Make More Pie

Share this post

Open Sky

nancyrommelmann.substack.com

Open Sky

Target practice, chickenshit bingo, beignets

Nancy Rommelmann
Jun 2, 2021
10
2
Share
Share this post

Open Sky

nancyrommelmann.substack.com

Not quite 6am, in Stephen Elliott’s dining room in New Orleans, listening to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Robert Ford, by Nic Cave and Warren Ellis. I may have mentioned this before, but this was the soundtrack I listened to in my car nearly the entire time I investigated and wrote (the early draft) of my book The the Bridge. The plaintiveness matched for me exactly - forgive the metaphor but this is what it felt like - to be swimming through dark water, trying to understand why a mother would throw her two young children from a bridge. The music, though, is all open sky.

I have seen a lot of open sky, driving New York to Knoxville to Nashville to Tulsa to Austin, where I spent four days; where I learned gun etiquette from Karl Rehn and shot a pistol at a target (246 out of 250, hello), and where the locals were bold in telling my husband Din and me just what they were doing.

“This is the propaganda tour,” said Anna Z., who took us to taco trucks and swimming pools and peacock parks and a honky tonk for chickenshit bingo and where we danced to “I’m an Okie from Muskogee” and felt exactly perfect.

Twitter avatar for @NancyRomm
Nancy Rommelmann @NancyRomm
Never coming home
Image
9:47 PM ∙ May 30, 2021
101Likes3Retweets

In Austin we also met Dave Burge, who for a long time I have been sure is the funniest/smartest guy on Twitter, and then, within two minutes of meeting him, was hooked on his kindness and the talk-talk, and who, when I asked what the guy in the sparkle-shirt was wearing on his feet, ballet slippers or maybe some custom shoes, said, “Nancy, they’re socks.”

Twitter avatar for @NancyRomm
Nancy Rommelmann @NancyRomm
Tryouts for new Tony Orlando and Dawn going well
Image
5:00 AM ∙ May 29, 2021

I could have stayed in Austin a long time but instead drove away. Everyone close to me is on the road, traveling thousands of miles, shooting digital images at one another, texting poems in the middle of the night, poems you read with one eyeball open in a bed you’ve never slept in, and even if you did not know who sent it, you’d know, by the allusion to the curve of her neck as she bent her head back for a kiss.

Off to St. Petersburg now, 679 miles. Until soon, big love and the beignet I am about to eat at Cafe du Monde xx

10
2
Share
Share this post

Open Sky

nancyrommelmann.substack.com
Previous
Next
2 Comments
Claude
Jun 2, 2021

the real question is-where the hell did you find ammo?

Expand full comment
Reply
Joe Hefferon
Writes Joe’s Newsletter
Jun 4, 2021

"...and felt exactly perfect." I felt it when I read it.

Expand full comment
Reply
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Nancy Rommelmann
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing