Bill Fitzhugh - Fender Benders

by Bill Fitzhugh

  Jimmy just stared at him. “So you’re sticking with that story?”

  “What, that I’m not guilty? Got to, don’t you think?” Eddie cocked his head to the side and pointed at Jimmy. “But I’ll say this. That book of your’s damn near convinced me that I was guilty. It really is a good read. Nice pacing, all those fine details and some damn keen speculation. All that MSG stuff, compound 1080, the deaths in Terrebonne Parish and Gulfport and Lee County all tied to my old touring schedule. Man I was impressed.” He put his hand on the book. “That’s a good piece of work.”

  Jimmy paused as he thought about something. “Lee County?” He consulted a map in his head. “Mississippi?” He started to wonder if Eddie had killed somebody in Tupelo, but of course every state south of the Mason-Dixon line had a Lee County.

  “No,” Eddie said. “Alabama. Isn’t Tuscaloosa in Lee County?”

  Jimmy thought about it for a minute. “No Tuscaloosa’s in Tuscaloosa County. Lee’s on the other side of the state. That’s where Auburn is.”

  “Whatever.” Eddie stood abruptly and went to get another cup of coffee.

  “You used to play at Auburn, didn’t you? Frat parties?”

  “Matter of fact, I did.” It sounded like Eddie was smiling but he was facing the other way so Jimmy couldn’t say for sure. “But that’s not the point.” Eddie sat back down at the table.

  “So what is?”

  “The point is I didn’t kill anybody. But I’ll say this: whoever did kill those people, you gotta admit, he was smart. No two ways around that. That’s what I was thinking as I read your book. Man, that is one smart son of a gun. And you know what else I was thinking?” Jimmy stared at Eddie without answering. “All right, I’ll tell you. It was almost like somebody was trying to frame me. You know what I mean? All that evidence was just too damn perfect considering I didn’t do it. So I started wondering who would know enough about me to make it look like I was a killer? And you know what? I could only think of two people, you and Tammy. And since she’s dead, that left me thinking it mighta been you. I mean, who better to frame me than my biographer?”

  Jimmy couldn’t believe it. Eddie almost sounded like he believed what he was saying. “You bother to assign a motive to my crime?”

  “Well jealousy seemed like the best bet,” Eddie said. “You were pissed that Megan left you for me and well, you acted out. Is that it? Is that why you tried to frame me, Jimmy?”

  “Well, Eddie, that makes perfect sense except for the fact that most of the victims were dead before Megan left me.”

  Eddie looked at Jimmy for a minute. “Well you got a point there,” he said. “But I can’t figure out who else might’ve done it. Guess it’s just one of life’s mysteries.”

  “I guess.” Jimmy looked at his reflection in his coffee. He was thinking about his contract for the continuing web version of Eddie’s biography. He figured this was probably his last opportunity to get some first-person material. “So what now? You about to start your next album or are you still writing songs?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Eddie said. “Turns out I finished the last song a few days ago. And I tell you what, it was worse than giving birth.” Eddie told Jimmy how he’d slipped into an emotional tailspin after Big Bill’s murder. “It’s all a big blur,” he said. “I can’t even remember the sequence of events after that shot fired. One second I was on stage receiving the award, then all hell broke loose. Screaming women and cops and blood and paramedics, and the next thing I remember is being stuck here in the house, all alone, trying to forget something I didn’t think I ever could.” Eddie fixed his eyes on Jimmy’s. “I was looking square at Big Bill when it happened. I couldn’t erase that image no matter how hard I tried. His expression. . . it was a terrible thing to see.” Eddie looked down at his coffee again and shook his head slowly. “For a while afterwards, every time I closed my eyes I saw Bill’s head snap back just as that white cotton wall turned red.” Eddie looked up. “Every time I fell asleep that rifle would fire again.” He slapped his hand on the book, startling Jimmy. “Woke me up like a cannon shot. It was like being haunted. I can’t say for sure, but it seemed like Big Bill looked at me just before he fell down, like he wanted me to undo what’d happened, like it was my fault or something. That’s not the sort of thing you want burned into your mind, right?”

  “I can see how that might become bothersome.”

  “Damn right it was bothersome. And making matters worse was the media out there.” He gestured toward the front gate. “They’ve had me trapped in here for weeks. After the funeral, I started drinking, you know, trying to get some sleep, trying to forget what happened, trying to erase that image in my head. I disconnected the phones and the TV and the computer. I just wanted to be alone. It felt like I’d lost my own father and they wouldn’t give me time to grieve. And then I started seeing Bill’s face whenever I closed my eyes and, hell, I thought I was going crazy.”

  “Funny, I would’ve expected you to be seeing Tammy’s face.”

  Eddie smirked. “Except of course I didn’t see her die, did I?”

  Jimmy shrugged. He was looking for something in Eddie’s eyes — remorse, guilt, pleasure, something. But they revealed nothing.

  “Anyway, it took me while to figure out what the hell was going on.”

  “Which was?”

  “I finally realized it was another song trying to get out.” He held up a hand. “I swear, it was worse than after Tammy died.”

  “So you wrote a song. Then what?”

  “Been sleeping like a baby ever since.” Eddie jumped up from the table. “Hang on a second,” he said on his way out of the room. “Let me play it for you.” Eddie came back a second later with his old Fender.

  Jimmy spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Eddie play the songs he’d written for the new record. He had to admit they were pretty good. Finally Eddie got around to the new song, the one triggered by Big Bill’s death. It was a beauty.

  It would be the first single off the second record and it would go to number one, just like Big Bill had planned. Except of course that Big Bill was supposed to be alive to hear it.

  102.

  Franklin was waiting on his last appointment of the day. He was sitting at his desk looking over the ‘key man’ insurance policy the company had taken out years ago on Big Bill. The underwriter was Nashville Casualty and Life. They owed a cool million on the death benefit. It’s funny how things work out, he thought.

  Franklin had been busy all week. He’d ordered new stationery and had the old Herron & Peavy sign replaced with one that said: The Peavy Company. He’d upgraded his ProTools to top-of-the-line and was ready to go into the studio to start work on Eddie’s second record. The only problem was he hadn’t spoken to Eddie since Bill’s funeral. His phone seemed to be out of order and he wasn’t answering email. He knew the press was camped out at Eddie’s house and he didn’t want to deal with that so he figured he’d just wait it out. It wouldn’t be long before some other scandal broke and the press would break camp and move on like a bunch of Bedouins.

  In light of Jimmy’s book and the rumors that had followed, Franklin had hired a new image consultant for Eddie. They’d been discussing the possibility of repackaging Eddie, going with the all black thing, and positioning him as the head of a new outlaw country movement. Franklin had put in an exploratory call to Waylon Jennings’ people to discuss a collaboration but so far, nobody’d called back.

  Franklin propped his feet up on his desk and gazed out at Music Row. The sun was reflecting off the big shiny leaves of the magnolia tree outside the window. He started to think about knocking down the wall that separated his office from Big Bill’s, give himself a little more room. He jumped slightly when his assistant buzzed him. “Two men to see you Mr. Peavy.”

  “Thanks, send ‘em in,” Franklin said. He stood and walked around his desk as Otis and Chester walked in and closed the door behind them. “Come on in, fellas, have a seat.” Fra
nklin went to his bar, poured three glasses of whiskey, and served his guests. “Here’s lookin’ atcha.” They clinked glasses and enjoyed the drink before Franklin went to his desk and picked up a file. He pulled some checks from inside. “I put you on the books as ‘indie promo’ expenses,” he said with a chuckle. “Hundred thousand a year for the next three years.” Chester and Otis nodded. “Good,” Franklin said. “And worth every dime.” He looked at Chester. “You want me to put yours in escrow or in the market or what?”

  “Buy me some blue chips,” Chester said. “Give me something to follow while I’m inside.”

  “When are you going?”

  “They gave me ‘till Monday to ‘get my affairs in order,’” he said. “Then I’m gone for about a year. I’m lookin’ at it like a year of rehab.”

  “There you go.” Franklin handed another document to Chester. “I also fixed that publishing error we made on your boy’s song. He’ll get proper credit on future copies and all he’s owed on the publishing, mechanicals, and licensing. Of course there wasn’t anything I could do about the lyrics.” He pulled a check from the file and held it up. It was for $350,000. “I’ll see that he gets this. His landlord had a forwarding address for him down in Austin.”

  Chester shook Franklin’s hand. “I’d appreciate that.”

  Franklin turned and put his hand on Otis’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I missed Estella’s service. I had to be at Bill’s.”

  “Yessir, I understand.”

  “How are you holdin’ up?”

  Otis bobbed his head a little. “I’ll be all right, Mr. Peavy, thank you for asking.”

  “She was a fine woman, Otis. We were lucky to have her long as we did.”

  “Yes, sir. We was sure lucky.”

  103.

  The Long and Short of It stayed on the best seller list for eight months. Jay Colvin negotiated 1.25 million for the film rights to the story. He got another million dollars for Jimmy’s proposal on Big Bill’s biography. Jimmy had a hard time believing any of it, at least until the checks arrived. And when they did, he decided it was time to move. Though he was going to miss listening to his neighbors’ sexcapades, Jimmy had discovered that lately he wasn’t having such a hard time getting laid. Funny how that works, he thought.

  Jimmy was loading the last lamp into the back of his rented U-Haul truck when a familiar car pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex. The second he saw Megan he felt it again. That way she always made him feel. He knew he should just get in the truck and leave, but he couldn’t move. Megan parked and got out looking at Jimmy with a bittersweet smile. She was dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt. “Hey,” she said. “Looks like I got here just in time.”

  “Yeah, I’m, uh, just about done.” Jimmy wiped his hands and stuffed them in his pockets. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Just came by to see if you were still around.”

  Jimmy didn’t know how to respond to that. The thought that she’d come looking for him turned his mind to mush. All he could think about was pulling her close and kissing her. He wondered if Megan would always have this power over him. Maybe I should just give in to it, he thought. No, show a little self-respect. “I hear you left Eddie,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Yeah, I read your book. Decided I didn’t want to take the chance of getting a headache being around him so much, you know?”

  Jimmy nodded. “Good move,” he said.

  “It’s a great book by the way. Congratulations. I always knew you’d make it.”

  “Thanks. So, you going back to radio?”

  Megan shrugged. “We’ll see. I’m not sure Ken’s real keen on having me back. What about you?” She gestured at the U-Haul. “Where’re you going?” She held up a hand. “Wait, don’t tell me. New York? Seems like a good place for a best selling author. I was thinking about New York myself.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Lake Katherine.”

  “Really?” Megan tried to sound like she thought that was a good idea. “That would’ve been my second guess. New York City or Madison County, top two choices.” Megan sat down on the truck’s bumper. “Oh, by the way, you can add Aaron Copland to your list.”

  “My list of what?”

  “Of people who might have said ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture.’ Somebody told me Aaron Copland said it. I just thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thanks.” Jimmy smiled. “Watch your head.” He pulled down the door on the back of the truck. He hoped Megan wouldn’t start talking about getting back together. “Well, it was good to see you,” he said. “I need to get on out there and unpack before it gets too late.” He started to walk around toward the front of the truck. He hoped she wouldn’t say anything else, that she’d take the hints and not tempt him. He didn’t trust himself to do the right thing.

  Megan stepped into his path. “You need some help?” She moved close. “It just so happens I’m free the rest of the weekend.” She was inches away and she smelled as good as she looked. “I could help you unload and then I’ll take you out to dinner. Whaddya say? Maybe we could get ‘em to make us some patio lemonades.” She smiled and looked up into his eyes.

  God it was tempting. He could almost taste those sweet bourbon kisses. It would be so easy to say yes. Then he opened his big mouth. “No thanks,” he said. “I can manage.” As soon as he said ‘no’ he had second thoughts. He wanted to grab the words before they reached her ears and replace them with Hell yes! Let’s go get drunk and christen my new place. But at the same time he realized saying ‘no’ gave him a sudden sense of liberation.

  Megan’s face sagged. She never imagined things ending like this. It began to sink in when Jimmy walked past her and climbed into the cab of the truck. She looked up at him sitting behind the wheel. “C’mon, Jimmy. After all we’ve been through? We’re meant to be together.”

  He looked down at her, considering her invitation with all his might. Maybe I should take her up on it. Just for a night. A grudge cut. He thought about it a moment. Nah, that’s too Eddie. He closed the door then reached out to adjust the truck’s big side mirror.

  “You know how much I love you,” she said.

  Something about the way she said it gave Jimmy pause. Maybe she means it. Maybe she finally realizes how I feel. How can I not consider it? Those are the softest lips I’ve ever known.

  “Jimmy?”

  Her voice snapped him back to reality and he knew what he had to do. He cranked the engine and put the truck in gear. It inched forward slightly against the brakes.

  Megan suddenly looked like a frightened child, something Jimmy had never seen in her before. “Wait!” She reached up and put a hand on his arm. “Don’t go yet.”

  He felt sad for her and he touched her hand. “I gotta go,” he said softly.

  She looked up anxiously. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  Jimmy shook his head then looked down at Megan. “Goodbye’s all we got left to say.” He let his foot off the brake and pulled away without ever looking in the mirror. As the truck lurched out of the parking lot, a thought occurred to him. Hey, now that would be a good song title.