Petula Clark's Viscera

Petula Clark's Viscera

        by "But We Are Exiles"

Being deprived of sleep drives some of us to anger, some of us to writing notes to the ones who caused it, some of us to self as well as 

general destruction, and some of us to meditation.

     Who wrote the lines, "God's given us years of happiness here, now we must part"? Nancy O'Megan had entered a plea of not guilty and after the jury deliberated for only six hours the constabulary whisked her off to the Lovington Correctional Centre where she would spend the next dozen years. She would be fifty-one when she got out. She would be wiser too. God working mysterious ways. "Give me a dollar for every time I've cried," she sang at one of the prison amateur nights. 

        Visiting Nashville, Tennessee had brought Nancy into contact with the world she had heard on the radio since she could first remember. The Delmore Brothers, the Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe, Shaky Jake Parkins, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Ralph and Carter Stanley and especially Petula Clark came over the airwaves from station KXJY, Del Rio, Texas. The Ryman Country Music Hall made a big impression on her when she saw it. Here these artists had performed on the Grand Old Opry stage, singing, clowning around, and playing beautiful instruments built in the 20s and 30s. Across the street was the new Country Hall of Fame. She toured both almost immediately on her arrival and felt overwhelmed by the sheer mass of vintage country music material culture on display.

        One kiosk had the clothing of Elvis, some of it on mannikins that resembled him in his early youthful phase in which sequins and white suits predominated. Another kiosk showed the guitar and sheet music of Wilf Carter who came from that legendary family of country crooners, the Carter family. In another glass display stood the personal effects of Grandma Perkins whose rendition of "Your Cheating Heart" still easily sounded in her head if she thought about it, even all these years later. Two Cadillacs belonging to Elvis were parked in the open in the path of tourist traffic, shiny and glittering with fine paint and polish. One had a television set in it dating back to the second year of the introduction of TV, circa 1956. The horns of a great steer reached out from the hood toward the road ahead. Bits of diamond in the paint literally made the whole car shimmer so that one thought a light shone, glowing even in the dark. 

         Of course, Nancy was most struck by the Petula Clark section with all its variety of her personal effects. Behind glass, with an entry from the back for organizers and cleaners, the public could, of course, not touch them. But she wished so much to make contact even now after Petula had been dead for two decades. If I could only put on some of the clothing, the real clothing she wore, Nancy thought. The mannequin look so much like the woman she remembered from Saturday night at the Grand Old Opry that she even felt a desire to actually get inside the kiosk and don the clothes and stand next to the wax mock-up. 

         Nancy got in at night by a back door. It had been locked but when she jiggled it it opened and no bells went off, as far as she could tell. She closed the door again and walked down the street. She couldn't dare go in, she thought. But maybe no one was in the building at night. She turned and walked back to the door. She thought for a while and then slipped inside. 

        She remembered which floor to go to and how to get there even in the almost unlit spaces. Exit lights gave some illumination. She walked straight to the Petula Clark display and stood there wondering how to enter. She peeked behind it and tried the little door there. It was locked of course, but she found a sharp object in a corner near one of the Cadillacs and returned with it to pry at the door. With a few wrenches of increasing force it suddenly sprang inward and she marvelled that it had. She entered, bent double, and soon stood beside Petula. Hardly following any predeterminations, she began to remove her dress, shoes, stockings and underthings. She dressed herself in Petula's and Petula in her clothing. The dress and underthings fitted a bit tightly, though. Her buttocks were not as tiny as Petula's. P

         She felt as if she were Petula Clark herself and she began to sing one of the songs that had made Petula famous. She started quietly at first and then louder till she was at full voice and her notes echoed wildly through the museum. No one had come. Obviously no one was in the building. She sang the whole song and then, horrors, a light did appear some fifty feet away and began to move in her direction. She stood stock-still and waited, breathless and frightened. Then the light shone on the two of them there side by side.

          "Get out of there!" The policeman said, pointing his revolver at her. She spoke to him and tried to explain away her presence.

          "I'm supposed to be here," she said. "I was given permission to try on these clothes and pretend to be Petula'" she added, nodding vigorously. 

        The policeman beckoned with his gun. "You're in big, big trouble," he said. "Get out!" She did that, and when she had made the change back to her normal self, he led her down all the aisles. She tried to interest him in various displays in order to distract him, thinking she might slip away, might escape that way, but he only nodded and kept on leading her toward the exit.

      In the police statement she was accused of stealing as well as of break and entry into a public building in order to perform mischief. There had been many unsolved burglaries at the museum in recent years and the constabulary was all too happy to put the blame on her. She was tried and sentenced by a harsh judge to twelve years minus one day, and now she languishes in a Nashville prison. She has ten years to go.