Photo by RP Thomas
Young Lizzie
Before she stood with Tex that night
in
San Antonio, Lizzie had never
sang in front
of a crowd of rodeo riders and
hangers-on.
Growing up in Port Arthur she’d
heard all
about Joplin of course, named her
horse
“Janis,” and vowed to get out of
town as
soon as she could. When she was ten her
dad died and her mom cried until a
bull rider
named Griffin came along. Lizzie never
liked him and told him to “fug”
off. The first
song she sang was “Me and Bobby
McGee,”
which she purloined from her Aunt Tillie’s
Pearl before it melted
in the Texas sun.
By 15 she was ready to run and no
longer
a virgin; Tillie took her to Austin
to “settle
her down.” Calling Lizzie wild and destined
for trouble, Tillie found a job In
a cheap motel;
soon thereafter Lizzie’s life and
everything else
she knew fell all to hell. She dated a cowboy
punk who had a wife and baby at
home, drank
until she was drunk as a skunk and
began to
roam Austin’s streets on her own. Just as
Tillie told her it would, her day
did come;
Lizzie got a gun and held up a
liquor store; in
Texas that’s a stretch, so Lizzie
did her four.
TS
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