Far from Folsom Prison
That's where I want to stay
And I'd let that lonesome whistle
Blow my blues away

—Johnny Cash

I fell for Molly when I was just fifteen, and she an older woman and all. Anyone’ll tell you I ain’t the type to chicken out over somethin like that. She was just standin there on the stairs of her daddy’s store, right up next to Sammy’s gas station. Long and narrow it was, just a coupla feet square, all shelves and a Frigidaire, and a small counter on your right soon’s you walk in, register on one end and his face glued right over it. Sold anythin and everythin you can imagine: cigarettes, Coca-Colas, Playboy magazines stashed under the counter, even ammo and mouse guns if you came with someone’s seal of approval. Supposin you were in on the game, you’d make the rounds of the store, grab two bags of chips, put em in your basket and ask for some pipe tobacco. “I come for them goods I ordered, sir, two pouches pipe tobacco, menthol please”—that’s what you’d say, see? He’d give you the once over, head to toe, with  those watery eyes, and only then he’d hand it over, once he was certain you were clean and not gonna rat him out to the police. We’re talkin a whole song and dance. As if y’all back then didn’t know who was workin dirty deals in Sacramento. He’d lock the door and walk you to the chicken coop next to the shack out back. Ha! Now that was a shit—for-brains hiding place—pardon my French—but what do you expect from someone like that? He’d boot the air with his dirty shit-kickers to scare off the chickens and then yank open the hatch with a frayed noose. And what awful sorry goods they were: near always a buncha second-hand junk in desperate need of TLC, and I mean a good two days of re-sus-citation, oiling the whole thing up, cleaning out the chamber, getting the spur and hammer all prim and proper. And you better believe that if you wanted to lay eyes on a gun like that, god-awful though it was, first you had to show him your greenbacks. No wise cracks, no foolin around. You’da been drilled on the how-tos beforehand, see? Lips sealed till you slid that gun in back of your belt and let it rest icy cold on your tail. Then, beat it outta there with your heart in your mouth. We were just young’ins back then, not a hair on our chins. Saps playin at being superheroes. Still tied to our mommas’ apron strings but rarin to be part of somethin, big men round town. So we needed the bastard, see? Do it all legit with IDs and permits and all those lawyer papers—no way in hell we’da gotten ourselves a piece that way. No way in hell. And we were real jazzed up, you know, not a one of us was gonna wait five or six years to hold steel in our hands. My pals, Miles and Toothpick Carl, told me the fella was real ornery, never gave a guy a break. Gotta have exactly the right number of bills ready to take out of your pocket, crisp and new. Goddamn, man! It was so long ago, and I still get madder than a wet hen when I get to rememberin his fool face and his filthy old wife-beater, drippin with sweat in the summer and stinkin like skunk.

Truth be told, yours truly stepped into that store one time and one time only, and that was before I got an eyeful of Molly. Saved my dollars, wasn’t that I hadn’t got the money, see, only I had my heart set on a little second-hand Berretta I knew came in around then, but I just wasn’t gonna go in there. Wanna know why? Maybe I was being hard-headed, proud, a fool, but what I surely didn’t want was for Molly’s old man to find out about me and the gang. Deep down I was a romantic, sappy fool, see? Even had a pompadour back then—ha! It’s true, you know, full on, pomaded and all—kinda like yours but bigger. Where’s all that hair now, huh? All in all, I got two tufts left and they’re white to boot. Goddammit! Fuckin old age! Kept my distance and my eye on the store and didn’t walk through that door, even though, I gotta tell you, it burned me bad that I didn’t have a gun. You sonuvabitch, I’d tell myself, you gonna go in there one day to ask for her hand and you want her daddy knowin about what you foolin around with? Thinkin you’re a gangster? Best keep clean and watch youself around here. Be a real gent, a prince, a straight shooter. Soon’s I got near that place, it was no holds barred, run spit through my eyebrows, fingers through my hair, straighten my shirt, act highfalutin, all that song and dance so’s her daddy wouldn’t get a load of what I was into and form a prejudice against me. All for my baby’s sake, see? And mark my words, I kept that promise I made myself back then. Kept clear of him, I swear, ain’t gone within ten feet of him. Exactly as I’m sayin, not even once. But as luck would have it, I didn’t stay clear of Molly when I should’ve. Like I knew what I was doin back then. The kind of thing you end up payin for all your life. It don’t take much to figure that I got her pregnant faster than green grass through a goose, just two months before she blew out seventeen candles on the cake her mama baked her. The night of her birthday she was waitin for me in front of the gas station. We planned it beforehand. Soon’s the kinfolk and friends gone and her daddy’s snorin like a broken whistle, she come out the gate holdin a bag with some clothes and pork sandwiches wrapped for the road. I signaled to her with my headlights. Stepped on it soon’s we got to the highway; cut out with a car I’d stole that afternoon from Mitch’s yard, an old jalopy so nobody’d fuss. I was shiverin from the cold, but warmed up real fast. It was like a dream at first. My baby and me, all on our lonesome. Goddamn, it was good…. We drove nights and soon’s the sun come up we’d hide the car in a field and sleep on the flowers. I was headin west to my Uncle Jacob’s in Nashville. I knew he was the only one who’d stick by us and I was right. Howdy, Uncle Jacob, big guy, I said soon’s he agreed to let us stay, you’re a real treasure… We stayed a while so’s the first storm clouds blew over, and the whole thing got forgot some… and then…

Got another smoke? Light it for me, will ya? Alright then, pal. I took you for a ride startin this story at the very beginnin and I reckon I’ve just about tired you out. You wanna catch a few winks, ain’t no problem with me. No, really, it’s ok. I’ll talk to you later, give you a shake. Got the whole night in front of us, all the long night, so lean back, take a load off… 

And that’s how it come to pass, as God is my witness. When I heard about Johnny Cash’s concert, I’d been behind bars for two years and it was eatin me up good. Back then I was at Folsom in California. You been there? That’s alright, you ain’t missin nothin. I was in Level II Security—all us Level IIs got transferred here in oh-four. I worshipped Johnny like some worship God long before I shot Molly’s daddy and got myself locked up. Ring of fire, I walk the line, you know em, son? If I had a penny for each time I sung “As sure as night is dark and day is light/ I keep you on my mind both day and night/And happiness I’ve known proves that it’s right/ Because you’re mine, I walk the line” to my little woman and she be lookin at me as if the happiness of that moment would last forever. Each mornin, I’d wake in that cell, wash my face, brush my teeth and do my exercises—I never forgot to exercise, never, not a single day durin those early years. Wanted to be ready for my release, see? Still believed that the mornin would come, you know, like the one that’s comin soon, when they’d throw the doors wide open and let me go home to my wife and child, cause the wool’d finally come off that judge’s eyes and he’d see clear as day that I hadn’t meant to kill the bastard, that there was nothin I could do, cause if you think about it—and this is between us now—there was no other choice I could’ve made. May I ask you somethin? What would you’da done in my place? I know it don’t mean nothin now, and you ain’t obliged to answer, but I ask you, pal: what would you’da done? Got back sudden one mornin from the field cause I’d hurt my hand in the machine and saw his car parked in front of the farmhouse. I froze. Couldn’t even see straight. So many months gone, couldn’t believe the bastard found us. “He got four other kids, won’t even look for us, forget it,” is what my little woman said and as the days passed by I believed her more and more. I ran like a hellhound on my trail. Flew up those steps and stopped in front of Molly’s room, heard her cryin and hollerin and beggin for mercy. I burst through the door and saw him drippin with sweat and ugly as sin, ugly as I remembered him, kickin her in the ribs with his muddy boots. Same boots he kicked the chickens with, that dirtbag. I was sick to my stomach, man. His oily hair hangin over his face. Crazy as a peach orchard boar. Blood runnin down Molly’s legs as she lay there. “Bastard, you’re a dead man!” I hollered before jumpin him. Grabbed him by the throat. I couldn’t feel a thing, no pain, no nothin. But he weren’t an easy man to knock down. He was still young, you know, and big, and there was no way this side of hell I was gonna drop that bastard. Bit him crazy hard on the arm, but he got me in a grip and throwed me to the wall and I ain’t even realized how…

You hear me?  You listenin?  C’mon, man, I’m talkin to you…

So I was tellin you how he throwed me… I was fast, so I got away from him like this, slipped behind him and shoved him hard just when my baby was startin to lose her senses. By the time he got back on his feet, I’d pulled the little Berretta out the holster and was pointin it at him, all shaky-like. The gun I’d been mooning over was a gift for the road from Toothpick: “Take it, you monkey, so’s nobody bothers you none,” I remember him sayin to me the afternoon we cut out. Funny thing is he bought that Berretta from Molly’s daddy, from his two-bit shabby store. He stood up, straightened hisself out, and looked at me with his bat-shit crazy eyes. And then, as if I weren’t in front of him, as if he couldn’t even see me, he spat and went back to kickin Molly who was twitchin on the floor. That’s when I snapped. Simple as that, can’t say nothin else. Took a deep breath and aimed, had that gun in a two-hand death grip. Saw red, bud. See how it was? Saw red, pure and simple. Mashed that trigger without even thinkin bout it. Easy as pie to kill someone, you can’t even imagine how easy. Got him in the head with the first shot and then emptied the cylinder in his chest: bam, bam, bam! He fell and just lay there, not movin at all, not like when the hero dies in the movies. His blood mixed in with Molly’s on the floor. I took my baby in my arms and ran to my uncle’s car. Knew I had nobody to look out for, and drove into town like Satan was at the wheel. Our child was saved at the very last minute, pal, at the eleventh hour. At the hospital, a little before the doctor told me the good news, three police run in and handcuffed me. Through the open door I saw my Molly in bed, safe and sound asleep. As they dragged me to the police car I was singin, I felt free, didn’t have a care in the world, didn’t even try to resist. Because you’re mine, I walk the line. Man, Johnny, if you only knew.

You asleep? No? You wanna get some shut-eye, well then get some, told you so earlier. Ain’t sleepy? Ok. Gimme a smoke. So I ask you: What would you’da done in my place? Yeah, now that I told you about it, what would you’da done? Wouldn’t you’da put him six feet under, too? Yeah, go on, tell me…

Thirteenth of January, 1968, that’s a day I ain’t never gonna forget. Hadn’t closed my eyes all night waitin for the concert. Before killin three people in an armed robbery, my cellmate Tony Simansky’d worked as a soundman with Johnny on his first concert. Life is crazy, you know? We were as happy as a coupla pine borers in a fresh log. For days on end we tried out songs, dusted off lyrics. Partners in crime. Hey, listen to this one, get a load of that one—you know how it goes. A few days before Johnny’s due at the prison I told Tony I wrote a song special for the occasion—a song straight outta my soul, somethin stone-cold real. With a chorus, music and all. Begged him to tell me what he thought. He read the lyrics and asked me to drum out the beat with my hands. Tears runnin down his face, Tony throwed his arms round me, kissed me, and swore he’d move heaven and earth to get that song to Johnny. Got the warden’s permission to record the song on an old one-deck recorder they sent up from Sacramento and we taped it. Couldn’t barely scratch out a tune on the guitar, but I knew a coupla chords and someway somehow got it to sound decent. Tony made some calls, he still knew people in the music business. And then we waited for the day of the concert, not holdin out much hope, truth be told. To pass the time, he told me stories about Johnny, stories I didn’t know and that marked me deep: bout the brother he lost when he was just a young’in, bout how tough his life been in the cotton-fields. Y’all got it easy now. Back then there weren’t nothin. You got a parcel of land and you broke your back and worked your fingers to the bone to scrape together a livin. Hard times, you know, real hard, not like nowadays. Even prison is a piece of cake in comparison to how we had it. Mornin before the concert we got a call from the warden’s office. Hustled our asses over right quick. The guard Perkins, a cool cat who’d taken a likin to me, told us Mr. Cash’s manager telephoned from the hotel cause he wanted to use the song in the concert and if we were agreeable we had to sign some papers. Started cryin just like a baby, pal, and I ain’t cried even on the day when I first set eyes on Molly and our child in the waiting room. If all went well, Cash wanted to use the song in the album he was aimin to bring out later. Can’t say I sweated over it too much—you bet your ass I said yes! Early afternoon the next day, we all showered on the double and got gussied up in our Sunday best. They told us to watch ourselves and be on our best behavior, and then took us down to the cafeteria in groups of ten. We looked up at all them instruments settin on the stage, the drums and the microphones, and it was as if we was born again, as if we might start from the beginnin. Who’d believe a thing like that: a concert just for us in that place? So many years gone and nobody done nothin just for us, nothin to soothe our souls. Years and years we’d been forgotten, garbage tossed behind those cement walls, we were more dead than alive. You know what it’s like to have nobody give a fuck about you? Weren’t expecting nothin and then this, a concert out of the blue…

Johnny come out on that rinky-dink stage and greeted us with that cowboy voice of his, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he said, like he always did at his concerts. I was standin in the middle of that hall but it sure felt like I was floatin in seventh heaven. I ain’t never abused no substances, cross my heart and hope to die, and I don’t smoke nothin other’n  tobacco. But that night I swear on my mama’s grave that my body been possessed by somethin greater than myself—somethin with a power over me, like some kinda drug. I sang along to all the songs, listened to every word—both the jokin’ and the serious—he said on the breaks. Each and every word I heard made me stronger, each and every song, greater. And I found the strength to keep goin. Started to see my life through Johnny’s music and lyrics. Watched him up there on stage and he was like one of the fellas in the old gang, exceptin that he’d made it instead of landin in the shit, and God had given him the gift of writin songs for all of us. When he said he was gonna sing my song, you can imagine what happened, the hall near came down. The fellas next to me, they took me in their arms and lifted me high. To this very day, when I close my eyes, I remember the ruckus in that cafeteria, the whistles, the clappin, the beatin of my heart, swellin with joy till I near burst with it. Sure nough, he’d made it his own, cause he’s the boss, and no matter he ain’t had time to run through it too much, it was out of this world. Just a handful of moments in life that sear themselves in your mind, pal, important moments: the sound of that Berretta, Johnny’s voice that January of sixty-eight. Those are surely mine.  

I gone and tired you out again. I can see you’re bored. Okay, pal. Just one last thing I’m gonna tell you. When I walked outta that cafeteria, I had faith in myself again, cause I always believed that deep inside I ain’t all bad. Just that I was unlucky and got punished for somethin that I couldn’ta left undone. Don’t know if you understand.

Hey, you listenin? Looks like dawn’s breakin out there. If you take a look-see from here, you can just about make out the haze on the horizon. A new day. Shake youself out and gulp down some coffee cause the phone’ll start ringin and if they hear that croak in your voice they’ll be onto you. So what? So you got a little shut-eye, it’s a cryin shame to be called out onto the carpet for it… You been good company, pal. I thank you for puttin up with my palaverin. Truly. It’s been a while since I talked to anybody. If I could, I’d pay you back somehow, but it don’t look likely. Any case, I’m ready, so don’t you worry none. Washed my face, got all gussied up, I’m all ready. It’s a new day out there—take a look outside. My wife and daughter and her little one will be waitin there for me… Now, ain’t that a treat… That’s the one thing for sure: They’ll be right up by the glass window. It’s been weeks since they been here, but I’m not harborin any hard feelins, truth be told, they just got tired, like everyone else. There you go, the phone’s ringin, didn’t I tell you, pal, didn’t I? Cough it out, go on, they’ll get wise to you. What’s that they’re sayin? Time to go? I’m ready, you know, don’t you worry yourself none. I’m ready.