Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders (12 page)

“Bill, if you can’t do nine, you gotta let me go across the
street with it.
 
I know I can get nine
from Johnny Rae and that’ll let me pay you back with the interest and I can
still take Lynn for that
treatment.”

Big Bill face drained of all humanity.
 
He picked up the agreement and read for a
moment before thumping the page with his finger.
 
“Says here I got thirty days to come up with
a counter offer,” he said.
 
“So I guess
I’m gonna need some time to think it over.”
 
He folded the agreement and slipped it back in the envelope,
then
he stood up.
 
“I’ll call you at the end of next month.”
 
He smiled.
 
“How’s that sound?”

Buddy swallowed hard.
 
Visions of Lynn’s funeral
passed his narrowing field of vision.
 
“I
ain’t got thirty days.
 
Doctor said Lynn’s
only got a couple weeks without that treatment, and even then he can’t say for
sure.”

Big Bill nodded.
 
“Well, my offer for fifteen grand still stands.
 
You can take that right now.”
 
He winked at Buddy.
 
“Either way, it’s up to you.”

20.

The Dirty Dawg Howse in Starkville,
Mississippi catered to fans of the
Mississippi State Bulldogs.
 
The walls
were covered with team pennants, schedules, flags, and neon beer signs.

Boomer and Skeets were second string tackles.
 
They were at the Dirty Dawg Howse drinking
beers with a couple of girls they’d just met.
 
Naturally the two big boys were trying to impress the co-eds.
 
“What the hell you tryin’
to say?”
 
Boomer hammered a fist
on the table top.
 
He demanded an answer
and, at six-foot-four, 280 pounds, you’d think he’d get one pretty quick.

But Skeets was six-five and 275, so he wasn’t particularly
intimidated.
 
In fact he just sat there,
smirking, peeling the label off his bottle, wondering if he was getting laid
tonight.

“Don’t just sit there grinnin’ like a barrel of possum
heads,” Boomer said.
 
“You
sayin’ I don’t know what I’m talkin’ about?”

Skeets leaned onto one of his beefy forearms.
 
“I’m sayin’ you can’t measure a snake ‘till
it’s stretched out dead.
 
What are you,
from Alabama or something?
 
I’m speakin’ English.”
 
He looked at the girls and winked.
 
They giggled.

Without taking his eyes off Skeets, Boomer turned his head
slightly and spit some tobacco juice onto the floor.
 
“Shit, boy, you better put it down where the
goats can get it if you expect anybody to understand what—
”
 
Boomer
didn’t get to explain his point
fully because Skeeter suddenly hit him upside the head with a beer bottle.
 
All hell broke loose as the two behemoths
exploded into one another sending bottles and ashtrays crashing to the
floor.
 
The girls jumped up from the
table, squealing, tickled that two rutting bucks would put on a show just for
them.

Then, out of the blue, a screeching chaos roared over the
house loud- speakers.
 
“Hey, goddammit!”
a voiced howled over the sound system.
 
Everyone in the place stopped and turned to look at the small stage in the
corner of the room.
 
There they saw Eddie
Long standing with his guitar and his eyes burning.
 
He had a bottleneck wedged on one of his
fingers which he ran up and down the neck of the guitar while torturing the
strings into a caterwaul.
 
The place fell
silent, all eyes on Eddie.
 
“Now, I’m
here to play some music.
 
You two wanna
play Gladiator, go somewhere else.”
 
There was a pause before the crowd applauded Eddie’s command of the
situation.
 
They laughed and hooted some
more as Boomer and Skeets and the two girls were escorted from the place.

Eddie had booked a weekend gig at the Dirty Dawg Howse.
 
It was his first since Tammy’s funeral.
 
He thought a college crowd would be a good
focus group for the new song.
 
He opened
his set with ‘Dixie National,’ one of his upbeat honkey-tonkers,
then
went into his usual repertoire.
 
About fifteen minutes into his set, Eddie saw
familiar faces at the door.
 
Jimmy and
Megan had driven up from Jackson.
 
They worked their way through the crowd and
found a table in the back.
 
Megan tried
to make eye contact with Eddie while Jimmy ordered beers.

Eddie was working through his version of ‘Act
Naturally.’
 
The crowd sang along with
the only line they knew, “. .
.
and
all I gotta do is,
act naturally
…”
 
Eddie looked
great in the bright light, wearing his black jeans and white t-shirt with an
unbuttoned work shirt over it.
 
He moved
like nobody’s business up there and, by the end of the song, the audience was
his.
 
“Thank you,” he said.
 
“Thank you very much.”
 
Eddie made eye contact and acknowledged Jimmy
and Megan with
that subtle upward nod musicians
on
stage share with their close fans.

Eddie pulled a barstool over to the mic and sat down for the
first time that night.
 
He dropped out of
his antic, fun guy persona.
 
“If you
folks don’t mind, I’m gonna slow things down just a bit and do something new
for you.”
 
His tone was somber, almost
confessional.
 
The lights dimmed as Eddie
prepared for his big moment.
 
He slid the
capo down a fret and strummed the guitar slowly once, then again.
 
He tuned one string, then another, stretching
things out and built the anticipation.
 
This was, after all, theater.

 
When Eddie looked up
from his guitar, the crowd saw a changed man.
 
The hundred watt smile had been turned off and there was something
different about his body language and his gaze.
 
Eddie was serious, wounded, shocked, and ready to confess.
 
Having seen Eddie’s show so many times, Jimmy
sensed this more than anyone.
 
He’d never
seen Eddie put on this mask.
 
He felt
something of consequence in the air, so he clicked his pen, ready to write.

Eddie was still strumming the guitar slowly, a chord change
here,
a
chord change there.
 
“This time last month,” he said, “I got the
notion in my hard head that I pretty much knew how things were going to turn
out in my life, like I was in control of things.
 
I had a wife.
 
I had some gigs lined up playing my music and figured it was just a
matter of time ‘fore I hit it big.”
 
Eddie
cracked a wry smile and shook his head.
 
“To quote a famous Mississippi
songwriter, ‘Have you ever seen a bigger fool than me?’”
 
He bent a note and tried to look ironic.
 
“Well, it turns out I was wrong.
 
Turns out this is the only gig I’ve got lined
up in the foreseeable future.
 
I don’t
know if I’m ever going to make it to the big time, and even if I do, I won’t be
able to share it with my wife because … because she died not long
ago.”
 
He strummed a minor chord,
beautiful and sad, and let that sink in.
 
The place was stone
silent,
even the bartenders
had stopped to listen.

Eddie resumed strumming the guitar slowly.
 
“She was beautiful and I loved her, I gotta
say that, but she’s gone now and…
well
, it just
goes to show you…”
 
He shook his
head.
 
It looked for a moment like he
might cry, but he kept it together.
 
“Anyway, after she died, I moved up to Nashville
where something happened I can’t really explain.
 
I can’t put words to it, but one night, it
was late and I was struggling with all my emotions about what had happened
and—
”
 
Eddie
stopped playing and he leaned forward onto the body of the guitar.
 
“And all the sudden, a song just… I
dunno, it just sort of poured out of me.
 
Like I said, I can’t explain it.
 
It
just .
 
. .
happened
.”
 
He resumed playing.
 
“Anyway, I
know her
soul’s
in this song and I’d like to do it for
you now.
 
This is the first time I’ve
played this for anybody, so bear with me.
 
I hope you like it.
 
It’s called,
‘
It Wasn’t Supposed To
End That Way.’”

Most of the women in the place were crying before Eddie
started to sing.
 
Megan was in tears and Jimmy
was on the verge, wiping his eyes so he could see enough to make notes in his
notepad.
 
He wanted to get that speech
down verbatim.
 
The song opened in a
medium slow tempo, a bar or two of lament.
 
It put Megan in mind of a sad hymn with each change softly chosen.
 
Then he started to sing, and it came straight
from his soul.

When the song was over, there were no dry eyes in the
house.
 
Jimmy was astonished.
 
This was as close to perfect as a song
got.
 
Eddie soaked up the applause and
humbly thanked the crowd.
 
His melancholy
smile conveyed appreciation as well as
a sadness
appropriate to the moment.
 
The crowd’s
response confirmed that Eddie had that rare and valuable thing known as a
hit.
 
After a moment, he got off the
stool, took a modest bow,
then
resumed his usual
set.
 
He got the house rocking with a
Steve Earle cover followed by an original.
 
Then he played himself off the stage with Lefty Frizzell’s, “She’s Gone,
Gone,
Gone
.”
 
He
got a standing ovation and came back out for a second bow, but he didn’t do an
encore.
 
He left them wanting more.
 
Eddie took off his guitar and held it
up.
 
“I’m gonna take a little break,
folks.
 
I’ll be back in about twenty
minutes, so stick around and be sure to tip your waitresses.”

After his set Eddie joined Jimmy and Megan at their
table.
 
Megan jumped up and wrapped her
arms around him.
 
“Eddie, I am so sorry
about Tammy,” she said.
 
“The song is beautiful.”

“Thanks.
 
I appreciate
that.”
 
He held on to Megan, enjoying the
feel of her sympathy.
 
“And thanks for your
note and the flowers.
 
That was real
nice.”

As Jimmy waited for Megan to unwrap herself from Eddie, he
wondered about the etiquette of grief hugs.
 
Weren’t you supposed to keep your pelvis away from the other
person’s?
 
Megan obviously didn’t think
so, and Eddie didn’t seem to mind.
 
Jimmy
thought hugging Eddie would be the emotionally correct thing for him to do, but
the Dirty Dawg Howse seemed like the wrong place to do it.
 
Besides, he wasn’t sure they were quite that
close.
 
When the time came, he opted for
a firm left hand on the back side of a regular handshake, a sincere minister
sort of thing.
 
“I’m really sorry,” he
said.
 
“How’re you doing?”

Eddie shrugged.
 
“All
right, I guess.
 
All things
considered.”
 
They sat down and a waitress
brought a round for the table.
 
Megan
reached over and put her hand on Eddie’s.
 
“I wish you had a recording of that, I’d love to play it on my show.”

Eddie smiled.
 
“Really?”
 
He gave
Jimmy a
How about that?
look.
 
He turned back to Megan.
 
Her hand was still on his.
 
“That’d be great,” Eddie said.
 
“I mean, I think it’s the best thing I’ve
ever written.
 
But when someone in the
business, I mean, you’re a professional radio programmer—”

“Look, I’m just the assistant music director, but my boss
listens to me.”

“Still, that means a lot, coming from you.”

Jimmy wrote something in his notebook then looked up.
 
“It really is a great song.
 
You really have something there.
 
I mean, seriously, that’s a hit.”

“Thanks, man, I appreciate that.
 
But I tell ya, if that’s what you gotta go
through for a great song, I’m gonna have to find a new job.”

Jimmy nodded.
 
“How
long did it take to write?
 
You said it
just poured out of you, what was that like?”
 
He was poised over his writing pad.

Eddie smiled.
 
“You’re
really serious about writing that book, aren’t you?”

“Hell yes, I’m serious.
 
I’ve already written about thirty pages,” Jimmy said.
 
“It’s a little scattered and I’ll have to go
back and get some information about your ‘formative years’ but, yeah, I’m
serious.
 
And I’ll tell you, after
hearing that song, I’m more convinced than ever you’re going to make it.”