Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders (30 page)

“Yeah,” Jimmy nodded.
 
“I guess that’s why they won’t let me join the country club.”
 
Jimmy glanced at
cousin
Carl’s leg and wondered what had triggered the sudden palsy.
 
“You seem a little tense,” he said.
 
“Have you tried decaf?”

Carl spoke through clenched teeth.
 
“Well you come up in here messin’ up my putt
and talkin’ about what the sheriff said and … what’s this all about
anyway?
 
You with the
FBI or something?”
 
He feared
Jimmy was about to ask for a semen sample.

“I’m just doing a little investigative work is all,” Jimmy
said.
 
“Relax.”

Oh God
, Carl
thought,
they’ve caught me.
 
I’m done for.
 
When the truth gets out, I’m gonna get it from all directions.
 
Mr. Teasdale’s gonna wrap this putter around
my neck and my wife’ll use the driver to cave in my testicles.
 
How did they find out?
 
I thought the investigation was all
over.
 
Maybe I should call a lawyer.
 
No, wait until he makes an accusation,
otherwise I look guilty.
 
Meanwhile, I
better say something instead of just standing here.
 
“What kind of investigative work?”
 
Carl’s voice cracked slightly.

Jimmy looked at his note pad.
 
“Well, I figured since you and Tammy worked
together you might be able to answer some questions.”

“I already answered the sheriff’s questions.
 
Besides, I’m married and have a new baby.”

Jimmy nodded slightly unsure what to make of Carl’s
non-linear thinking.
 
“Were you and Tammy
close?”

“Were we close?”
 
Carl
leaned up against a display case trying to get his leg to stop trembling.
 
“Close for working in different departments,
I guess.”
 
Carl suddenly read a little
something extra into Jimmy’s question.
 
“What do you mean by close?”
 
He
squinted at Jimmy.

Jimmy thought poor Carl was going to have a stroke.
 
“Listen, I’m not with the police or
anything.
 
I’m writing a book about Eddie.
 
I’m just trying to find out a few things.”

Carl’s eyes flashed skyward in a
thank you, Jesus
glance.
 
“Not with the police” were the sweetest words Carl had ever heard.
 
He took a deep breath and leaned forward on
his putter.
 
His twitchy leg began to
settle.
 
“A book about Eddie, huh?”
 
Carl’s rusty wheels began to grind.
 
It seemed like there might be some way to
turn this whole thing to his advantage.
 
He just hoped he could figure out how before it was too late.
 
“What kinda book you writin’?”

“Biography,” Jimmy said.

Carl nodded sagely.
 
“What kinda biography?”

Jimmy hesitated, unsure how best to answer such a
question.
 
“Oh, uh, all about his life,
his music career, major events, like his wife’s death, that sort of thing.”

“What makes you think people wanna read about Eddie?
 
He ain’t never done
nothin’.”

“I’m thinking he might, now that he’s moved to Nashville.”

That’s when it occurred to Carl.
 
“Lemme ask you a question,” he said.
 
“You talked to the sheriff.
 
Are they still looking into this?
 
I mean I’d hate to think they’d stopped
looking for who killed her.”

“Sheriff said as far as he was concerned the case was closed
in Quitman County.
 
I think the FBI still considers it open but I
don’t know how active their investigation is.”

Carl nodded some more.
 
He figured if the Feds were still poking around on this thing, they
might end up talking to this fella writing the book about the husband of the
deceased, in which case Carl figured this would be a good chance to direct
attention away from
himself
and cast it in other
directions.
 
“All right,” Carl said,
“I’ll answer your questions, but you gotta promise not to use my name or
nothing if I tell you anything.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what kind of things you wanna know?”

Jimmy glanced at his notes.
 
“Well, for instance, I was wondering if you knew why Tammy and Eddie
used to make a two-and-a-half-hour round trip to Memphis
for Chinese food.
 
I mean, I hear that
place in Clarksdale serves a pretty
good egg roll.”

“What, Chow’s?”
 
Carl
shook his head.
 
“Nah, Tammy liked that Hunan
food what they serve up at that place in Memphis,
real spicy you know, with them little peppers.”
 
Carl curled up a pinkie finger to indicate the size of the peppers in
question.
 
“Things’re stronger’n horse
piss with the foam farted off,” he said.
 
“Turns out you’re not supposed to eat ‘em.”
 
Carl looked a little embarrassed.
 
“Anyhow, Chow’s serves that Mandarin
style.
 
It was too bland for Tammy.”

“Do you know if she was allergic to MSG?”

Carl shook his head.
 
“No, we weren’t so close that I’d know stuff lack ‘at.
 
But I’ll tell you somethin’ else I do know…”

44.

Every day for five days e-mails were sent to the head of
every record label in Nashville,
their A&R departments, and members of the local music press.
 
The content of the e-mail changed each
day.
 
Monday’s e-mail said:
 
“We found him!”

Tuesday’s said:
 
“You’ll want to meet him!”
 

Wednesday’s:
 
“He’s
more than the next ‘It Boy.’”

Thursday’s:
 
“We’ve got
the whole track!”
 

Friday’s:
 
“Vanderbilt
Plaza.
 
Acuff Conference
Room .
 
5 PM
.
 
Today.
 
Open Bar.”
 
  
Whereas
the level of intrigue generated by the e-mail campaign promised to put a lot of
butts in the seats, the open bar guaranteed an SRO crowd.
 
There was, of course, a great deal of
speculation within the industry as to the nature of the event.
 
All week long theories floated up and down
Music Row but by Friday the good money was on this being the culmination of an
elaborate promotional campaign by a major Dot.com set to introduce a new
Internet music delivery system or some clever new way to control the sale of
MP3 files.
 
The assumption was that the
Eddie Long character was the mythical spokesperson for the company.
 
Everyone agreed the campaign had been handled
expertly, probably out of Atlanta.

By
four forty-five
the Acuff Conference Room was near capacity.
 
At one end of the room there was a dais with a podium in the
middle.
 
Behind the dais, heavy maroon
curtains dropped from the ceiling to the floor.
 
Centered in front of the stage was an array of tables draped in white
linen and dotted with tealite candles floating in crystal bowls filled with icy
blue water.
 
The room was equipped with
an elaborate sound system which was playing something at a hushed volume.
 
Listening closely, one could just hear a
cello lurking in the background, but it was mostly drowned out by the sounds of
people enjoying themselves.

At the other end of the room, adjacent to the bar, was
a fabulous buffet of boiled shrimp, crab fingers, roast
beef
on buttermilk biscuits, and crudités vinaigrette.
 
And no one was being shy about it.
 
At odds with the fact that a great deal of
the conversation seemed to revolve around claims that nobody in the music
business was making any money in the current economic climate, the mood was
prosperous, upbeat, and friendly.
 
In
fact it was like a locker room with cocktails, especially given the
eight-to-one ratio of men to women.

“Not that it says anything about the state of the business,”
one well dressed woman was overheard saying to a reporter, “but out of the
twenty-five record labels, I’m the only female label head.”
 
Using a crab finger, she pointed across the
room at another woman, who happened to be talking to Megan.
 
“And she’s the only head of A&R in this
town who doesn’t have a dick.”
 
She
lowered her voice slightly and winked at the reporter.
 
“But trust me, she’s got brass balls.”

The head of A&R for one of the major labels, who had
been eavesdropping, elbowed his way into the conversation.
 
“Well now, to be fair, little lady,” he
drawled, “just let me point out that a lot of the women here tonight work in
all those A&R departments.”
 
He
smiled as if that settled that.

“Well, of course to be really fair, sugar,” the woman
replied in a condescending tone
,
 
“
there’d have to be a few more women
running those departments.”

Just then, the lights in the room dimmed, the cello faded,
and a disembodied voice came over the sound system.
 
“Ladies and gentlemen.”
 
The crowd fell silent as a spot light hit the
podium.
 
“Big Bill
Herron and Franklin Peavy.”
 
As
the maroon curtain parted and the two men took the stage, the crowd broke into
spontaneous applause — a knee-jerk reaction from having attended so many
awards ceremonies.
 
While the applause
continued, the guests looked at one another with expressions ranging from
curiosity to suspicion.
 
Big Bill took
the podium, Franklin hovered at his
side.
 
Both wore dark, tailored business
suits with matching cowboy hats.

Big Bill held up a hand asking for quiet.
 
“Thank you very much for coming this
afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
 
For
anyone who doesn’t know us, my name is Bill Herron.”
 
He held a hand out toward Franklin.
 
“And this is my partner Franklin Peavy.”
 
Franklin
took a slight bow.
 
“Now I suspect the
question most of you are asking yourselves
is,
what
the hell has gotten into Herron and Peavy that they’re giving away crabmeat and
cocktails?”
 
The crowd laughed and nodded
collectively.
 
“Well
don’t
worry
about that, Franklin’ll
find a way to make it recoupable against somebody’s royalties.”
 
The crowd laughed again, this time less
perfunctorily.

“Okay, so now you’re asking yourself, what’s this all
about?
 
Well, I’ll tell you.”
 
Big Bill took the mic from the stand and,
followed by the spotlight, began pacing the dais.
 
Franklin
moved to the far end of the stage where the sound gear was stacked.
 
“Over the past several weeks,” Big Bill said,
“there’s been a lot of talk about a certain song drifting around out there in
the ether…”
 
He waggled his free hand
in the air.
 
“. .
.otherwise
known as the Internet, the World Wide Web.
 
The dubya, dubya, dubya.”
 
His bug eyes bulged a bit more than
usual.
 
“Most of you have already heard
half the song.”
 
Big Bill pointed across
the stage to Franklin who was standing at the controls.
 
“Right now, we are pleased to be able to play
the rest of it for you.”

The spotlight winked out and the overheads faded to
black.
 
The only light in the room came
from the tiny candles floating in the crystal bowls.
 
Franklin
hit the ‘play’ button and a moment later the tones of a mandolin and a pedal
steel guitar merged to remind the room of the feeling of loss.
 
The fiddle and Eddie’s guitar joined in a few
seconds later and everyone suddenly and inexplicably felt buoyed by hope.
 
The piano, bass, and drums gave them strength
and Eddie’s voice, singing words they’d all heard before, helped them feel
release.
 
It was an incredible and
visceral response, all the more remarkable because of the nature of the
audience.
 
These were hardened music
professionals who heard and dismissed a hundred songs a week, people whose
response to music tended more toward calculation than celebration.
 
But still, there it was.

From his place on the dais, Big Bill could see the wonder in
the candle-lit faces as the song played.
 
But he knew it wasn’t just the song.
 
He knew it was also the sound of the recording itself that had heads
tilted in awe toward the monitors.
 
There
was a warmth and immediacy to it that they hadn’t heard in years.
 
It was free of digital sterility and binary
exactness and was all the more accessible because of its slight
imperfections.
 
Big Bill also knew part
of the effect came from hearing a full arrangement of the song for the first
time.
 
Having become familiar with the
solo guitar version, there was something fulfilling about hearing it with a
complete band.
 
And when the cello slipped
in under the bridge, it seemed familiar, like something subtle from a favorite
old song.
 
No one realized they’d been
listening to the cello track on a tape loop for the first thirty minutes of the
night.
 
All these elements combined to
create the exact effect Big Bill had intended.
 
Number 99 my ass.

When the song ended, there was a moment of silence before
one of the A&R executives said to Franklin,
as seriously as he’d ever said anything, “Play it again.”
 
So he did.
 
This time, part way through the song, the executives from each label
huddled together to discuss strategy.
 
They knew Herron and Peavy hadn’t called them together just to hear this
thing.

When it ended the second time, the crowd just stood there,
mute.
 
The house lights came up and Big
Bill looked out to measure the stunned faces.
 
He took the microphone and waited. He wanted them to think about it for
a moment.
 
“Well,” he said, “I guess the
silence speaks for itself.”
 
Big Bill
knew every executive in the room wanted the song but he wasn’t interested in
selling Eddie off in pieces.
 
Herron and
Peavy had a package deal in mind and they intended to wade deep in the revenue
streams.
 
“Franklin and I have had the
great good fortune to sign the young artist who wrote and sang that song,” Big
Bill said.
 
“His name is Eddie Long and
before I bring him out I want to talk a minute about the changing nature of our
business.”
 
Bill paused a moment to sip
his drink.