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you’re in,
    performing for the crowd,
    warming up the audience for the
    Hazel Hurd Players.
    I figure if I practice enough
    I won’t shame myself.
    And we sure could use the extra cash
    if I won.
    Three-dollar first prize,
    two-dollar second,
    one-dollar third.
    But I don’t know if I could win anything,
    not anymore.
    It’s the playing I want most,
    the proving I can still do it.
    without Arley making excuses.
    I have a hunger,
    for more than food.
    I have a hunger
    bigger than Joyce City.
    I want tongues to tie, and
    eyes to shine at me
    like they do at Mad Dog Craddock.
    Course they never will,
    not with my hands all scarred up,
    looking like the earth itself,
    all parched and rough and cracking,
    but if I played right enough,
    maybe they would see past my hands.
    Maybe they could feel at ease with me again,
    and maybe then,
I could feel at ease with myself.
    February 1935

The Competition
    I suppose everyone in Joyce City and beyond,
    all the way to Felt
    and Keyes
    and even Guymon,
    came to watch the talent show at the Palace,
    Thursday night.
    Backstage,
    we were seventeen amateur acts,
    our wild hearts pounding,
    our lips sticking to our teeth,
    our urge to empty ourselves
    top and bottom,
    made a sorry sight
    in front of the
    famous Hazel Hurd Players.
    But they were kind to us,
    helped us with our makeup and our hair,
    showed us where to stand,
    how to bow,
    and the quickest route to the
    toilet.
    The audience hummed on the other side of the
    closed curtain,
    Ivy Huxford
    kept peeking out and giving reports
    of who was there,
    and how she never saw so many seats
    filled in the Palace,
    and that she didn’t think they could
    squeeze a
    rattlesnake
    into the back
    even if he paid full price,
    the place was so packed.
    My father told me he’d come
    once chores were done.
    I guess he did.
    The Grover boys led us off.
    They worked a charm,
    Baby on the sax,
    Jake on the banjo,
    and Ben on the clarinet.
    The Baker family followed, playing
    just like they do at home
    every night after dinner.
    They didn’t look nervous at all.
    The tap dancers,
    they rattled the teeth in their jaws
    and the eyballs in their skulls,
    their feet flying,
    their arms swinging,
    their mouths gapping.
    Then Sunny Lee Hallem
    tumbled and leaped onto the stage,
    the sweat flying off her,
    spotting the Palace floor.
    Marsh Worton struggled out,
    his accordion leading the way.
    George and Agnes Harkins ran their fingers over the
    strings of their harps,
    made you want to look up into the heavens for
    angels,
    but only scenery
    and lights
    and ropes and sandbags hung overhead,
    and then there was me on piano.
    I went on somewhere near the backside of middle,
    getting more and more jittery with each act,
    till my time came.
    I played “Bye, Bye, Blackbird”
    my own way,
    messing with the tempo,
    and the first part sounded like
    I used just my elbows,
    but the middle sounded good
    and the end,
    I forgot I was even playing
    in front of the packed Palace Theatre.
    I dropped right inside the music and
    didn’t feel anything
    till after
    when the clapping started
    and that’s when I noticed my hands hurting
    straight up to my shoulders.
    But the applause
    made me forget the pain,
    the audience roared when I finished,
    they came to their feet,
    and I got third prize,
    one dollar,
    while Mad Dog Craddock, singing,
    won second,
    and Ben Grover
    and his crazy clarinet
    took first.
    The tap dancers pouted into their mirrors,
    peeling off their makeup and their smiles.
    Birdie Jasper claimed
    it was all my fault she didn’t win,
    that the judges were just being nice to a cripple,
    but the harpin’ Harkins were kind
    and the Hazel Hurd Players
    wrapped their long arms around me
    and said I was swell
    and in the sweaty dim chaos backstage
    I ignored the pain running up and down my arms,
    I felt like I was part of something grand.
    But they had to give my ribbon and my dollar to my
    father,
    ’cause I couldn’t hold
anything in my hands.
    February