Hi Friends,
This week, I’ve returned to Nashville. I have only ever been there once before, and the last time I visited, I was a tourist. This time, I’m a guest, staying with my friends Didi and Major Jackson (they are both wonderful poets—check them out here and here) and I’ve also given a travel writing workshop at The Porch, which is a wonderful Nashville literary community. Whenever I’m asked for advice about travel writing, I say to try to go places as a guest, as you will have a more authentic experience of place.
The last time I was here in Nashville, my friend Wendy and I did the touristy things, including a stroll through the Honky-Tonk district, which turned into a dark and scary moment, which is not at all how I’m experiencing Nashville this time around—as a guest rather than a tourist, seeing the place from a local’s perspective and getting to know the community.
I wrote about that creepy experience in my memoir-in-essays Bad Tourist, and I thought you might be interested in the story, since some of the issues that surface in it are now more pressing than ever. Also, the University of Nebraska Press is offering ALL their books at 50% off for the holidays (which is even better than my author discount). The discount code is 6HLW23 and works for all their books, not just mine.
Here’s the story with the writing prompt that follows:
Honky-Tonk Woman
(from Bad Tourist)
A group of men followed us down Broadway, the bustling honky-tonk district in Nashville, Music City, USA. They shouted to us: “Ladies, ladies, laaadddiiiiees.”
Wendy and I stopped on the street corner and asked what they wanted. Neon signs flashed above: Broadway Brewhouse, Betty Boots, AJ’s Good Time Bar. On the street a drummer beat on a plastic bucket, hoping for tips. A sleeping man in army fatigues curled up next to a pit bull, who wore a little army hat of his own.
“Hey ladies, where’s the best music?”
“We aren’t locals,” Wendy said. “We are friends from college on a road trip together.”
“Like Thelma and Louise,” I said, “but we’re driving a rented Toyota Corolla and not a 1966 Thunderbird.”
The older man—the one who turned out to be the dad— laughed. The other men, who were really still boys, looked at me with blank faces, oblivious to the film reference. The dad asked, “Where are you ladies from?”
We told them California, and they told us they were from Georgia, these five young men and a dad, who had taken the group of friends to Nashville to celebrate his son’s twenty-first birthday. We thought this was sweet, so we forgave the way they had shouted at us. The dad was about our age, late forties, and looked like he could have stepped out of a Lands’ End catalog. The boys seemed the typical preppy university types.
Since I had been in Alabama all month at a writing residency, I had started asking locals what they thought about the recent abortion ban there. I asked the grocery store clerks, Lyft drivers, even people on the street, so I asked these men about Georgia’s abortion ban, also known by supporters as the “six-week heartbeat” law, even though a fetus doesn’t technically have a functioning heart until twenty-two weeks.
“I’m for the new law,” the dad said. “A heartbeat’s a heartbeat. A life.”
“Even in cases of rape or incest?” I asked. “What about that?” “It isn’t the baby’s fault,” he said.
While I discussed the recent abortion laws with the dad and one of the young men, Wendy talked to two of the other young men. I couldn’t hear their discussion because of the honky-tonk music.The boy who was turning twenty-one and another friend wandered off to go to another bar, perhaps embarrassed by the dad, who acted like the very loud leader of the pack.
“My mother nearly aborted me,” the dad said and pointed to himself as if I might not get his meaning. He said, “Conception means life, that is, if you believe in God.”
“That’s an either-or logical fallacy,” I said. “And what about all the leftover embryos from IVF? Is it wrong to destroy those too?” “I’ve never thought about that before,” he said, shaking his head. The traffic light turned green, and an anxious driver blared his horn.
“According to your definition of human life, those are lives too,” I pointed out. Three young women in strappy sundresses stumbled past.
“I’ll have to think about that,” the dad said and rested his chin between his thumb and finger. Then he pulled his hand away from his face, pointed to the sky, and said, “I always think about what Jesus would do.”
“Just make sure you aren’t creating God in your own image,” I said. The scantily dressed cowgirl on the Nudie’s Honky Tonk neon sign flashed above us, her lithe body in blue, her long hair in pale yellow.
The dad shook his head and said, “Of course not,” and then without missing a beat, he asked, “Are you married?”
“Happily,” I said.
“I’m happily married too. I’ve got a great wife. I probably don’t deserve her.”
I nodded. It seemed as though we had found a point of agreement.
The son’s friend told me if a woman takes enough vitamin C, she can self-abort: “I bet you didn’t know that vitamin C heats up the uterus and the baby will die,” he said.
“I was not aware of such a fact,” I said.
He went on, telling me he had an infant son, and though he didn’t get to see him much, he loved him just the same. He shouted, pointing at my face with his long index finger: “She tried to kill the baby with vitamin C.” Then he added, more quietly, “But it didn’t work, thank God.”
“I’m not surprised.” I was beginning to feel like Allen Funt would jump out from a nearby honky-tonk, shouting, “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!”
But this was no joke. These men, affluent and educated, were the prototype of those who currently controlled women’s bodies with a dangerous combination of privilege and ignorance.
People pushed by us on the street corner, dark shadows against the flashing neon lights in the shape of cowboy boots, lassos, and the scantily clad cowgirl straddling a guitar.
“I don’t personally know anyone who’s had an abortion,” the dad said. “But I’m sure those women regret their decision.”
I laughed, and he asked, “What’s so funny?”
“Trust me. You know women who have had abortions, but they aren’t going to tell you.”
“I don’t know anyone who’s had an abortion,” he repeated.
“One in four women have had an abortion. But women are shamed into keeping it a secret.”
“I don’t know any women like that,” he said.
“Well you know me. I’m one of those women, and you know what? I don’t regret it.”