Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story

14. My First Love Affair: Glen Roquevort/Tony lake

= F L I K < < E My First Love Affair: Glen Roquevort / Tony Lake Only one guy here. I gotta say that before you get the wrong impression. His name was Glen Roquevort, though he called himself Tony Lake for his career, which he planned to be acting and singing. Now, I basically considered myself separated from Gene, although he would occasionally be staying with us. But the children were still very small, really like stair steps. And I had nobody to care about me. Then Tony Lake walked into my life. He was a gentleman, had been trained right. His father and mother were Spanish and French, from New Orleans . Tony was a student, and he was real slick. He was voted as the Best Dresser of the University of Maryland at College Park, had a new car, was handsome, and played the guitar well. He also was a very good singer—he won the Best Singer of the Year in the contest at Warrenton. We started dating. There I was, a one-room-shack girl with four kids, My First Love Affair: Glen Roquevort/Tony Lake pressing on / 85 trying to raise them herself, taking in washing and ironing, and playing music all night. And I had this fellow come into my life, bringing me into this other world. It was just like going from a cave out into the sunshine. Tony cared about me a lot. He tried to teach me how to sing. He’d sing “Onnnnnce on a higgghhhhhh and winnnnndy hill . . .” or “Whyyyyyy does the sun go on shinnnnnning?” He was taking voice lessons at a Catholic university. I’d be outside in his convertible, sitting there and waiting. I’d be hearing voices singing “Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ah, ah, ah,” scales. I’d say to myself, why does he have to do all that ah, ah, ah, ah, ah? Well, he must know what he’s doing. Then I’d get confused about myself. I’d see all these people going in, getting their lessons. And here I was, untrained and unlearned. But I was the one trying to make a living playing music. I didn’t think of it as a career, or a business. I just thought I could go play tonight and make some money. Yet we Stonemans were so good that these same people taking the lessons came to see us! Then one day Tony said he would like to go away for the weekend. I knew what that meant, but it was long into our friendship, and I really liked him, so I said okay. “Just pack an overnight bag,” he said. I wasn’t sure what an overnight bag was, but I borrowed my girlfriend’s makeup kit, which was a good size, so I guessed it was like an overnight bag. I was real nervous and excited. He was Catholic, and first we were going to a Catholic church, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Momma had made me a special outfit for that, a little skirt and vest, beige with green leaves on it, and she had sewn a little square thing to put on my hair. She was thrilled that I was going to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. I remember telling her about it—me with my four kids! And then from there we were going away for the weekend. She didn’t know about that. For the first time I had a babysitter to take care of the kids. We walked into the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and I was scared because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. “Just follow me,” said Tony. I was seeing people putting water on their faces as they went in. So I followed Tony in and flipped some water on me, a little spray. I thought that was okay, maybe. He didn’t see me do it, anyway, because I was behind him.And as we walked inside, it was so beautiful, beautiful paintings in gold and blue. The ceiling was like heaven, just gorgeous. I 86 / pressing on was staring up, looking at it in wonder. Because my previous experience had only been with little country churches in the woods, places where you’d sing Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb / In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? / Are your garments spotless, are they white as snow? / Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? This was totally different. I didn’t know he was going to kneel. So I kept walking along, staring up at that beautiful ceiling. But he did kneel. And I stepped right into him. I fell. And . . . well, it was like I was rolling, because there was a downhill drag. I rolled head over heels to the altar, my legs up in the air. It took two choirboys and a priest to get me up. And then when I came back to the seat, I sat down and he pinched me. He was real mad at me. I’m sitting there pinched, nervous, not knowing what to do, wanting so hard to make my best impression. That little square on my head is already turned sideways. So afterwards we’re driving to Virginia, and it’s clear he’s starting to get nervous too. I’m beginning to suspect it was his first time out on the track. He stopped and called his mother four different times on the highway, from little phone booths. We got to this hotel. It was a nice hotel, but I was ashamed because I thought everybody in the world knew it was me coming in with someone I wasn’t married to. It was also my first time on the track, so to speak, because I hadn’t done this kind of thing before. Then we went in the room. And . . . well, it took forever. It was just a nightmare of foreverness. By then I was sure it was his first time. So we discussed things—the children, was my husband a drinker? That kind of thing. We made love eventually, but it was nothing special, just basic sex, not wonderful sex. I felt awful afterwards. I felt like I was bad. Even though I was separated , even though Gene was not a good husband, and even though Tony was a nice young man, I still felt I had done a terribly wrong thing. The next morning we went to Mount Vernon. He wanted me to see it. He taught me about history there, about Martha Custis Washington. I learned she was George’s second wife, or he was her second husband, and I remember that to this day. Tony made a big point of this not just being a one-night stand. He was a gentleman. I think that’s why I don’t have one-night stands—because he taught me to have pride in myself. He really cared for me, and so later things got better in the sex depart- pressing on / 87 ment. I hate even using that word. Because it seems to mean just a boy and girl, and what we had was intimacy and loving and caring. He also taught me other things. He took me out to expensive restaurants , and he taught me about table manners. Because, well, if you’re from a big family and you’re sitting at a table with benches and homemade chairs, when are you going to learn table manners, like how to eat with the right fork and use a salad bowl? We were not such as that. We were lucky we had food. Daddy or Momma said grace and we went at it. Sometimes it was worse. Momma’d fix supper and we’d sit down. Then she’d go out on the porch to have peace and quiet for just a little while, and Scott would say, “Hit that key, Roni.” And he’d pull his chair back and say, “All right now, when I say go, everybody start singing ’cause we gotta practice this song.” And we’d sit there eating and practicing harmony. Then Momma’d come in with the hickory: “Stop singing at the table.” “Momma, we gotta. We gotta get that part just right!” We’d be sitting at the table with our arms around our plates, shielding them. Because if you weren’t careful, someone would go, “Give me some of that” and grab—even if you’d just sung a gospel song with the most heavenly harmony. Tony showed me a different life. I remember sitting in one beautiful restaurant. He told me how to use my fork and how to cut with the knife. And then he said, “When you cut your meat, you put your knife here. Some people will put their knife like this, across the plate. But it’s better to put the knife on the edge.” Unfortunately there were some things he forgot to tell me. Now, Tony’s mother and father found out about me and naturally they wanted to meet me. So Tony arranged a dinner at a fancy restaurant —the Black Angus, downtown Washington. I guess he was pretty serious about us or he wouldn’t have done this. Tony was about six foot one. His father was shorter, but a very handsome man. His mother had black eyes and black hair, was a beautiful woman. We walk to the table and Tony pulls the chair out for me. But this was one of the things he hadn’t told me when we were doing the table manners. He pulled the chair out and I went oopp. And I almost fell on the floor. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. He scowled at me with his Spanish eyes. His father smiled. His mother just looked. So I’m sitting there, nervous and stiff, and the waiter brought the fin- 88 / pressing on ger bowl—another thing that Tony hadn’t covered in those table manners lessons. I drank it. This whole thing sounds like some Hee Haw skit, I know, but, believe me, it really happened. They all blinked their eyes. Then we’re eating away, and they’re talking, and his mother suddenly said, “Well, Veronica, what do you think of Glen taking over his father’s business?” It was a catering business, one of the biggest in D.C. She said, “Glen wants a singing career. But we want him to take over his father’s business. What do you think about that?” I looked at her and I said, “I think he ought to make up his own mind. If he wants to be a singer, well, he’s good now, but he’s got a long row to hoe.” Tony kicked me under the table. His father was grinning at both of us. His mother probably was thinking, I’m gonna kill that kid. How the affair ended? Well, the Stonemans were playing the Famous. Tony used to come down and see me pretty often and on one particular night he brought a friend of his, and they were sitting in the audience. Now I was really picking some good banjo.And in the door walks Bobby Bare: I wanna go home. Remember that, I wanna go home? And there was Four winds that blow lonely / Seven seas that run high. That was on the flip side. Bobby Bare, the handsome Bobby Bare, from Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry! He came in to hear us play! Whewww! Well, he was watching us, and then he came over to me. “I sure like your singing, Bobby Bare,” I said. “Would you like to go to a party?” “Yes.” Wow, here I was, getting to go to a party with an Opry star! I went over to Tony. “Tony, I’m going to a party with him.” “You better not.” “Whaddya mean I better not?” “You better not go off with him. That’ll be the end of us.” “But Tony, I gotta go. This is an Opry star. And I wanna go to the party. I wanna meet those musicians.” “You go with him, I’ll never see you again.” So I said, “Bobby, I can’t . . . my boyfriend . . . he don’t want me to.” “C’mon, let’s go,” said Bobby. “You should be in Nashville. You’ll never see him again. You got to be more interested in your career. It’s gonna take politics and being around the people in the business.” And pressing on / 89 Bobby put his hands on both my shoulders and he steered me away from Tony. Well, the evening turned out badly. The party was nothing much, and afterwards in Bobby’s hotel room (I went there—that’s how innocent I was!) I had to tell him I wasn’t about to be a little fling. But I had no way of foreseeing all that. And, looking back, I can remember how I was thinking that night, why I did what I did. I was in a difficult situation. There I was with four children, and I had to work toward goals to better my career so I could get my kids out of Carmody Hills. I wanted to be around people who were from the Opry so I’d know what was expected of me when I got to Nashville for good, not just doing a one-shot guest appearance. But I’ll never forget it, that night at the Famous. Tony had that friend with him from the university, and I know what I did humiliated him no end. Because I wasn’t pretty in the first place and he was such a handsome and nice man. He saw me turn and go off with Bobby. I looked back—it was raining, a kind of a drizzling rain—and I saw his feet running across in that water. He got in his car and drove away. So I had somebody to care about me, and then I turn around and shuck it all. But in reality me and Tony . . . there was absolutely no way that could have continued. We were truly from separate worlds. He didn’t know my world of hard times and stark naked poverty. And I could not have gone into his world. I know because later, with other men, I tried, but it never worked out. ...