the theory of Transactional Analysis to mom, with little success. Anything to pass the time.

The owners of Savvy's Nightclub had a grand surprise for everyone. They'd bought the Inner Visions Club in Waco, and had been hard at work behind the scenes turning it into Savvy's II. That gave us a whole new motivation for playing there. We were all very excited and couldn't wait to see the remodeled club. I couldn't help wondering if they'd have invested in the second club if they'd known Ricky was leaving so soon. The weight of that alone caused me to start thinking about the whole mess again. Ricky hadn't said another word about including me, and I certainly hadn't been invited to any rehearsals. Yep. It was pretty clear that I'd been "played." Once it started sinking in that I'd been duped, I tried to take it in stride. I'd been centering my life around Ricky for too long. I really couldn't imagine Savvy continuing on without him after all we'd been through, and any hopes I'd had about possibly being asked to join Ricky's band had long since melted completely away. Whatever was going to happen would happen. My new philosophy was to simply let the cards fall where they may. 

Another tree fell on Lincoln Avenue, at the old home place. This one was out in the front yard, along the street. I could picture how the street had looked back when I was a kid; four pecan trees, evenly spaced. One by one they would die off like family elders. [Even long after my parents would move away from there, I would still drive by from time to time to check out the landscape, and count the remaining trees. I knew them by heart, and eventually - out of the 16 trees on the property I'd grown up with, none remained.] 

Savvy's II in Waco opened on June 24th. I borrowed Chris' video camera again and took a lot of footage of the final day of preparation of the club. We played at the grand opening that night to a packed house. It looked like we were mostly going to be splitting our time between the two Savvy's clubs for a while. On July 3rd we did a last minute show opening for Donnie Iris at the Dallas Agora. I envied Rick Miller, RJ Jones, Rich Mauch, and Dan Kostura that night. They were just having fun playing the gig -- while I was savoring every moment, knowing it could be our last time on the mammoth Agora stage. Jeff and Rick brought a limo up from Waco and shuttled Ricky and me to the Agora, and then back home, in style. When the opening set for Donnie Iris ended, our two week vacation began... 

That night, we ended up with a big group of people at our house on Lester. Rick and Jeff from Waco were real party animals, right out of a Baylor frat house. But it was during that after-gig party that it dawned on me that my band mates would have a luxury I would not.  They would get to actually enjoy their two weeks off, blissfully ignorant of what they would encounter upon their return. I, on the other hand, would be fighting a constant battle to try to keep from thinking about it. 

CHAPTER 46:  AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

SAVVY STORY INDEX

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