West-End Family Grave
By Missy

SERIES: Souvenirs
SUBTITLE: West-End Family Grave
FOLLOWS: Souvenirs, Fire With Fire, Bury That Jewel,
High Sierra, Walking Lonely, Blues Along The Way, Balloons Land, Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans, Somewhere Sails, Baby, It's You, So..., Through The Looking Glass, Desertion, I Know You Rider, Midnight Musings
PART: 1 of 1
AUTHOR: Missy
EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com
RATING: PG, Het
PAIRING(s): L/L

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
CATEGORY: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: California
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Lenny wonders if, maybe, it's not time to get out of Tennasee.

****

The note was nothing more than one inch across his palm, written on faded yellow lined paper which crinkled as though it had been recently burned.

Lenny stared at the words lying there for a long moment. In faded pencil, his childish scrawl piped to him:

"Hi Leny!

Wn yu git thees, yu shuld be thrdy. If yu ain't ded, thn maby yu r faymoose. Yu an Skwiggy hve gurls, gitars nd moonye. Our mabe yu nd Laverne got mayreed.

I hoph yu hve fud and cleen sawks."

I Pulled Out With the mountain laurels blooming
on a dirt road that is soon to be paved
Down to the site of my original establishment
And a west-end family grave.


Lenny sheepishly glanced at his feet under the table, aware that he didn't even have that.

Laverne laughed out loud at what she had been reading. "Boy, was I way off: Laverne: By now you should be married to a tall, dark, handsome dreamboat with his own car." She laughed nasally at her own words, crumpling up the paper. She was entirely unaware of Lenny's expression.

Shirley stared blankly at her page. "Shirl's is the right one." Laverne commented, stirring her coffee. "'Dear Shirley: You should be married to a doctor, have a baby, and a nice house in the suburbs.'"

She sat up straighter, coughing away a cloud of emotion. "Yes." She said flatly.

Lenny stirred his coffee and watched her face carefully. Shirley was obviously unhappy, and he felt somewhat frightened that she might collapse in front of them. He and Laverne had made a habit of rising early to keep an eye on her before getting to work.

Laverne traded worried glances with her boyfriend. "Uh, I gotta get to the doughnut place." She said, pushing away from the table.

"Oh, Vernie, could ya pick up a box of glazed?"

"Len, they don't let ya take all the good ones!"

Lenny whined, and she rolled her eyes, kissing his forehead. "yanno that I'll try. See you after work!"

Lenny watched her leave with delighted eyes. Only Shirley carried any sort of anger away from the table that day.

***

"BOO!"

He winced back from the loud, angry catcalls ringing from the back of the bar. Concentrating on projecting his voice from a deeper place, Lenny let every muscle in his chest relax, trying to concentrate on the lyrics.

But they were drowning him out. He battled with the noise, listening to the hymn echo through his body.

Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Love is right, He thought. Laverne was the only one watching him with patience in her eyes.

Finally, the song ended; he could not have climbed off of the stage more quickly. Laverne waited for him with a beer, which he stared morosely into as the band played on.

It had been this way for a good month now.

Blood Runs Thick
And When It Rains It Pours Down
On The Family Tree and Refuse of War
I Spend My Time Being Brokenhearted and Bleeding Now
I haven't much need to look for work

A month and a week, not counting the decent response he'd gotten at Hector's friend's place. The further he moved from that club, the less warm his welcome was. Repeatedly being told he was 'too pop' for country, even Hector's friend refused to take him back. Which is what had led him to an afternoon in a beer-soaked hall at the other end of the town.

Laverne was still the freshest thing in the place.

"Next time'll be better."

Lenny shook his head sadly. "Yeah? Like the last time?"

"Well?"

"Well nothin', Vernie. This ain't workin' out. I'm weigh'n down my sister...I'm weigh'n down YOU..."

"Stop it, Len."

"No. I thought I was gonna make it here, Vernie..." He stared at the neon lights, the dark bars, and shook his head. "I ain't makin' it here 'cause it ain't HOME. I don't like the food, the hours...I miss Milwaukee."

Book Of Days
The Way Things Lay
That's Just Space And Time
I Gave It Up All For Your Love..

"Yeah, well, I miss my Pop. I miss the Pizza Bowl, and I miss the snow...What'm I saying?"

"That you don't wanna spend the rest of your life borrowing Angie's bed and working on doughnuts."

Laverne's smile was half-formed. "What about Shirl?"

"She and Davy can come."

"But we don't got any money, Len."

His eyes focused on something posted beyond her head.

"How does $500 sound?"

The poster above her head was one for an amateur songwriting contest. One had to perform and sing the song, which would be sold to Loretta Lynn for $500.

Laverne noticed the spark in Lenny's eyes. It hadn't been there in a long time.

"I'll tell the sewage place you quit...if you get rid of the doughnut people for me."

"It's a deal."

One Day Moves Into Two
I'm Losing
Everything Except For You
I Would Sing You a Song Of Devotion
That's What I Should Do.

To "Midnight Musings"
To "Battle Lines"









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