Last Call

Cathy lives in an immense home on top of a hill in one of those new, upper-crust house farms with wide, lazy streets where the children, as well as the sidewalks, dogs, cars and windows, all look recently scrubbed. The back of the house faces the Front Range. Standing on her sunny front porch, she can see the downtown Denver skyline, which on this day gasps beneath a dark haze.

Cathy needs no such reminders that she lives in an entirely different world from the one she left behind when she walked away from Bobby Hornbuckle. She's so far removed--physically and intellectually, if not emotionally--that she asked that her full name not be used in this story.

At 45, she remains a beautiful woman: green-eyed, her hair now blond and short. She tries to run six miles every day, having picked up a fitness bug after leaving Bobby. Her husband, to whom she has been married six years, is a successful real estate entrepreneur.

Cathy leads the way past a sunny, plant-filled room with a baby grand piano to a Better Homes and Gardens kitchen about the size of Ziggie's. On the counter are twenty videotapes focusing on such topics as developing "more loving relationships" and "making your marriage divorce-proof." Even in the best of circumstances, she notes, relationships take work.

It's been a tough year for Cathy. Her sister recently died from cancer, soon after which she got a call from her ex. He, too, had cancer; it also looked bad.

The memory of the telephone call still brings tears to Cathy's eyes. Fourteen years after she left him, she still can't decide how she feels about Bobby. Hates him. Pities him. Admires him. Gets mad at him. And yes, there's even a little love left over for the boy with the guitar in the photo album.

When she left the marriage, Bobby told her she was holding him back. But when his career took a nosedive after she was gone, part of her felt vindicated. "The other part knew that what was bad for Bobby would be bad for the boys," she says. "I didn't wish that...I wanted him to get his life together."

She had seen plenty of the damage done to others in that scene. The drummer in the band in which they'd met had since died from alcohol and drug abuse--after borrowing money from Cathy that he, as a junkie, of course never repaid.

Bobby had been so gifted. But it was almost as if he were afraid of success. He had sabotaged every real chance with drugs and alcohol, losing gigs left and right, chasing off band members and people who might have helped him make the big time. "Every night he played, it was a party," Cathy remembers. "It was like the little boy who never got to have a childhood decided to have one as an adult.

"He might think he was, but he was not at his best when he was so drugged-up that he would stumble around and mumble the words or forget what song he was playing. When he was using drugs, he did not give his audience what they deserved, and that was to see him at his magnificent best."

Like Bobby's mother, there was nothing Cathy could do to save her husband. But for fourteen years she has worked to save her children from following in his footsteps.

It hasn't been easy. The boys worship their father. They want to be musicians. And if that's what they want, she won't try to stop them, only make them aware of the traps their father walked into.

Brian has begun to recognize the dangers. He doesn't use drugs or alcohol. "He sees my current husband's success and wants to emulate that," Cathy says. "He wants to travel...for pleasure. He's going to college. He still doesn't understand that the company he keeps can determine the circumstances, especially if they're still into drugs and alcohol. But I think he's going to be okay."

Michael is more of a concern, although he, too, has been attending college. He's more like his father, physically and emotionally. When she heard that Bobby had put Michael on stage at thirteen, she was upset. "Apparently Bobby didn't draw any parallels to his father using him to sing for his drinks," she says. "Michael truly glorifies his father: 'Dad can do no wrong.' I try to point out what happened to his dad without tearing him down, but Michael comes back with, 'Who's to say you're right?'"

She blames her ex-husband for introducing the boys to drugs. "Bobby doesn't understand that you can't raise children saying, 'Do as I say, not as I do,' and have them understand," she says. So the burden has fallen on Cathy, and her current husband, to be role models, which sometimes makes her "the bad guy."