One Man's Music: The Life and Times of Texas Songwriter Vince Bell

XVIII. Even Up on Misery Ave.,They Sometimes Dance and Sing

102 XVIII EvenUponMiseryAve., TheySometimes DanceandSing The complications caused by my brain injury were vast. And the confidence in my heart was one of the last qualities of my former self to consider returning. Regaining self-confidence was certainly the hardest thing to accomplish. If I needed a confidence boost, the only way I was going to get one was to make it happen. Sitting in the safe, silent obscurity of home was a comfort because I didn’t want to be seen in such broken-down shape. But it wouldn’t help me get back to living a life with any quality whatsoever. My sister Shary says, “I remember Vince saying, ‘Today I ran in my backyard!’ He was trying to catch one of his dogs, Pup, from going over the fence, because he got tickets all the time for letting his dog run loose. Little Pup was getting arrested. Vince would cuss about having to go pay another ticket. And I remember him being really happy. He told me, ‘I ran, I almost ran.’” Even Up on Misery Ave., They Sometimes Dance and Sing � 103 THE THINGS YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO BE TAUGHT WILL BE THE HARDEST. I’M SO NEAR, AND YET SO FAR. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. WHERE MY HEART IS MY TREASURE IS. PURSUE WITH PASSION. I was straight-away into doing things that I was actually capable of in my physical condition. I got a greenhouse because I could grow things hydroponically. It didn’t require strength or coordination, and it gave me a great return of fruits and vegetables. Not to mention the coveted herb. Every day I enjoyed the efforts along with the results. One of my challenges was to dig a 40-foot trench from the greenhouse to the little brown house for electricity. Big achievement. My balance was so bad that I couldn’t lift one foot off the ground to push a shovel into the rocky soil. I had to hold on to the fence. But I dug that trench. AccordingtoBob,“Vinceinsistedthathebetheonetodigthetrench. It was hot, God dern, it was humid. Another friend of ours, Dale Voss, was there doing the wiring into the boxes, and I was on the back porch. Vince grabbed his shovel. He wasn’t coordinated enough to even walk in a straight line, much less dig this trench—but he did it. “I saw him not only sweating but with tears running down his face for most of the time. He’d stand up on the shovel with one foot and more than once just fall to the ground. But he’d get up and pick that shovel back up and start digging again. I tell you, it was a mark of determination that was a sign of things to come.” It seemed as if I hadn’t seen anyone but doctors and therapists for the betterpartofayear,soIboughtatickettoBostontovisitJimMcGarry. Jim and I first met in 1970. I had just graduated from high school and 104 � One Man’s Music: The Life and Times of Texas Songwriter Vince Bell hit the wandering road. Jim, Coley Baker, and I spent that summer together in Oak Point, New York, on the St. Lawrence River. “Vince had had his terrible accident, had risen from the dead, and was back on his feet, more or less.” relates Jim McGarry. “He came to visit me in Cambridge, where I was living at the time. I guess he came to reconnect with a bit of his former life. That bit being me.” On my feet more or less, but I could barely walk with a cane. I sat in Jim’s backyard of cherry trees and played games on his Apple IIE while waiting for him to return from his workday. “One night,” says Jim, “we headed out to find something to eat and came across a place in Harvard Square with a sign out front that said, ‘Gutes Essen.’ With a name like that we figured it was good for at least some decent beer and sausages with fried potatoes. In we went. By the second beer, the dinner came. I don’t remember what we ordered, but on Vince’s plate there was a big side order of red beets. I dug in to my dinner. Vince watched his beets. “After a couple of minutes I asked, ‘What’s wrong, Vince? Don’t like beets?’ “‘I...