The Man Who Carried Cash by Julie Chadwick

Author:Julie Chadwick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2017-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

No sooner were Johnny and Saul reunited as a team than another split loomed on the horizon. Vivian had filed for divorce. For better or for worse, waiting for Johnny was something she simply did — during his three-year stint in the air force when he wrote her hundreds of passionate letters, and for the last several years as his visits dwindled to a trickle and she took up residence in the living room window, haloed in cigarette smoke, searching for his car. Until now it had been impossible for her to leave. Not only because of her Catholic faith and loyal nature, but also quite simply because she was still in love with him. “It is hard to walk away when there is a shred of hope,” she wrote in her memoir. “And I always held out hope.”

However, a recent trip to the doctor had changed everything. Thin, stressed out, and weak from constant crying, she listened as the doctor stared into her eyes and told her that if she didn’t do something, someone else would be raising her four girls. The message got through. Terrified that it would end up being June Carter, she decided divorce was simply a matter of survival. But to survive, she would have to cut out her own heart. “A piece of me died on that day,” she wrote of the Friday afternoon in June of 1966 when she signed the divorce papers.19

Adding to the deep humiliation and conflict was the fact that she couldn’t even find Johnny to inform him of her decision. After the U.K. tour and his trip to Israel, Cash briefly returned home to Casitas Springs and the two clashed, after which he left and did not return. Vivian was forced to take out an ad in the Nashville Banner asking him to appear in court in Ventura County on August 22, 1966. “Country and Western singer Johnny Cash doesn’t know it yet, but his wife Vivian has sued him for divorce,” read the August 18 edition of the Oxnard Press Courier. “The complaint charges extreme cruelty.”

Johnny did not appear.20

That same day, Cash spoke to his accountant, Anzac Jacobs, on the phone, who then quickly drafted a letter to Saul. “[Johnny] stated that he had not been served any papers on the divorce proceedings and, as I told him, I am of the opinion that he won’t be.” It will instead be published as an ad in a Nashville newspaper, Anzac wrote. “In our discussion it was brought out that he had not secured the services of an attorney in the matter, as he was apparently leaving this up to you.”21

Leaving this up to you. Saul had re-entered the hornet’s nest of Johnny’s life.

They retained the services of an attorney, who denied the charge of extreme cruelty and that Cash had caused grievous mental suffering. Two weeks later, a telegram arrived from Cash that requested that Saul fly into Nashville with Anzac Jacobs, so that together they could go over everything that needed to get done.

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