Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders (5 page)

He was at one end of the stage as he neared the end of the
last song.
 
With one hand holding his hat
and the other holding his guitar, Eddie started running.
 
He fell to his knees and slid to a stop in
the center of the stage where he leaned back and hit the closing licks.
 
Anyone not already standing shot to their feet.
 
Bathed in the spotlight, Eddie held his arms
out to the side and shut his eyes, smiling all the while.
 
He was something to look at, all right, and
he got a standing ovation.
 
After a
minute, he got to his feet, tipped his hat, and took a bow.
 
“I wanna thank you folks for coming out and
having some fun with us here at the Gold Coast Extravaganza.”

A woman in the crowd screamed, “I love you, Eddie!”

Eddie smiled.
 
“Why, I
love you too, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat again.
 
“I also love everybody in the upstairs office
for having me here this week.
 
I really
do appreciate it.”
 
He winked knowingly
at the crowd.
 
“And so does my
wife.”
 
He got a good laugh with
that.
 
“Ya’ll have a good night,” he
said, wrapping things up.
 
“And remember,
friends don’t let friends gamble at the other casinos.”
 
With that, Eddie spun on his boot heel and
disappeared behind the curtains.
 
A
moment later, the house lights came up and the canned music came over the house
speakers.

As the standing ovation trickled out, Megan sat down and
popped some fried onion into her mouth.
 
“Wow.
 
I can’t believe he doesn’t
have a record deal.”
 
Megan felt she was
a fair judge of musical talent.
 
She was,
after all, the assistant music director at the radio station in Jackson
in addition to being on the air.
 
“That’s
the best show we’ve seen him do, don’t you think?”
 
After several years in radio, Megan had
purged much of her southern accent.
 
She
could call it back in a flash, and she did so regularly in service of some of
her radio character voices, but on an everyday basis she spoke with a
geographically nonspecific broadcast intonation.

Jimmy nodded, but didn’t speak.
 
He was preoccupied, scribbling furiously in
his note pad.
 
He was hunched over the
table, his dark hair hanging down, obscuring his face.
 
Megan was about to say something when she
felt a warm hand on her shoulder.
 
“Hey,
good lookin’.”

 
Megan turned and
looked up.
 
“Eddie!”
 
She turned her head and offered her cheek
which Eddie kissed in a gentlemanly fashion.
 
“What a great show!”

“Thanks.”
 
Eddie spun
a chair around and sat in it with his arms resting on the back.
 
“I tell you what, it sure felt good.”

Megan put her hand on Eddie’s arm.
 
“I just told Jimmy I can’t believe you don’t
have a record deal yet.
 
But I just know
it’s
gonna happen for you.
 
I really believe that.”

“I appreciate that, I really do.”
 
Eddie scanned the room.
 
“I heard some A&R guy from Nashville’s
supposed to be down here doing some scouting, but,” he shrugged, “nothing yet.”

Jimmy, still lost in his writing, hadn’t acknowledged
Eddie’s arrival.
 
Eddie looked at
Megan.
 
“Man, you’d think he might at
least look up when a guy kisses his girlfriend and sits down at his table.
 
Hell, I’da already punched somebody.”
 
He winked.

Megan smiled and lapsed into the exaggerated Southern Belle
character she used on her radio show.
 
“Why Mr. Long, you’d defend my honah with violence?”
 
She fanned her face then put the back of her
hand against her forehead.
 
“I believe I
might swoon
. ”

Eddie shook his head in mock disdain.
 
“Miss Megan, I declare, you deserve better
than this shabby treatment.
 
Why don’t
you come live with me?”

“You mean, aside from the fact that you’re married?”

“Yeah, aside from that.”
 
He nodded toward Jimmy.
 
“What’s he doing?”

Megan shrugged.
 
“Don’t know.
 
He’s been working on
it since your first song.”

Jimmy suddenly looked up.
 
“And you’re not going to be disappointed either.”
 
He extended a hand to Eddie.
 
“Great show.”

“Thanks, man.”

“And stop hitting on my girlfriend.”

“My bad,” Eddie said as he tried to get a look at what Jimmy
had written.
 
“You’re not writing another
review, are you?
 
I don’t think there’s a
newspaper left for you to sell it to.”

“I think you’re right.”
 
Jimmy pulled his hair back and smiled devilishly.
 

Megan reached for the notebook, but Jimmy wouldn’t let her
have it.
 
“Ah, ah, ah.
 
Not yet.”
 
Jimmy folded his hands over the pad and looked at Megan, then at
Eddie.
 
“Not five minutes ago I had what
I believe you’d call a revelation.
 
Actually I had two.”

Eddie held his hands up to testify.
 
“Well then, amen brother!
 
Twice.”

“C’mon,” Megan said, “just tell us.”

“I finally figured out what I’m going to write,” Jimmy
said.
 
“My master
project.”

“Well don’t tell me
it’s
songs,”
Eddie said.
 
“Song writin’ ain’t as easy
as you think.
 
I just make it look that
way.”

Jimmy got serious.
 
“All right, now you have to see this as a long-term project, okay?
 
No telling how long it’s going to take.”
 
He turned and pointed to Eddie. “That depends
on you.”

Eddie tipped his hat backwards on his head and threw up his
hands.
 
“I give up.”

Jimmy opened the spiral notebook and put it on the table for
Eddie and Megan to read.
 
There, in large
block letters were the words: THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT — THE EDDIE LONG
STORY.
 
“I’m going to write your
biography.”
 
Jimmy sat back with his hands
behind his head.
 
He was beaming.

Eddie broke into a huge, flattered smile.
 
“Damn, son.
 
You serious?”
 
He looked at Megan, then at Jimmy.
 
“I think it’s a great idea.”
 
He
turned to Megan.
 
“What do you think?”

Megan couldn’t help but smile.
 
She knew Jimmy was miserable reviewing Little
River Band concerts, and she could see how enamored he was of this idea.
 
“I think it’s perfect.”

“I do see one small problem,” Eddie said.
 
“Seein’ how nobody knows who the heck I am,
why would anybody want to publish my life story?”

Jimmy pointed at Eddie.
 
“Because my second revelation was that you are going to be famous.”

“That was your other revelation?”

“Yessir.
 
And who’s been following your career from the
beginning?
 
Who better to chronicle your
development from struggling singer-songwriter to Nashville
superstar?”

“I think he’s right,” Megan said, reaching over to touch
Eddie’s arm again.
 
“You’re too talented
not to succeed.”
 
She let her hand
linger.

Jimmy nodded.
 
“I’ve
seen you, what, thirty, forty times?
 
Something made me keep coming back to see you, right?”

“I thought it was ‘
cause
I kept
buying you drinks.”

“Didn’t hurt, but that’s not it,” Jimmy said.
 
“I watched the crowd react to you tonight and
it struck me plain as all get out that you have what it takes to make it in the
business.
 
Your performance gets better
every time I see you.
 
You’re good
looking, you’re talented, and you’re a pro.
 
Look, it’s no skin off your nose, right?
 
I’m the one taking the chance.
 
Whaddya say?”

Eddie shrugged.
 
“What
the hell.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Megan repeated, her hand still
on Eddie’s arm.
 

“Me too,” said Eddie.
 
“Seems like a helluva lot of work, though.”

“Hey, if anyone can do it,” Megan said, “it’s you.”

“Thanks.”
 
Jimmy
appreciated the comment, but he noticed Megan was looking at Eddie when she
said it.

6.

Tammy had inherited the old four poster bed from her
grandmother.
 
It was a queen with five
wooden slats underneath to support the box spring and mattress.
 
It had six slats originally, but one got lost
in a move about twenty years ago.
 
And
now, in a moment Tammy had been looking forward to since Eddie announced his
road trip, those old slats were being sorely tested.

Tammy dug her heels into Carl’s back and urged him on.
 
“Oh, baby, yes!
 
Find the spot!
 
Find the spot!”
 
She tended to direct the action as much as
participate in it.
 
“Right there,
baby!
 
Now give it to me!”
 
Carl didn’t mind.
 
It was better than trying to guess what she
wanted, the way he had to do with his wife.
 
“Rock me, baby!
 
Yes!”
 
Carl was screwing to beat bobtail and
thrusting so furiously that he soon worked the slats out of place causing one
side of the box spring and mattress to crash to the ground, leaving the lovers
at a precarious angle.

“Whoa!”
 
Carl grabbed
the headboard.

“Don’t stop!” Tammy hollered.
 
“I’m almost there.
 
Go!
 
Go!”
 
Carl hung on and, after
another minute of turbulence, finally delivered the goods.
 
Tammy trembled and jerked and made a noise
that sounded like a yodel.
 
“Oh, baby,”
she cooed afterwards.
 
She let out a long
sigh and closed her eyes.

For Carl, the guilt always came right after he did.
 
It never showed up in time to keep him from
doing wrong, so he always did it, and he always felt bad right after.
 
Carl was lying there at a sideways forty-five
degree angle, fretting about the potential consequences of sleeping with
another man’s wife when Tammy nudged him.
 
“Carl, honey, be a sweetheart and fix the bed, would you?
 
I’m gonna get something to eat.”

“Bring something back,” he said.
 
As long as he was breaking rules, he thought,
he might as well go all the way.
 
His own
wife didn’t allow eating in bed.
 
Carl climbed out of the bed, put on his
briefs, and put the slats back in place.
 
A minute later, Tammy came in carrying three cardboard food
containers.
 
“Whacha got there?” Carl
asked.

Tammy held the boxes up one at a time.
 
“Orange beef, mu shu pork, and shrimp in
garlic sauce.”
 
She handed the shrimp to
Carl.

“The hell’d you get Chinese food?”

“
Me
and Eddie went to Feng Shang’s
in Memphis coupla days ago.
 
I always order way too much so I can have
leftovers.”
 
Tammy climbed in bed and
started in on the orange beef.

Carl sat there looking dumbstruck.
 
“You didn’t bring
no
beer?”
 
Tammy didn’t respond; the answer
seemed too obvious.
 
Carl grunted as he
got out of bed.
 
He headed for the
kitchen.

“Hey, puddin’?”
Tammy called from
the bedroom.
 
“Bring me one too, okay?”

Carl gritted his teeth, grabbed two beers and went back to
the bedroom.
 
He climbed back in and
started nibbling around the broccoli stems in the shrimp dish.
 
“You know who’s working the register today?”

“I think
it’s
Mary Jo, why?”

“No reason, just curious.”
 
Carl and Tammy worked together at the Dollar Store.
 
He was in sporting goods.
 
She was in the young women’s department.
 
Carl finished off the shrimp then tilted the
box to drink the last of the garlickly juice.

Tammy looked at him,
then
tapped
her chin with a finger.
 
“You got some
sauce on you.”

Carl wiped his mouth with the sheet, burped, then started in
on the mu shu pork.
 
“Hey, lemme have a
bite of that orange beef,” he said.