In 1974, work was recently completed on Rivergate Mall in Goodlettsville, just north of Nashville. It was in this burgeoning suburb that recent Tennessee arrivals Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell needed a ride in order to pick up a birthday present at the mall for Susanna Clark, who was turning 35 that week. This was right before the cherry blossoms bloomed and the late-spring heat and humidity arrived; there was still just enough chill in the March air to necessitate the use of a sweater. Life was pleasant for the vagabond songwriters holed up at the Chapel Road domicile of Guy and Susanna Clark.
The only complication was that, at lunchtime, both Vince and Rodney decided it would be a good idea to dip into the bag of magic mushrooms left behind at the Clark residence by none other than fellow house guest Townes Van Zandt. Around mid-morning that same day, Van Zandt had partaken of a large handful from the Ziploc® himself before suddenly announcing he was going to step out for a stroll. Nobody thought it was strange when he walked out the door, carrying his guitar without a case. He ended up down on the Gallatin Pike where he hitchhiked a ride out of town, and eventually to Colorado, a move that his good friend Guy used to call “pulling a Woody.”
A couple hours later, but before anyone had realized that Townes had actually split town, porch-dwellers Vince and Rodney were nibbling a few Liberty Caps. About an hour after they dosed and also added a few glasses of wine to ease take-off, their friend and dealer Lester McClain showed up with a large amount of marijuana and the day took a green turn. Everybody at the Clark house called Lester, who was a bit overweight and had a bit of a dirty young man’s beard, “Santa Pinkeye” or just “Pinkeye” due to an incident where he literally woke up inside a dog house the morning after a Christmas party a few years before. He had crawled in there having bonded with the neighbor’s mastiff, and woken up with a nasty case of conjunctivitis.
The trio were having way too much fun on the porch needling Lester by speaking like dogs for the better part of an hour, with Pinkeye taking it all in good-natured stride, when Guy stepped out to remind his friends that they had a chore to take care of. The boys were immediately enthusiastic about the prospect of visiting the nearby shopping mall while gooned out of their mind on ‘shrooms, weed, and wine. Gauging each other’s inebriation level, Vince and Rodney decided that Lester was the one to drive them, with McClain making the case that he was okay to take the wheel partly in English and partly in “Dog.” Following a further few reefer-abetted distractions, they jumped in McClain’s copper ‘72 Chevy Nova and made their way up Gallatin Pike to the Rivergate Mall, crying with laughter the whole way.
Once at the mall it was agreed that Lester should chill in the Nova while Vince and Rodney popped in to buy Susanna’s gift. Inside the mall however, suddenly gripped with paranoia, the two became paralyzed; a situation only made worse when they realized that neither of them had remembered to bring their wallets.
Meanwhile, out in the car, things went South in a hurry for Lester, who, unbeknownst to his traveling companions, had also helped himself to a large number of Van Zandt’s caps and stems right before they jumped in the car to go to Rivergate, and was now feeling the onset of a powerful psychedelic experience. Lester eased his chair back, calmly enjoying a passing cumulus cloud and listening to WSM-AM, the broadcast home of the Grand Ole Opry. Unfortunately, the DJ chose at that moment to play the Louvin Brothers’ harrowing “Satan Is Real.” Images of the ‘destruction of homes torn apart’ and places of ‘everlasting torment’ soon consumed our rotund pot peddler.
The late afternoon sun beat down through the windshield like a greenhouse and Lester felt a sudden urge to remove his shirt. He simply couldn’t stand the feel of cotton on his torso. The feeling grew worse and worse until, throwing open the door, he manically shed every last stitch. McClain then ran wildly into the mall, entering through the Sears and Roebuck, darting around the women’s lingerie department, and raising alarm and shrieks with every step. By the time he reached Rivergate Mall’s food court, the manager at Sears had alerted security guards via walkie-talkie, but there wasn’t much that could be done.
It was hard for Crowell and Gill, however crestfallen, confused, and jittery they might have been, not to miss McClain as he marauded past a Burger Chef stand, screaming at the top of his lungs, “The sun! The sun! It’s gonna explode and kill us all!” When they saw their buck naked comrade leap, heedless to both hygiene and comfort, onto the Squiddly Diddly mount of a Hannah-Barbara-themed children’s carousel in the center of the food court, the two musicians quietly watched events unfold before turning towards the exit and walking away, stone faced.
The security guards, who didn’t really know what to do with the raving, nude Santa Pinkeye, were sort of chasing him half-assedly in the manner of a Benny Hill skit. He was self-evidently unarmed, so they weren’t exactly interested in catching him, so much as herding him in the direction of the exit, hoping McClain would just run outside and away. Eventually, one of them had the bright idea of borrowing a comforter from the JC Penny sleepwares department as a capture net. It took four guards to wrap him up and quiet him down. They secured Lester in handcuffs and marched him to the security offices, where Goodlettsville police were called in to haul his ass off to jail.
It was a fairly long walk home for the two “long-haired freaks,” as a truck driver unceremoniously called out of his passing rig at the intersection of Old Hickory and Gallatin Pike. They were safe enough to travel south on foot, and just after the sun set, both men were back on the Clarks’ porch in East Nashville, inspiring convulsions of laughter in their hosts as they recounted the tale. Susanna reckoned it was the best birthday present she got that year. The hysterics stopped however when it dawned on the group that their buddy was most likely going to be in jail for a period of time.
Two weeks later, Pinkeye showed up at the Clark house to apologize and replenish their dope supply. All was forgiven.
Lester has long since given up dealing and using. In 1989, it was a slimmed-down, clean-shaven ‘Pinkeye’ McClain that bought out an auto-mechanics garage across the road from the site of the now moribund Rivergate Mall. He was ordained as a minister at the Gallatin Southern Baptist Church in 2012 where he occasionally speaks about his wild past as cautionary tale or takes his charges into the John Hiatt Wing of Cumberland Heights to have a talk about the choices they have made, or perhaps help them to begin to realize that they really don’t have any choice at all.
Americana Unsung 