Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders (4 page)

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 the 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.

Jimmy had approached her immediately.
 
“Hi, I’m Jimmy Rogers,” he said.
 
“I love your radio show.
 
Especially your character
voices.”
 
He smiled.

She smiled back.
 
“Thanks,” she said.
 
“Which one’s your
favorite?”

He pretended to think for a moment.
 
“That would have to be the Sweet Potato
Queen.
 
Very authentic.
 
You really capture the spud-ness of the
character.”

Megan fingered the white glass necklace circling her
throat.
 
“Yeah, she’s one of my favorites.”
 
She glanced across the room and waved at
someone before returning her attention to Jimmy.
 
“So, you were saying?”

Jimmy gestured at her apparel.
 
“Love your outfit too.”

“Thanks.
 
It’s Michael
Kors, except the shoes, of course.”
 
She
kicked a foot out to show off one of the pumps.
 
“Manolo Blahnik.”

“Of course.”
 
Jimmy kicked out a foot, mimicking her.
 
He was wearing cheap, scuffed penny
loafers.
 
“Men’s Warehouse,” he said.
 
“Fifty percent off.”

Megan looked.
 
“No.
 
Those?
 
And they look so… J. C. Penny.”

“You just have to know how to shop,” Jimmy said.
 
“But I compensate for my lack of fashion
sense by being cute.”

Megan stepped back and gave Jimmy the once over.
  
He was a boyish twenty-eight with an
aversion to suits.
 
He dressed to
accommodate his image and his income as a writer — tan Dockers, white button
down shirt, occasional sports coat.
 
He
had thick dark hair and a thin nose surrounded by a constant look of bemusement
or confusion — it was hard to tell which.
 
His eyes were trustworthy, lending him an aspect of decency.
 
“Still,” she said, “cute as you are, you
might want to consider shopping somewhere that doesn’t have the word
‘warehouse’ in the name.”

They flirted for an hour or so before slipping away from the
conference and going for drinks at Nick’s where Jimmy tried to talk her into
becoming his fashion consultant in exchange for his being her sex slave.

Now, three months later, while Jimmy was still marveling at
her beauty, Megan lost her bucket of quarters in the slots.
 
“Oh well.”
 
She glanced at her watch.
 
“Show
starts in ten minutes.
 
Let’s go on up.”
 
They went upstairs and were seated at a table
in the middle of the room.
 
Jimmy pulled
a small spiral notebook from his inside coat pocket and laid it on the table
next to his camera.

When the waitress came over, she pointed at the camera as if
it were a snake.
 
“Sir, you can’t have a
camera in here.
 
It’s casino rules.”
 
Jimmy reached into his jacket and pulled out
a stack of laminated press credentials.
 
He had one from Harrison County Civil Defense, one from the Associated
Press, one from
The Sun-Herald
, one
of his former employers, and one from the casino’s PR department.
 
Jimmy handed her the last one.
 
“Okay,” she said.
 
“I just have to check.”
 
She handed the card back and took their
order.

Jimmy had seen Eddie perform almost thirty times in the past
several years, and he had written reviews of every show.
 
In fact, Jimmy had written the first
published account of Eddie Long in concert.
 
It was a positive review that Jimmy sold to the paper in Natchez.
 
Since then, Jimmy had sold several more
reviews in addition to a short interview with Eddie.
 
Eddie showed his gratitude for all the good
exposure by buying a great many rounds of drinks.
 
Between the liquor and the mutual admiration,
they’d developed a friendship.

As a writer Jimmy aspired to more than doing concert reviews
and lurking in the shadows hoping for disgraceful photo ops.
 
He wanted to write something more
substantial, something big, though he didn’t know exactly what — a book, a
play, something, as long as it was about music or musicians.
 
Jimmy hadn’t hit on it yet but he was
looking.

The waitress arrived with two draft beers and a deep fried
Cajun onion bloom just as the lights went down.
 
An announcer’s voice came over the loudspeaker system.
 
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Gold Coast
Extravaganza Casino is proud to present a rising star in country music.
 
Please put your hands together for Mr. Eddie
Long!”

The crowd gave an enthusiastic round of applause as the
curtains parted in the darkness.
 
All
they could see was the silhouette of a tall, Stetson-topped figure stepping up
to the mic stand.
 
Eddie let the room
settle until all they could hear was the faint ping-ping-ping of the downstairs
slot machines.
 
Then, through the hush,
came the sound of Eddie tapping the soundboard of his guitar as he counted down
to the start of the first song.
 
“
One.
. . two… uh one, two, three.”
 
The spotlight lit him up like a rocket
launch.
 
And when Eddie let the big
flattop Gibson
sing
, it was like he’d closed an
electrical circuit.
 
A stray current
surged through the room, charging the crowd.
 
Hair stood on end as Eddie held the guitar tight up under his right arm
while leaning left so the head of the guitar tilted just a bit downward.
 
He cocked his head the way he’d seen in a
picture of Hank Williams and smiled his way through an up tempo honky-tonker
that brought the audience to its feet.
 
Megan was the first to stand.
 
She’d seen him a few times with Jimmy and she liked what she saw.

Eddie sounded better than he ever had.
 
His playing was assured, his voice was strong
and clear, and his stage presence was undeniable.

The power of music never ceased to amaze Jimmy.
 
He picked up his camera and squared Eddie in
the viewfinder.
 
When Eddie turned and
looked to the middle of the room, the light jumped under the brim of his hat
and caught his face at the perfect angle.
 
That’s when Jimmy noticed Eddie’s smile for the first time.
 
It was a perfect and winning.
 
Jimmy adjusted the focus and took a series of
photos.
 
Click, whirr.
 
Click, whirr.
 
Click, whirr.
 
Jimmy’s mind
suddenly began spinning like the motor drive of his camera and, after about
five shots, an idea formed.
 
The last shot
in particular — Eddie seeming to look straight into the lens — stuck in
Jimmy’s mind like a thumb tack.
 
He laid
the camera on the table and looked around, measuring the faces in the crowd.
 
They were mesmerized.
 
Eddie owned them.
 
At that moment Jimmy realized what he wanted
to write.
 
He grabbed his pen and started
scribbling furiously on his note pad.
 

Megan barely noticed.
 
She was riveted by Eddie’s smile and his performance as he worked through
his usual set, a perfectly paced roller coaster of ballads, mid-tempo
traditional country, and upbeat Texas
swingers.
 
He ended his set with an up
tempo country rocker that brought everybody back to their feet and elicited a
dozen rebel yells.
 
The stage was thirty
feet wide and Eddie used every inch of it, pouring tremendous energy into his
show.