Country Music Broke My Brain (31 page)

Fire up the Evinrude, he thought. They had not been dancing for more than five minutes when Linda staggered like an old boxer and slurred, “I think you better take me home.” He held her up and escorted/dragged her to his car. Great, he thought. Just my luck that she can't hold her liquor. As he navigated the winding back road to her house, she leaned her head out the window and unleashed the gates of hell. His friends always called it “selling Buicks in Europe.” EEERRUROPE EEEEEUROPE BUUUUUUUICK. It was horrifying.

She was hurling all along the side of his recently waxed Corvair, and it distracted him. He jerked the wheel and veered off the road for a second. It was then that he heard her scream and saw her head fly off. Oh, NO!
She's going to
need
her head. He must have swerved too near a mailbox or something. Oh my God!” he repeated over and over. He had to take Linda Gratowski home to her father, Big Mike Gratowski, without his daughter's
head!
This was
not
gonna be good. He was only seventeen, but he knew parents frowned on little things like that. No head. No Linda. No motorboating.

Then he saw what had really happened. Her head was still on. It was still there! Relief washed over him like warm water.
But
her magnificent God Compass had blown into the night.
She had been wearing a wig!

In the dim moonlight, she turned and screamed again. Her hands went toward her obviously connected head
—
what looked like a pair of pantyhose stretched over tiny ringlets of mousy brown hair. H
e
thought, She looks like a Brussels sprout.

“Go back! Go back!” she pointed and pleaded. He slowed down. “It's back there in the ditch!” She wailed, “That hair was brand new!” Then she sold another Buick.

They never found her beehive and never spoke to each other again.

Buddy got out of his car, leaned on the top of the door, and wolf-whistled.

Oops, a little old
, she thought. Not a problem, though. She could send him to a doc she'd once dated.
Couple of nips and a tuck, and BAM! Instant youth. And get a load of that thing on his head. Oh, well.
She smiled and skipped toward him.

“You look FABulous!” they both said at the same time.

Buddy made the first move before they went “to the studio” (he owned a small studio where he took potential “clients”). “Why don't we stop up to my place and have a drink?”

Wow, he doesn't waste much time, does he?
she thought with some resentment.

“Great! I'd love to see it,” she purred with all the enthusiasm she could fake.

It was a small building on Music Row with eight apartments inside. It used to be a “boutique hotel.” They had “boutiqued” themselves out of business, so they switched to condo/apartments. There was a small pool shaped like a banjo and a creaky elevator to take you to the second floor. His place was half of “the penthouse” (if the second floor of
anything
qualifies as a penthouse).

Buddy had worked hard on this love den. He'd designed it himself and had successfully demonstrated how the music business works to many talented singers from all over the world. He couldn't wait to show her his latest addition. It was his proudest creation.

They hurried from the car through the dark entryway. The skies were getting kinda scary-looking. There was a rumble in the distance. He unlocked the door, reached in, and turned a small white knob. The lights rose to a faint glow, and a disco ball began to turn on the ceiling. Tiny pieces of white began to twinkle around the room. He turned another knob, and his album of self-made Sinatra instrumentals began to play faintly in the background. She stepped into the splendor, and he headed to the bar.

“Name your poison,” he shouted over his shoulder. “The bar is fully stocked, and the bartender is on duty.” It was at this point she considered for roughly five seconds,
How bad do I want a record deal?

“Vodka martini. Double, straight up,” she answered him and herself at the same time.

“Comin' atcha, sweetheart.”

Two of these and she'll be ready for my coup de grace. A little relaxin' juice, and then I show her the magic.
They were now starting the continuous dance of the biz. Somebody in power takes somebody under his disco ball. Sometimes it's innocent. Every once in an azure moon, it actually works. Most of the time, it just keeps people busy.

People get off the bus in Nashville every day with dreams and some kind of talent. It's not the same town it was twenty years ago. There were vanity record labels in every other ramshackle old house along 16th and 17th Avenues. It was almost unspoken but understood that you
could
get a record deal. Sometimes you just had to pay for it.

It was sad how many people mortgaged the trailer or sold the farm to finance a dream. They'd sing in some shag-carpeted studio into an old microphone. The dreamers poured their hearts into the bad song while bored and jaded studio players plunked out the same notes they'd played the day before. It was ugly. It took advantage.

It has slowly faded out of sight, finally. Nowadays, the business is more sophisticated. Talent gurus “work” with people to make their dreams come to life. Most of the con artists have been forced out of town. The real people are the only ones left along Music Row.

“Tell me truly, Julie, do you love me?” Buddy warbled in his hoarse tenor. He still had it—the voice that made women weak. Julie, noticing it was the first time he'd said her name, giggled and clapped once.

“Wow, I've never heard that before,” she lied. Of course, she'd heard it a million times. She'd even bought the old Bobby Sherman album it was on so she could hear how the damn song actually went.

Julie decided to do a little business. “How much does getting a record made cost? I'm not exactly floating in money these days.”

Bud was in. “Oh, darlin', you don't have to give that a second thought. You have talent and you have beauty and you have me. You just think about what kind of sports car you're gonna buy and which designer dresses you like, and leave the business side to me. I've heard you sing, and this is gonna be easy.”

Yeah, right,
Julie thought.
If easy is what you want, easy is what you're going to get. I've done the mattress mambo with worse than you.

She smiled and cooed at him, “Oh, Buddy, I just don't know what I could do to ever repay you for all you're gonna do for me.”

Bud was def in. A flash of lightning outside almost blended in with the disco shards of white. Now it was time for him to unveil the magic. He said, “Can I show you something? It doesn't mean anything. I don't want you to take it the wrong way, but it's just so much fun to see.” The sky rumbled quite a bit louder outside.

He didn't wait for her to protest. He walked to the middle of the room and clapped his hands as loudly as he could. She was slightly startled. Then she heard a slight movement in the wall. It was moving! Something was coming out of the wall! It started to protrude more and more . . . the wood end of something grew into the room. It was a bed. A bed just came out of the wall, just like that! To her, it was an odd combination of creepy and amazing.

Bud started to close the deal. “It's hooked up to a Clapper. You know, ‘Clap on, clap off. The Clapper.'”

“Yes,” she muttered. “I know the Clapper.” She drained the second martini on the bar. She attempted a little joke. “Maybe at times like this, the word ‘Clapper' isn't a good one to bring up to a lady.”

Buddy laughed and bent over slightly. “I never heard that one. You're right. I'll come up with a better phrase. Now, if you'd like, I can clap again and send the bed away.” He laughed at the word “clap” being used again.

Julie stood frozen for a second.
This is it,
her mind raced.
This is what it all comes down to
—
a guy in a wig and a bed that works with a Clapper. Is
this
how show business works?

Buddy was pouring another martini when she made her decision. Julie walked toward him and grabbed his tie. She led him toward the bed like a pony.

“Maybe you can show me how some other things in this room work.” She kicked off one of her high heels and kissed him on the mouth. His Aqua Velva made her slightly dizzy for a second.

They slid out of their clothes. They fell into the bed. “Strangers In The Night” played quietly. The dim lights played over their slightly chubby bodies. There was thunder and lightning both inside and outside “the penthouse.” Bud was almost in. Suddenly, a flash outside was followed by an enormous clap of thunder.
Oh, no.
Not clap? Yes, clap. Julie noticed the movement first. Buddy leaned in and pressed to the sheets. He smothered her with a kiss. Before the lovers could untangle, the bed was almost into the wall. Julie laughed nervously and felt something above her head with her hand. It was more wood.

“Has this happened before?” she asked. She noticed how muffled the sound was. “It feels like we're in a coffin.”

Buddy rolled off her and whispered, “It
is
a coffin.” Then he let out his best Bela Lugosi scary laugh.

“Not funny, Buddy.” It was black as midnight. She said, “Do you hear that?”

“I don't hear a thing. What?”

“Nothing. I don't hear a thing, either. No music, nothing. I think the power's off.”

Bud cocked his ear in the dark and agreed. “I don't hear anything, either. And no, this has never happened before. I just had it installed a week ago. This is the first time I've done this.”

Julie felt better and more pure than she had a right to. At least she wasn't 138th on the list of Clapper Flappers who'd been here before.

She spoke into the total blackness. “How do you open it from the inside?”

Buddy stared at the same darkness and didn't respond. He started to feel a little closed in.

All hints of romance went out of her voice. “Don't tell me you don't have an emergency switch or something. Who knows we're here?”

Buddy spoke carefully. “Nobody knows we're here. I had no idea we'd wind up in here. I'm as shocked as you are.”

“Don't hand me that.” She was getting panicky. “You hauled me up here to get a little action before we got down to business.”

He put her straight. “Well, you sure got down to business easy enough.”

“Who knows about this place?”

“My business manager, couple of songwriters, and you.” Buddy sounded a tad nervous.

“We're stuck in a wall in an apartment in a building that nobody visits or checks or anything?”

“When the power comes back on, it'll surely pop us back out,” he said with absolutely no conviction.

“Jesus, Buddy. What were you thinking? We could be stuck in here for days. What if nobody thinks to look in the
wall
for us? Oh, my
God!
I'm gonna die because of a Clapper. Get me the hell out of this box. I'm gonna FREAK OUT!”

Julie started to flail around in the crypt and cry a little. She began banging on the walls and shouting for help. Bud was now definitely in, but not the “in” he'd hoped for. They both flat-out freaked and started screaming and banging. The original banging was no longer an option. Julie started grabbing for a knob or a handle or anything she could pull. She was frightened out of her pants. She was also out of her pants.

Then it happened. As she fought with the darkness, her fingers became entangled in something. She clenched her fist and in one Velcro-sounding moment, Julie snatched Buddy bald. She screamed like she'd been attacked by a limp, hairy monster.

“Oh, Jesus. What
is
that?” She gave it a fling away from her toward the end of the crypt.

Buddy's scalp began to burn. She'd managed to undo a lot of glue, adhesive guards, and more. Bud had the Toupee 9000 that connected to his head with metal snaps. She'd yanked off his masterpiece with such gusto and fear, he literally felt light-headed. It was at their feet somewhere in the dark.

Suddenly, in the distance they could hear a faint strain of “My Way” being played on the Dobro. The power was back on. The bed didn't budge.

Buddy said, “I have a plan. You have to follow my plan precisely. You must do
exactly
as I say or we're both gonna die in here.” Julie listened carefully and noticed the music had come to the part where Frank sang, “And now the end is near.”

Buddy continued, “The Clapper won't work because we're not in the room with it. I'm going to crawl down to the bottom of the bed. You brace yourself with your hands against the top. Put your feet on my shoulders and we'll push the bottom of the bed out through the wall.”

“You mean break the wood? OK.” She sounded skeptical, but it was at least a plan. She couldn't understand what all the fuss was about doing exactly what he said.

“When I'm in position, put your feet on my shoulders and, on three, we'll push. Then you must keep your eyes closed for another five minutes. Agreed?”

Julie repeated, “Feet on your shoulders. Push on three. Keep my eyes closed for five minutes. What is wrong with you?”

Buddy was grunting his way to the bottom of the bed. He put his feet against the bottom board and guided Julie's feet to his shoulders.

“Just do as I said, OK? Can you do that for me?”

“OK, but you keep your eyes closed then, too.”

Buddy sighed and said, “Fine. I won't look at you in the disco light. You keep your eyes shut, and we'll be even. Ready? One . . . two . . . thuh-ree!”

It was a mighty heave. Julie drove her tootsies into Buddy's shoulders, and because of the sheer pain he shot his feet toward freedom. He heard a slight cracking noise and things began to give way. It was either the bed or Buddy.

“One more time,” he said through clenched teeth.