Grady chuckles. “Oh. Thanks, I guess.”
Grady stays to listen for another song, and Clem explains his story. Like Ellis, he’s having some trouble booking gigs and getting signed. He came all the way from Florida to chase his dreams in Nashville, and Clem wants to give him a fighting chance.
“I’m guessing you didn’t find him at a lady bar.”
“Busking,” Clem says, then mashes a button. “Five minutes, doll, and then they’re chasing us out of here.” Grady has to take off before then if he wants to make his meeting, so he waves to Joaquin, then sends him a grin and a wink just to see if he’ll squeal in delight. He does. Then he leans down to quickly kiss Clem on the cheek. “You keep all this up and you’ll need your own studio and record company soon,” he teases as he leaves.
Grady hustles to Stomp’s headquarters, runs up the stairs when the elevator takes too long, and arrives out of breath and with one single minute to spare. There’s a new receptionist again, a younger one, who hands Grady a heavy manila envelope instead of buzzing Duke to let him know Grady has arrived. “Ah, I’m sorry. I thought I had a meeting.”
She lifts one hand and wiggles her fingers at the envelope. “He’s not here, and that is, so.” Then she turns away, inviting no further conversation.
He reads the contents of the envelope in the car, which is a mistake. He’s not quite sure how he gets home in one piece, but he does, coasting past the now-large crowd gathered near the driveway, who yell and take pictures, then into the garage, where he sits in his truck. It’s more humid in there than outside. Sweat prickles at his temples and the back of his neck; his shirt clings to his back. He drove home on automatic with a million thoughts racing. He just wanted to get home so he could sort everything out. Now that he’s home, his brain is stuffed with static, and he can’t think through anything at all. He spots the box on a shelf with old paint cans and bug spray, grabs it, and strides to the back deck. The fate of the box and its contents is suddenly his most urgent concern.
In the pit out back, he builds a fire and sheds his shirt when the wood catches; it’s so hot, he’s like a pig roasting on a spit. Then he sits on the bench and flips open the shoebox lid. The stuff inside is random and worthless: a punch card for a sandwich shop, some fishing hooks, a birthday card signed by someone named Tori, a ticket stub from a Vols football game, a Zippo lighter, a vintage car magazine. He finds nothing of worth, nothing that would tell him more about his father than the little he already knew. Why Clay kept all this, he doesn’t know. Why Grady put it aside so he could pretend it might be something worth keeping, he really doesn’t know. Grady pulls out the magazine to toss it in the fire. It’s folded in half and dog-eared in several places. Grady flips through it. And then, a sudden flash of a memory surprises him—something he missed that was hidden under the magazine.
“So, this is new.” Nico says from the open back door. Grady didn’t hear him come home. “Kind of hot for a fire, isn’t it?”
“I was gonna burn all this stuff.” Grady opens the top of the slim brown carton in his hand, and Nico sits next to him on the bench. “I remember him smoking these. The smell.” He holds the Swisher Sweet cigarillos to his nose and inhales, then fishes the lighter out of the shoebox. After he lights one and pulls on it a few times, he offers the box to Nico, who hesitates, purses his lips, then slowly pulls out a cigarillo.
“Light?” Grady holds out the Zippo lighter; the silver metal catches the bright sun. Nico shakes his head and inspects the cigarillo as if it contains secrets or an explanation for Grady’s behavior. “I remember… I was in the back of a car,” Grady explains. “It was big. I think, the car, but then I wasn’t, so it’s hard to say. They were both in the front, my parents, and he was smoking one of these. Vaughn. My dad.” Grady takes another drag of the Swisher Sweet, but he’s unused to the acrid burn of smoke in his throat and lungs these days, and it makes him cough until his eyes water. He pulls the cigarillo away from his lips and watches the ember grow and the sweet smoke curl into the darker smoke of the fire. “He was there. I remember him.”
“You were really planning on burning all of it?”
It’s so much when Nico looks at him like that, those dark, dark eyes that make him feel bared and seen and as though he should fall to his knees at Nico’s feet. Grady nods and he knows it’s time to stop hiding, from himself, from his pain. “I thought I had more time.” Grady watches the ember burn the cigarillo smaller and smaller. “I threw money at him but I— It was just easier than dealing with him, and now it’s too late, and I’m a bad person, too, you know? I didn’t care. I didn’t care if he died, Nico.” Nico tosses both Swisher Sweets into the fire pit, Grady’s lit and his still not lit, but it burns plenty now. He pulls Grady against him and strokes through Grady’s hair.
“Oh, Grady.”
They’re both sweating; it is much too hot for a fire. Grady can’t do it anyway, can’t burn it all as if that will change anything, as if it can undo anything. It’s all that’s left of Vaughn Dawson now, and turning it to ash won’t change his or Grady’s mistakes. Grady pulls away from Nico’s embrace, puts the contents back in the shoebox, closes the lid, takes a breath, and says, “Nico, I’m in trouble.”
18
Grady Dawson vs. Stomp Records
Country Scoop Daily
By Austin Boyd
Stomp Records has filed a breach-of-contract suit against country singer Grady Dawson, claiming he has refused to deliver a third album as requested, and that Dawson violated the exclusivity clause of this contract by performing an unreleased song in a public venue without prior permission. (See fan-captured video of the performance here.) In addition to demanding a finished album, Stomp is seeking to bar Dawson from public performances until he complies.
In a statement released by Vince Bauer, Dawson’s manager, the singer says that he has in fact submitted an album titled Blended Notes, but that the label refuses to release the album due to “creative differences.” Bauer told Country Scoop Daily that Grady Dawson has, “fulfilled the terms of his contract and then some. This is about control and nothing more.”
Grady Dawson Files Countersuit against Stomp Records
Music News Now
By Kendra Jones
Grady Dawson has filed a countersuit against Stomp Records in response to a breach of contract filing by the record company, saying that Stomp is forcing Dawson to remain in career limbo. He is seeking to be released from the label, to have the exclusive rights to his songs returned to him, and to be legally free to sign with another record label.
“After an incredibly successful recording career that has provided unprecedented success for both parties, Stomp Records has taken actions that are stalling and irreparably damaging Grady Dawson’s career,” a spokesman for Dawson said. “It is with great regret that he has been forced to file a countersuit, but the label has left him with no other option.”
Grady Dawson: Wedding Off Amid Legal Troubles?
StarzBuzz Magazine
By Cat Palaver
Grady Dawson and stylist fiancé Nico Takahashi may have cancelled their wedding due to Grady’s on-going legal battles with his record label. According to rumors, the maybe-not-engaged couple cancelled their wedding cake and have not been seen making wedding plans for some time. According to our source, “They’re never seen leaving the house together. I’m not sure if Grady is even living there now.”
This isn’t the first time Grady has been in hot water professionally or personally. For everyone who claimed Grady Dawson was a wild stallion who would never really settle down: Looks like you were right all along.
“Wild stallion. Really?” Nico steals a bite of Thit Bo Luc Lac from the takeout container on Grady’s lap, tipping his computer over into the space between them on the bed.
Grady sets it upright, scowling at the bright colors and shouting headlines on the website. “
Why you read these gossip sites…”
“Know your enemy.” Nico taps his chopsticks against his temple, and a little bit of beef and watercress from Grady’s dinner falls onto the duvet. “And they aren’t entirely wrong about everything,” Nico points out, scooping up the blob of dropped food.
No, they aren’t entirely wrong. As a matter of fact, the first two articles Nico read out loud as they ate takeout in bed after Nico got home from work—and Grady spent another restless day at home like a princess locked in a tower—were spot on. But, “The wedding hasn’t been cancelled. Just… reconsidered.”
Nico chews his shrimp and rice noodles. “Right. And if the label shakes us down for thirty mil like they’re trying to, we’ll be reconsidering right down to the Justice of Peace.” He says it lightly, pops food into his mouth, and leans back on a pile of pillows. He can say it as casually as he wants to, Grady knows without a doubt that this whole thing is killing Nico. The lawsuits and the media circus has only gotten more frantic with each passing day, and now the threat of bankruptcy and the end of Grady’s career looms over them. No matter how many times Nico reassures him that it’s not true, Grady is still convinced that he’s failed him in every way. No matter how many times he apologizes for not telling Nico right away, he just can’t accept Nico’s forgiveness.
And, at the advice of his new, extremely expensive lawyer, Grady has been lying low: not appearing in public, lest he be asked to make a statement that could further complicate things or be seen as making a public appearance he hasn’t been approved to make, as if he can’t be trusted to leave the house. When he was young and naive and just thrilled to be signed to a label, Grady certainly hadn’t realized he was granting Stomp Records ownership of him. And at the time, either no one he was associated with knew any better, or they just didn’t care enough to tell him. His new, very accomplished lawyer has warned him that litigation could drag on for months, if not years, and, in the meantime, Grady is convinced he will slowly descend into madness.
Grady sets his Vietnamese takeout on his nightstand and drops dramatically backward across the bed so his head lands on Nico’s stretched-out legs. “I messed everything up.”
“You didn’t do anything.” Nico uses Grady’s bare chest as a table for his take out container. “Duke and the label are trying to fuck you over. Well, fuck them.” He stabs a chopstick into the container, and it pokes Grady’s ribs through the thin waxed cardboard.
“I shoulda just fixed the song like they wanted in the first place.” Careful not to upset the food carton, he shifts to look up at Nico. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know how it works. It’s just askin’ for trouble to refuse them.”
“Nothing matters to you more than your integrity as an artist.” Nico moves the food and sets the laptop on Grady’s chest. It’s even warmer than the food and hums vibrations against his skin. “It’s worth fighting for.”
Integrity. It’s what he’s clung to when he had nothing else worth holding, when he felt worthless himself. Does it really matter as much as it used to, when he has so much? Did he have integrity in the first place, or was that just a lie he told himself to feel worthy of something. “Is my integrity worth thirty million dollars?”
Nico presses his mouth flat. Grady watches him scroll and click and pull faces at whatever he’s reading. Then his eyebrows shoot up, and his head cocks sharply. “Oh, here we go: ‘Fan outcry amid label dispute.’” Grady cranes his head to see.
Grady Dawson Fans Bombard Stomp Records
EntertainNET
By Jo Ames
It helps to have die-hard fans in a cutthroat business and, for Grady Dawson, it helps even more if those fans are loud and relentless on social media. After learning that Dawson’s upcoming album Blended Notes is being held in purgatory following “creative differences” with Stomp Records and that Dawson has filed a countersuit stating the label is “irreparably damaging his career,” fans are joining the fight in order to get the much-anticipated album released. “We’ve waited a long time for this album,” says a fan I spoke to on Twitter. “But more than that we support Grady and believe in his vision for his own music.”
In a matter of days, there was a trending hashtag: #ReleaseGradyNow, an online petition already more than 200,000 signatures strong, a website, and a call to boycott Stompfest, the Stomp Records annual end-of-summer festival in downtown Nashville that draws hundreds of thousands of fans each year. Grady Dawson had to withdraw his scheduled appearance at Stompfest, as he is currently barred from public performances.
“Grady has always made us feel loved and important,” another fan told me. “And it’s time for us to make sure we return the favor.”
Buy a #ReleaseGradyNow T-shirt here, and 100% of the profits will be donated to the campaign’s efforts.
“Did you know about this?” Nico asks, as Grady reads the article a third time, still trying to believe it’s actually all true.
“No,” he says. “Why would they do all this?”
Nico tsks and closes the laptop. “Because they love you. I can’t even hope to love you as much as they do.”
“That’s not—”
Nico shakes his head. “It’s fine, I’ve made my peace with it.” He takes the laptop off of Grady’s chest, flips back the duvet, and slides down on the mattress next to him with his hand spreading low on Grady’s bared stomach. “I have ways of comforting myself.”
Grady hums and moves in. The intimacy they share has always been intense, always shattering in the best way. Now it’s the only thing in his life that is safe and steady. Nico and the way he loves him—it’s all he has that isn’t rapidly turning to dust. Grady traces the lines of his love onto Nico’s skin. It’s the only thing he has left to offer.
19
Grady’s daily routine keeps him sane for a while: Wake up early, jog back and forth on the little path in the woods behind their house, make Nico breakfast, work out in their weight room, take a long shower, tinker in the music room, tinker with the Superbird, call Amy, go for another run in the woods, take another shower, decide on takeout for dinner, wait for Nico. This morning, though, as Grady wakes to the bedroom softly glowing with the first light of morning, he just can’t find the energy to get out of bed and retrieve his jogging shorts. He lies there watching the room get brighter and brighter, staring at the wall, at the ceiling, at Nico sleeping burrowed under the covers.
Nico’s alarm goes off, and he silences it. It goes off again a few minutes later, and he blindly slaps at it until it goes silent. He does that three more times before finally grumbling off to the shower with his eyes closed and face screwed tight with indignation. It’s cute; Grady’s sad that he usually misses this part of Nico’s morning and also worries about how often he must run into walls with his eyes shut tight like that. Grady rolls over and listens to the shower run, the buzz of Nico’s electric razor, the water running in the sink as he brushes his teeth.
“Are you feeling okay?” Nico pauses, coming out of the walk-in closet with clothes draped over his arm.
Is he? Maybe that’s why he can’t get out bed, though he doesn’t seem to have any other symptoms. “I dunno. Might be comin’ down with something?”
Nico pulls on slacks and walks over to the bed to place his palm on Grady’s forehead. “No fever, that’s good.” His forehead is creased with worry lines as he shrugs into his shirt. “Want me to pick something up from the drugstore?”
It’s unlikely the drugstore sells anything that would help Grady with his current ills. “Nah, I’m okay.”
“Okay.” Nico kisses his forehead. “Just let me know if you change your mind. I’m heading in now; hit the snooze button too many times.” He stands, loops his tie around the back of his neck and glances down Grady’s body under the covers. “Unless you want to have a quickie? I’m already running late, so what’s ten more minutes?”
Grady s
hifts, curls his legs up and rubs his face into the pillow. “Nah, go on ahead.”
The worry lines reappear. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”
The garage door rumbles open and closed, and Grady sits up in alarm. He just turned down a morning quickie. He rubs at his eyes, trying to shake the heavy melancholy from his head, then forces his body out of bed. What is wrong with him?
It takes him longer than usual, but he does pull on his jogging shorts, then his sneakers. He picks up his phone and earbuds and heads to the kitchen to get water, but as he’s filling the bottle, it all becomes too much bother. It’s too hot now, and the path will be too busy; he can’t decide on music to run to, and he overdid it on squats and lunges yesterday anyhow. He could play around on his guitar, maybe try some new songs to wake up his muse, but, if Duke and Stomp Records have their way, he may never play professionally again. The thought is so depressing, he can’t bear to touch his guitar. And he can’t spend one more frustrating day on that damn car that refuses to show any sign of life. Even knitting is too much to deal with.
He was wrong, Grady realizes, as he flops on the couch to flip through their seldom-used TV in the living room. He’s not slowly going insane; he’s quickly losing the will to live. He may not be a wild stallion, but he sure as hell feels like a trapped animal, one that’s given up the fight to ever be free again.
“Isn’t this where I left you?”
Nico finds him in bed. Grady was more bored than tired, but bed seemed to be the only place he could stand being, even with the sun still hanging on, low and soft in the sky. Nico checks his forehead, makes a perplexed sort of hmm, and disappears. When he comes back, he sets a mug and saucer on Grady’s side table.
“Fresh ginger tea. Whatever’s going on with you, that should help.”
“I’ll let it cool,” Grady says, watching the steam curl from the cup while Nico unwinds and undresses in the bathroom, then sits, quietly busy on his tablet, on the chaise longue in their bedroom as the sky darkens. When he comes to bed, he settles close behind Grady with his naked torso pressed to Grady’s back. He drags his lips across Grady’s shoulder and neck and jaw. Grady can’t look away from the tea that’s gone cold, can’t make himself respond, even though he wants to. He wants to want to. Nico sighs and leaves one last lingering kiss on Grady’s temple before flipping to his side away from Grady. “Good night.”
Blended Notes Page 11
