The Elk Creek Steakhouse and Lounge, that’s the first place I sang in front of an audience. My mother had just left my dad, so she used to go out dancing and take me along and show me how to twostep. I had the time of my life. One night, they announced that they were gonna have a singing contest, so I said, sign me up. I got up there with the Wilkes Brothers Band and sang “Walking After Midnight.” I tore the house down. I won five hundred dollars.
       My mom loved it. She used to drive me halfway across the state to sing at Star Search competitions. She thought I was gonna be the next Tanya Tucker. Then puberty hit and I started getting into punk rock and skater boys, and I didn’t think country music was so hot anymore.
       The day after I graduated high school, I jumped on a bus to Chicago to apprentice at a tattoo parlor. I was really miserable there, so I moved to Atlanta and worked a shitty job. I felt like some woman in an old country song, waiting to be rescued. Then one day a traveling circus was rolling through town and their bus broke down. That was my ticket out. I begged them to let me join.
       For the next two years I toured with the circus as a clown called Nurse Nasty, spinning fire, eating light bulbs and worms. When we weren’t on the road, we wintered in New Orleans.

 

 

 

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