In the 1950s, Spade Cooley was a beloved national treasure and one of the greatest stars of Western swing. But he soon became famous for something very different when he suspected his wife of having an affair and beat her to death.
Donnell Clyde (Spade) Cooley was an American Western swing musician, big band, leader, actor, and television personality.
Cooley played fiddle with one of the groups that performed at the Venice Pier Ballroom in Venice, California, led by Jimmy Wakely. When Wakely got a movie contract at Universal, Cooley replaced him as bandleader.
Cooley’s 18-month engagement at Santa Monica’s Venice Pier Ballroom in the early half of the 1940s was record-breaking. His first hit was Shame on You, recorded in December 1944, and was No. 1 on the country charts for two months. The song was the first in a string of six Top Ten singles, including Detour and You Can’t Break My Heart.
Cooley appeared in 38 Western films in bit parts and as a stand-in for cowboy actor Roy Rogers.
In June 1948, Cooley began hosting a variety show on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, broadcast from the Santa Monica Pier Ballroom. The show won local Emmy awards in 1952 and 1953. The Hoffman Hayride was very popular. An estimated 75 percent of all televisions in the L.A. area were tuned into the show each Saturday night. However, by 1956, Cooley’s ratings dropped and he was eventually replaced with Lawrence Welk.
Cooley’s career ended when he beat his second wife, Ella Mae, to death on April 3, 1961. His trial hit headlines worldwide, and he was eventually found guilty of first-degree murder. From musical media darling to disgraced violent felon, Cooley was indicted for the murder and convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Cooley had served about nine years of his life sentence and was in poor health from heart trouble. On November 23, 1969, he received a 72-hour leave to play a benefit concert for the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County. During the intermission, after a standing ovation, he died of a heart attack.
For a trip down memory lane, listen to Shame on You go to:
Neetu Malik’s poetry is an expression of life’s rhythms and the beat of the human spirit. She draws upon diverse multicultural experiences and observations across three continents in which she has lived. She has contributed to The Australia Times Poetry Magazine, October Hill Magazine, Prachya Review, among others. Her poems have appeared in The Poetic Bond Anthology V and VI published by Willowdown Books, UK, NY Literary Magazine’s Tears Anthology and Poetic Imagination Anthology (Canada).
Her poem, “Soaring Flames”, was awarded First-Place by the NY Literary Magazine (2017). She has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, 2019 for her poem “Sacred Figs” published by Kallisto Gaia Press in their Ocotillo Review in May, 2018.
Neetu lives in Pennsylvania, USA.
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The pumpkin foretold the event—the dare, the maze, the fire, all of it. If only Gregg had known to heed the warning of that orange jack-o’-lantern on the porch: The flickering slits for eyes, the leering mouth with mold grown over the gourd’s carved incisors. He’d laughed when he spotted it. So Julian.
But then Breslin stood in the doorway, with her beestung lips, the look in her eyes that invited him—demanded that he come into the cabin without delay.
“You’re late,” she said, pulling him inside. “We’ve started.”
She joined the three others at the wood-planked table: Julian, Monty, and Claire. One chair sat empty, and Gregg claimed it.
The windows were draped with dark fabric, and the only light came from candles that flickered on the mantle and the stained kitchen counter. In their dim glow, Gregg glanced at the quartet. The room smelled of unwashed bodies and beer.
“Drink up,” Julian said, pushing a bottle of IPA toward Gregg.
“It’s still on?” Gregg opened the bottle and hesitated before raising it to his lips. If what they’d planned was still a go, he wanted to be alert, fully sober.
“Fuck, yes.” Monty wrapped a scythe with tape, winding the sticky strand round and round the handle. “You’re not backing out, are you?”
Gregg shook his head. He was there and he would stay, even though his better sense urged him not to.
Julian pushed back from the table. “Let’s go.” He stared for several moments at Gregg. “What happens tonight stays with us. Anyone who talks is dead. Anyone who runs, we’ll find you.”
*
The five walked up the wooded Poconos hillside to the large expanse of open field at the top. Monty carried the scythe, Claire held an unlit torch, Breslin grasped a dagger, and Julian led the way with a backpack on his shoulders. Gregg, empty-handed, trailed behind—not far enough to invite Julian’s wrath but a good ten feet behind Breslin. Had she ever really liked him? Gregg wasn’t sure. What she did love, he knew, was the rush of the dare.
Julian’s challenge that evening: They would brave the hilltop corn maze, cut to resemble a spider’s web. Once through the maze and if they survived its gallery of obstacles, they would destroy it by fire. The cabin they would torch on their way out. No one would be able to pin the destruction on them. So Julian said.
How had Gregg gotten himself mixed up in all this? It was Breslin who’d invited him. Julian was chilly to the idea of Gregg’s presence, but they’d all hung together in high school, and why not continue the friendship circle? Gang, Gregg corrected himself. He remembered the hazing. And Breslin was a looker. He would follow her anywhere.
Almost anywhere.
At the entrance to the maze, Julian looked at his phone. “One hour,” he announced. “If you’re not out by seven, we light the field anyway.”
Monty held up a hand as though to put Julian on pause. “Wait. Send up a flare if we’re not out in time. We can whack our way through to you before you burn it.”
Julian laughed. “I’ll think about it.” He looked up at the sky. “Clear and calm. This is your last chance to say no.” He smirked. “Of course, if you do, you may not see tomorrow.”
Then he was through the entrance and around a corner before anyone else could react.
“Motherfucker,” Monty muttered, and he, too, was gone.
Breslin and Claire put their heads together for a beat, then set off into the maze at a sprint, but not before Breslin looked over her shoulder at Gregg.
Maybe she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t the last one in.
*
Twelve minutes to seven, with the October daylight fading, and Gregg stood at the junction of two paths, absolutely lost. He had not seen or heard any of the others—had they made it out? A slight breeze made the dried corn stalks scratch against one another, and he heard the distant cawing of a murder of crows.
His palms were slippery with sweat even in the coolness of sunset. Somehow he had a machete in his left hand. He didn’t recall picking it up, but the last fifty minutes had passed in a blur. Out, out, get out, his mind urged.
“Fuck it,” he said aloud. He would never finish by Julian’s deadline, not unless he borrowed Monty’s idea of hacking his own path. But which way? With the corn stalks a good foot above his head, he couldn’t see the tree line or anything but the sky. His phone was no help.
A series of loud pops and a scream straight ahead made the decision for him. He dashed up the righthand path toward the cry, holding the machete in front of him as a kind of shield. When the path turned, he nearly hit Breslin. She stood frozen, silent, staring at the ground, where Julian lay, the dagger Breslin had carried buried in his chest.
Gregg moved Breslin to one side and knelt to feel for Julian’s pulse.
“He’s . . .” Breslin whispered the word.
Gregg nodded and closed Julian’s blank eyes. “What did you do? Where’re the others?”
Her face cycled through conflicting emotions. “He’s . . . a monster.” She crumpled to the ground. “I had to . . . stop him.”
Gregg wanted to comfort her but wasn’t sure he believed her. The evening was skewing far off course, and the main objective now was to get out of the maze before it was too dark to see.
“We’ll chop our way out,” he said, standing. He could do nothing more for Julian. Swinging the machete, foot by foot he cut a path that he guessed would lead him out. If he stood on his toes, he could see the top of a bare tree in the distance. That would be his landmark—until it was dark.
“Gregg.” Breslin was behind him, and he whirled to make sure she wasn’t about to stab him, too. Her face was pale in the dimness, and he could see her shaking. “It was self-defense,” she breathed.
Once again he nodded. “We need to get out of here, now.” He returned to his task of clearing a path.
She touched his shoulder. “Do you smell it?” she said. “The smoke.”
He caught the scent and battled his impulse to freeze in panic. “Jesus,” he said. “The field’s on fire.”
His chopping became a frenzy. Whenever he glanced over his shoulder, the light of the flames danced against the roiling smoke above the maze.
At last, the stalks thinned, and they were standing in the shorter field grasses. Gregg’s shoulders ached from the effort of swinging the machete. Breslin moaned and sucked in a gasp: The maze fire was advancing rapidly toward them.
“Breslin? Gregg?” Monty emerged from the darkness, Claire a few steps back.
Gregg squared off to face them, the machete still in his hand, the flames glinting the blade. Someone had started the fire—someone who hadn’t checked to see if he and Breslin were still inside. “We’re safe. And you?”
Monty held up his hands; he no longer held the scythe. “We didn’t start it. Julian must have planted some igniters ahead of time.”
“So we’d all die,” Gregg said. “Good of him.” He raised his voice above the crackle of the flames. “We’ve got to get off this hill. The fire’s going to overtake us if we don’t.”
Claire stepped forward to hug Breslin. “What a fucking nightmare.”
Breslin pushed her away, shaking her head. “He’s dead,” she said. “I killed him.”
“Because you had to,” Gregg said. He believed her now, but still he shivered. If they’d been a few minutes longer in the maze . . . “Let’s go,” he said, echoing Julian’s earlier command.
He jogged off to reach the graveled path back to the cabin, and the rest of them followed.
About Jina Bacarr
I discovered early on that I inherited the gift of the gab from my large Irish family when I penned a story about a princess who ran away to Paris with her pet turtle Lulu. I was twelve.
I grew up listening to their wild, outlandish tales and it was those early years of storytelling that led to my love of history and traveling.
I enjoy writing to classical music with a hot cup of java by my side. I adore dark chocolate truffles, vintage anything, the smell of bread baking and rainy days in museums. I’ve always loved walking through history—from Pompeii to Verdun to Old Paris. The voices of the past speak to me through carriages with cracked leather seats, stiff ivory-colored crinolines, and worn satin slippers. I’ve always wondered what it was like to walk in those slippers when they were new.
You can follow Jina on social media:
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Jina also has a column here on the 11th of every month: Jina’s Book Chat.
A Few of Jina’s Other Books
She plants perennials
even as he predicts a drought
based on expert forecasts
long-term thinking assures
preparedness, he says,
doubtful it’s a good year
to plant
so what?
she exclaims, her hands
covered in soil
just as certain that Earth
knows better than
to rely on predictions.
© Neetu Malik
Previously published in Writers & Readers Magazine, UK.
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More info →A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
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