Rock and Roll Ruby
Lyrics-Johnny Cash
Well I took my ruby jumpin on a dance in
the town
She took her high heels off and let her
stockings down
A
She put a quarter in the jukebox to get a
little beat
E
Everybody started dancin` on the rhythm of
her feet
A
She’s my rock and roll ruby
E
rock and roll ruby
B7 E
When ruby starts a rocking it satisfies my
soul
Well ruby started rocking bout one O`clock
And when she started rocking she just
couldn’t stop
She rocked on the tables and she rocked on
the floor
When everybody yelling ruby rock some more
Chorus
It was round about 4 and I thought she
would stop
She looked at me and then she looked at
the clock
She said wait a minute daddy now don’t you
get soul all I wanna do I rock a little bit more
Chorus
One night my ruby left me all alone
I tried to contact her on the telephone
I finally found her bout 12 O`clock
She said leave me alone daddy cause your
ruby wants to rock
Chorus
************
He remembered the first time
he saw her, spotted her really, when he entered Johnny Jake’s Bar, Johnny Jake’s up in Olde Saco, Maine, the old time textile town then having seen better days , that late 1956 night, that night he learned about hunger, hell, maybe desire was a better word but he didn’t want to get caught up with words not once he got a look at her. All he had wanted that night, that cold Friday night, was a few drinks with his corner boys (corner boys whom he had known from hunger high school day at Olde Saco High when they all hung out in front of Mama’s Pizza Parlor over off Atlantic Avenue near the Acre just like his father, and his father before him, had done, waiting, waiting for something, some fresh breeze in that no air town, in that no air state, and, although he wasn’t complaining, no way, this no air red scare cold war country), listen to this mad max daddy rockabilly music that was getting so much play on the local rock station, WMEX, and was drawing big crowds into Jimmy Jack’s on the weekends, and go home after a hard week’s work at the mills.
He remembered that guys, and
maybe a few girls too, were calling out to her, calling out rock, Ruby, rock in
honor of the new wave Sun Records
rockabilly hit by Warren Smith, Rock and
Roll Ruby, that had everybody, every guy, in a lather about their dream
Ruby, and maybe every girl dreaming her Ruby dream too. It wasn’t until later,
much later, that he found out her name was actually Iris, Iris Genet then
living in Biddeford (but really almost fresh from French-Canadian homeland up
near the Gaspe heading south to catch some of the fresh breeze). But that was
later, much later, and until that time Ruby fit her just fine. Yah, just fine.
It wasn’t like Ruby was some
great beauty, although she had that wholesome prettiness that almost all
French-Canadians girls of interest had whether from the Gaspe or from greater
Olde Saco. Naturally she was slender; some would say thin and get no argument,
with the genetic small breasts and long legs of F-C girls of interest, topped
off by blue eyes and brownish blonde hair. She was wearing capri pants that
night and a form- fitting white blouse. But all of this was so much hot air
because what Ruby had, had in spades, had in diamonds, had in hearts, had in
clubs, had in any part of the deck was, well, energy, sexual energy, enough
sexual energy to float battleships if there was some way to transport the one
to the other. And all of that energy was on display on the dance floor of Jimmy
Jake’s that night as she danced to Good
Rockin’ Tonight, the song the rockabilly cover band, the Rockin’ Ramrods,
was playing as he came in, spotted her, and learned what hunger, was all about.
Funny there was nothing choreographed
about her moves, not at all, her play was based on, one, that slender (okay,
thin) athletic body moving in about six direction at once in almost perfect
harmony with the beat coming from the band, and two, that she was doing it all
by herself, solo, alone, on the floor, on a couple of tables and in a
flash on top of Johnny Jake’s beaten up,
beaten down, whiskey/beer/rum- stained brown mahogany bar. And guys and girls
were egging her on although he distinctly saw some cat-like daggers in the eyes
of some of the girls when their guys got, well, a little too carried away. And
thus he took up Ruby dreams.
And just Ruby dreams because
that night he sensed, and maybe correctly, that, one, every guy, every
warm-blooded guy, in the place probably wanted to take a run at her too and from
what he saw did (even some of those cat-like dagger- eyed girl attached guys)
and, two, he noticed that while she was on everybody’s mind never once did she
dance with a guy, fast or slow, and while the drinks piled up in front of her
spot at the bar (rum and coke seemed to be her drink) no walking daddy was
around that spot and no guy got a chance to sit near her for more than a quick
minute, and then was dismissed. No this Ruby dream was not going to be
conquered, if conquered at all, in any one evening and so that night he had his
corner boy drinks, left with them, and
spent a restless toss and turn night.
He went back to Johnny Jake’s
the next few, maybe four Friday nights in a row, sometimes with his corner boys, sometime solo depending of his feel for the night (and the amount of
tossing and turning that he had done that week), his lucky rabbit’s foot Frenchman
luck feel for the night. No soap, Ruby, dancing with the saints of rock and
roll or something, making more moves as she turned into a whirling dervish,
looking foxier by the week, drinks piled up in front of her spot, no walking
daddy around, no guys spending more than a few minutes at her station, dancing
on the tables, and that hard-bitten bar counter, now mainly with her shoes off
and in a dress rather than capris to fire guy dreams even more. And with the
inevitable calls of rock, Ruby, roll (although the dated girls were noticeably
more silent and their dates, probably having been rebuffed a little too often
for eyeing Ruby just a little too often, had noticeably less lust in their
eyes, Ruby lust anyway).
He figured, one, sweet Ruby
was a “lessie,” some hellhole bitch just out to rile the plebes, cause riffs
among the heteros and move on, two, she was some kind of hooker who was just
letting off steam after a hard week at the pillows (although Johnny Jake, Johnny
Jake in person as the manager of the place, was very, very careful about
letting whores, obvious whores anyway, work his room) and, three, she was just
some tease, some damn F-C tease just like the F-C (and Irish girls) from Olde
Saco with a novena book in one hand and eat your heart out boys in the
other.
Then one Wednesday night, an
off day in the blues department, he dropped in to Johnny Jake’s for a couple of
shots, whisky shots (hold the water chaser came with it on the first order which told Tim the friendly bartender he was
in for some serious drinking), and sat at the bar. Then Ruby came out of the
Ladies’ Room all Ruby-like, dress, blouse, no shoes on, and sat down at her
“spot” a few stools from his. She worked on a rum and coke for a few minutes
then went to the jukebox and dropped
some change in the machine, change that sounded like quarters , made a bunch of
selections, and soon Sonny Burgess’ Red-Headed
Woman was blaring over the speakers and Ruby was working the table tops
(mainly empty that night). He decided this was his time, he was ready to move,
but something, maybe something in the determinedly provocative way she danced, something in her abandon like
nobody else was in the room(and if there
was it was of no import), and sometime
in her face that spoke of sorrows, maybe not deep sorrows but sorrows,
held him back. He finished his drink and left.
He had another toss and turn
night although this time more over reevaluating his “take” on Ruby, he
sorrowed-up version of Ruby, the thing
he sensed in her that held him back earlier in the evening . Gone were
the “lessie,”whore, tease theories of her reason for existence replaced by a
story line of displacement and loss that drove her from Quebec. One line went
along an axis of her being too much of a free spirit, too “advanced” for some
sleepy fishing village along the Saint Lawrence or the bay, maybe she had been
the subject some “shunning” campaign from the shrill villagers jealous (and
fisherman desirous of that energy, and fisherman wife responding with those
same cat-like Olde Saco dagger eyes) and so she packed up and left. Left but
did not leave, first time from home, her old country ways against the
fast-paced new country ways. The second line, the obviously second line, was
that she had been unlucky in love, some stupid guy had abandoned her, some
local guy and so she had to flee to get a fresh start. He liked that second one
better, better because it provided some kind of hope against the restless
nights.
That next Friday night he and
his corner boys showed up once again at Johnny Jake’s, and he expectantly
looked for his Ruby. She was not there. He asked Tim if he knew why she wasn’t.
Tim filled him in, including informing of her real name and a few other sketchy
details. His Ruby had flown the coop, or rather gone back to the Gaspe, because
her man, her bad- ass man, Jeanbon Bleu, had just been released from prison. He
said to himself, jesus, turning pale, pale inside anyway, was that who she was
hooked up with. Jeanbon was well-known to every hard-ass (and soft-ass) corner
boy from the Gaspe to Nashua for half the armed robberies and crazy madness in that
part of Canada. He thanked his Wednesday night lucky stars he had stayed put.
He had had his rock and roll Ruby moment. No, his rock and roll Iris moment.
And that was enough.
