The kitchen, which was also the dining room and the laundry room, was tighter than the skin on a sausage and slightly less attractive. It was all mismatched appliances and bad lighting. The avocado green fridge pressed against the rust brown stove. The washer and dryer were squeezed over by the back door, preventing it from opening all the way. The dishwasher was on wheels and hooked up to the sink faucet. A large heavy table and four chairs were wedged into the corner forcing you sideways to get past.
Eddie was in the kitchen and was in a good mood for the first time in a coon’s age. It had been three months since he got ripped off by Mr. Talby, and he hadn’t had much work since then. But he’d just received a good news phone call that made him feel like writing a song. Eddie sat on the edge of the kitchen table with his feet on the seat of a chair. He hunkered over his pride and joy, a Gibson SJ-200 Reissue. It was an instrument of unrivaled beauty both in looks and sound. And that beauty hadn’t come cheap. Eddie had dropped nearly three thousand dollars on this baby. Its gleaming body of solid flamed maple and spruce lent instant artistic credibility to whomever held her close.
Eddie focused on the bound Madagascar rosewood of the fingerboard and the creamy dollops of rainbow radiating from the mother-of-pearl inlay. He rearranged his fingers and tested a new chord. Six strings of honey. He tried his newest lyric, “I’d cross a double yellow line to get to your heart.” Chord change. “You know I’ve loved you like that right from the start.”
Eddie smiled and pulled the pencil from behind his ear. As he wrote the lyrics on the pad of paper at his side, Tammy shuffled into the kitchen in her pale green housecoat. She stared at the dirty dishes stacked near the sink, then made a production out of sighing. “I thought you was gonna do these,” she said.
Eddie peeked up from under his cowboy hat. “Hang on, Sugar Britches. I think I got one here.” He looked back at his lyric sheet. “Uh, get to your heart, right from the start, uh. . . let’s load the cart… I need a spare part. . .I want your cherry tart…”
Tammy muttered, “Who gives a fart?” She turned on the water full blast and threw the dishes in hard enough to chip one of them.
Without looking up, Eddie gestured at the sink with the head of his guitar. “Just leave ‘em, Sugar, I’ll get at ‘em later.” Eddie didn’t see Tammy turning a nasty shade of red but, the thing was, he didn’t need to see it to know it was happening. It seemed to happen a lot lately. He knew it would pass just as soon as. . . a plate whizzed by his head and shattered against the wall. “Jumpin’ Jesus!” Eddie looked up just in time to see the second plate leave her hand. He twisted his torso to shield his precious Gibson from the flying dish. “Ow! Shit! That hurt, Puddin’.”
“You don’t know about hurt, buster!” Tammy set her jaw and squinted in a way that only rural women can. “I’ll show you hurt!”
“Whoa, Sugar, let’s talk about this…” Eddie scrambled off the table and ducked behind the solid backed chair. “. . .whatever it is.”
Eddie and Tammy had been high school sweethearts with no long-term plan. They were just young and ultimately incautious. As Eddie’s Aunt Theda had said, they’d been eatin’ supper before saying grace, and sure enough Tammy pulled up pregnant the summer after graduation. So they got the Justice of the Peace to tie the knot before Tammy’s dad found out and tied a knot around Eddie’s sweet neck. A few weeks later Tammy miscarried. That was three years ago. Things had been tense as a D string ever since.
With her long blonde hair and dreamy, half shut eyes, Tammy had always been languid and slinky, but ever since her ‘misfortune,’ she carried herself like a dying succulent, a thirsty blonde houseplant with a terminal case of the vapors. So it surprised Eddie more than somewhat when she managed to throw the heavy serving bowl across the kitchen like she did. Crash!
“Sugar, wasn’t that the bowl your Cousin Minnie gave us?” Eddie had an easy going Southern country accent, not too twangy, not too flat.
Tammy began screeching. “Shut up, Eddie! I am sick of you and your songs and having to do all the work around here, and bringing in all the money in this house on top of it all! If you don’t take that job Daddy offered you, I’m gonna pack my bags and move right out and then who you gonna find to pay your rent? Huh?”
Tammy’s daddy owned The Dollar Store in town and was ready to give Eddie what passed for a decent job in this part of the country. Eddie would never say it, because he liked the old man, but the truth was he’d rather have a catfish bone stuck in his throat than put on one of those idiotic polyester vests with the smiley-face button on it. Eddie knew you didn’t become a country music sensation standing on the sales floor of The Dollar Store in Hinchcliff, Mississippi. “Sugar, I thought we settled this before we got married. You promised me…”
Thwick! A steak knife lodged in the wall behind Eddie. “That’s right, you just keep throwing that in my face,” Tammy hollered. “I got the right to change my mind if I want, especially after what I went through.” When it suited her needs Tammy used the miscarriage as an excuse for neglecting everything from her appearances to the promises she had made. “I gave you all the time you needed,” she said. “You just ain’t done it, and you ain’t man enough to admit that you ain’t got what it takes to make it in Batesville, much less Nashville.”
“Now, Sugar, let’s be fair,” Eddie said in his sweetest voice, “even Elvis had to leave Mississippi to get discovered.”
“Elvis?” Tammy raised her voice a notch. “You ain’t Elvis, Eddie, and you never will be! Do you even hear what’s comin’ outta your mouth? You got a perfectly good job just waitin’ for you and instead of takin’ it, you’re hiding behind the kitchen table comparing yourself to the King. When are you going to give up on this nonsense and do right by me?”
Eddie poked his head out from behind the chair. “Sugar?” Another plate flew by, knocking Eddie’s hat off. He ducked back behind the chair wondering how come his life had turned out so bad. He put up with Tammy the best he could but he was running out of patience. Episodes like this one made him want to slap her clear into Coahoma County but his long-term plans prevented him from giving into that temptation. Eddie picked up his hat and held it out to see if it would draw fire. A plastic John Deere coffee cup flew past and bounced off the wall. Eddie knew he had to calm Tammy down before she ran out of dishes and went for the gun, even if it was just a .22. He pulled the Gibson into playing position, strummed a familiar chord, more slowly than it was usually played, and sang in his softest voice, “Stand by your man …”
“Stand by where?” Tammy shrieked. “In the damn welfare line?” She hurled a small cast iron skillet Eddie’s way. “I’ve had about all of this I can take, Eddie. It’s time for you to start taking care of me the way a man’s supposed to.”
“Tammy, sugar, that was a real good throw. Now listen, I was going to surprise you with the news tonight, but I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you…”
Tammy had another steak knife raised over her head ready to throw. “Tell me what?”
Eddie strummed the guitar, flamenco-style. He spoke like a big city radio announcer, rising slowly from his crouch as he spoke. “Starting this Wednesday at the Gold Coast Extravaganza Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, for five straight nights, ladies and gentlemen, the next superstar of Nashville, Tennessee — Mr. Eddie Long!” He ended with a flourish on the guitar.
A second passed as the news sunk in. Suddenly Tammy squealed and began hopping on one foot. “Eddie!!!”
“I’m talkin’ regular paychecks for six weeks, Sugar. Playing the casinos from Biloxi to Lula.” Eddie pushed up the brim of his hat with his index finger. “What do you say to that?”
There was a pause as Tammy put her hands over her mouth in amazement.
“Careful with that knife,” Eddie said.
Tammy slid her hands from her mouth to her cheeks. Her voice took on a sudden sweetness as her eyes went wide. “Eddie, how much?”
Eddie strummed the Gibson. “
Three-fifty a week.”
Tammy laid the steak knife in sink, real gentle. “Before or after taxes?”
“That’s take-home, sugar. I’ll be sending most of that back to you.” Eddie picked a couple of notes and improvised a lyric. “I’ll be sending you the money, ‘cause I love you so much honey. . .” Eddie put the guitar down and crossed to where Tammy was standing. There was one more thing he knew she wanted to hear, even if he didn’t want to say it. “And I tell you what.” He pulled her close. “You come up when I’m playing the casino in Lula and we’ll get started on making those babies.”
Tammy squealed again. “I knew you were going to make it, Eddie! I told you I believed in you, didn’t I? Haven’t I always said that? You are going to be such a star!” She kissed Eddie’s neck while hopping around squealing. Then she suddenly stopped. Her mouth opened wide. “Eddie, I just had the best idea! Let’s drive up to Memphis and go to that Chinese restaurant I like. I think we need to celebrate!”
Eddie thought about it for a moment before a smile crossed his face. “Yeah,” he said. “That’ll work.”
4.
Lee County, Alabama
It was three o’clock on a stifling afternoon. The air wasn’t moving. The oppressive heat was battling the humidity to see which could do the most damage. Sheriff Bobby Herndon of the Lee County Sheriff’s Department was driving north on county road 147 with his windows sealed and the air conditioning chilling the cruiser. Having lived in this part of Lee County all his life Sheriff Herndon knew the 147 was lined on both sides by cotton fields even though he couldn’t see them. All he could see was the tall bushy shrubs the Highway Department had planted along the property lines most of the way between Auburn and Gold Ridge.
For the past hour Sheriff Herndon had been testing the new UltraLyte Laser gun but traffic had thinned out and everybody was doing the speed limit so he switched the gun off, sat back, and tried to enjoy the drive. He was gazing down the road thinking about where he was going fishing that weekend when his peripheral vision suddenly picked up some movement in the tall shrubs on his right. As he turned to look, a bright red 1995 Massey Ferguson 8150 with the big 18.4R 42 duels in the back came roaring through the bushes, hellbent for crossing the road about thirty yards ahead.
Sheriff Herndon could see the driver struggling terribly inside the tractor’s big glass encased cab. The man’s face was red and hideously twisted as he fumbled desperately to open the door. The sheriff recognized the man as Hoke Paley, one of the richest men in Lee County. He owned half the land that bordered the 147. Mr. Paley was famous all across Alabama for his unscrupulous business dealings. Word was he had screwed half the people in the county without having sex with a one of ‘em. He was a mean, hard man who didn’t lack for enemies.
Sheriff Herndon hit his lights and brakes at the same time as the big red tractor lurched onto the roadway. Hoke managed to open the door and, looking skyward with his hands clutched around his own throat, he stepped out of the tractor’s cab as if to walk a plank. Unfortunately he was eight feet above the ground and there was no plank. He tipped over like a cartoon character and landed flat on his terrified face.
The big red tractor continued, driverless, across the road, through the big shrubs on the other side, and on through the field. The sheriff called for an ambulance but it didn’t matter. Mr. Paley was already dead when the sheriff rolled him over; several of his teeth were on the pavement. His face was covered with pinkish spit and gravel and there was a box of Dr. Porter’s Headache Powder poking out of his shirt pocket.
5.
Biloxi, Mississippi
Jimmy Rogers was a member of the Fourth Estate, but only in the loosest sense of the word. He was really just a freelance writer with a fondness for music and a girl named Megan. Jimmy had been a reporter for a couple of the state’s newspapers but had quickly tired of the assignments they foisted on him — puff pieces on this year’s debutante fashions, that sort of crap. He knew the only way to get the assignments he wanted was by surrendering the security of a paycheck and going freelance, so he had resigned and started writing concert reviews and artist profiles.
Jimmy had been doing it long enough and well enough to become the unofficial ‘official’ reporter-and-photographer covering the entire Mississippi music scene. At one end of the spectrum this meant reviewing the occasional big concert at the Coliseum in Jackson or the one in Biloxi. At the other end of the continuum he covered small clubs, like Mr. T’s, where local talent got its start. But he spent most of his time at the state’s thirty-some-odd casinos.
On any given night, 365 days a year, there was at least one ‘newsworthy’ concert somewhere in the state. He covered any show he wanted, wrote reviews, then tried to sell them. Regional magazines and newspapers occasionally hired him to do interviews or review specific shows, and the tabloids were always interested in photographs — preferably scandalous ones — of anyone approaching celebrity status. The World Globe once paid Jimmy $2,500 for a photo of a drunk Jim Nabors impersonator throwing a punch at a woman who heckled him at a show in Vicksburg. “Faux Nabors, Real Punch!” was the headline. The casinos, which had descended on the state like a plague in the early ‘90’s, were Jimmy’s bread and butter.
As a kid Jimmy was a devotee of the old James Bond movies — the ones with Sean Connery. It was through these films that Jimmy formed his image of what a casino should be like. They were elegance and sophistication, royalty and worldliness. Casinos were glamor palaces filled with beautiful, witty people and debonair espionage agents drinking martinis while surrounded by alluring decor.
So Jimmy was understandably disappointed the first time he walked into one of the casinos on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. There wasn’t a tuxedo or a martini in sight, and Jimmy would have bet his own mother’s life that no one in the building was associated in any way with the intelligence community. The place was ten million watts of tackiness with all the glamour of a neon-lit cock fight. But it was where he plied his trade and tonight was no different. He was there to cover Eddie Long’s first appearance at The Gold Coast Extravaganza Casino in Biloxi.
Jimmy had asked Megan, his girlfriend of three months, to join him. As they walked through the casino’s main room, he turned to her. “Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re inside a giant Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine?” Despite being a native Mississippian, Jimmy sounded only vaguely southern.
“Granted,” Megan said, “it’s not Monte Carlo.” She stopped at a slot machine. “But it’s still fun.” She dropped four quarters into the slot and pulled the arm.
Just then a man who looked like he would have been rejected by the producers of Hee Haw for looking too much like white trash walked past wearing a Who Farted? t-shirt and a big smile. Jimmy wondered if the man had hit a jackpot or if he was just happy he still had those three teeth. “Look at these people.” Jimmy’s tone was more sympathetic than condescending. “They can’t afford to throw their money away like this. Hell, I can’t afford it.”
“I don’t see a gun to anybody’s head. And how do you know they can’t afford it?” The bell on Megan’s machine dinged a few times then dropped two quarters into the tray. “Ha! Look, I won fifty cents.”
“No, you lost fifty. You put in a dollar, remember?”
“Well thank you, Mr. Negativity.” Megan plowed the fifty cents back into the machine and pulled the lever. It made some cheerful electronic noises before displaying the results. Cherry. Orange. Bar. “Ohhh, poot.” Megan banged the front of the machine with her fist, then reached into her plastic bucket of coins and continued feeding the machine. “You know, I am so tired of hearing people talk about the evils of gambling and how it takes money from those who can least afford it and blahblahblah.” She rolled her eyes as if to say quod erat demonstrandum.
Jimmy smiled at her “blahblahblah.” She never said, “blah, blah, blah,” like three words. It was always, “blahblahblah” real fast, like she was in too much of a hurry to express t
he et cetera in whatever she was talking about, and it was a lot easier than actually making a point. Megan wasn’t stupid, but she’d never been accused of intellectual industriousness either. She was ambitious and had every intention of ending up on top of the heap before all was said and done. She didn’t have a specific plan but she was adept at seizing opportunities.
But none of that mattered to Jimmy. He was too smitten to care. He stood there watching her, still astounded by his dumb luck. He met Megan at a media convention in Jackson some months earlier. She was representing the radio station where she worked as an on-air personality. Jimmy was there networking. Her unconventional-for-Mississippi looks caught his eye immediately. She was twenty-seven with purposeful cheekbones and a downy complexion that had come by way of a beautiful Irish grandmother. Like something out of Mirabella, she was wearing a black silk charmeuse shirt, wool-silk trousers with a silk cummerbund, and black patent stiletto pumps. Her eyes were Liz Taylor violet thanks to tinted contacts. She was crowned with a bramble of wild reddish-orange hair that looked unkempt and expensively styled at the same time. In a state filled with blonde pageant beauties, Megan was a head-turner of a different sort.
Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders Page 2
