The Lights Went Out

I have been doing phonograph shows with Billy for nearly 30 years now. It really takes a lot to make an impression on me after all we have been through. Boy, did the North Carolina Show ever make an impression! Sadly, it was not the good kind.

Billy and I arrived at the show around 7:30 a.m. It was a steady rain the poor dealers were carting their wares through. We had set up the previous day, so all we had to do was straighten up the tables a bit and scope out the new merchandise coming in. When the show is slow, I resort to a favourite pastime of “bug-eating”. This is a term we use that pertains to record collectors. Back in the old days when some shows would be under big tents, piles of records would be on the ground. Around these record piles would be all these asses in the air as collectors sorted through these records. It looked as if they were scratching through the ground looking for bugs to eat: hence the name “bug-eaters”!

This show was so grim I was bug-eating before it even started! I found a pretty clean copy of a favourite song for a dollar! The copy I have is worn to death, I love to play it so….




Leroy was supposed to arrive early to unload his music box and put it in Billy’s space. We had a “lottery” as to when Leroy would show. Charlie had 10:30, Billy did 11:00 and I stuck to 11:30. The show was scheduled to run 9:00-3:00. I was not exactly on the money but was closest as Leroy turned up at 11:45! We did not unload the music box. It would have been a real nightmare to maneuver it to Bills booth.

Finally at noon it was “legal” to have a Budweiser. Soon as I cracked open that beer I smelled coffee. FINALLY they got into the kitchen and brewed up some Java. I was starting to get a headache from caffeine withdrawal as we did not stop for coffee on the way to the show. I switched to coffee after that first beer and all was well with the world.

Leroy was sent back to the store; we will meet him there after the show to unload that music box. If we don’t, it will ride around in the back of his Jeep until it disintegrates.

The rain finally let up by the time we loaded up the Honda Element. It is amazing how much stuff can be packed into one of those things. We got to the store and safely unloaded the Regina Music Box and deposited it back to its old resting place.

Now I have to backtrack about five or six years. It was sometime in the early days of the century Leroy was bragging about this investment outfit he was involved in. It was run by a guy named Dean Martin and paid out huge returns. I kept saying “If it seems too good to be true, it is”. It just smelled of scam to me and I said so. Leroy just laughed in his way, he knew better.

Saturday Leroy showed us a newspaper article on how his buddy Dean Martin was running a “Ponzi Scam”. This guy took the local people for millions of dollars. Bernie Madoff is the head cheese of scams so to speak, but I wonder now how many small timers are waiting to go bust around the country.

Leroy was trying to hunt down this stained glass to show Billy that is packed away at the store someplace. Halfway through the search Leroy let it slip that the glass was a present from Glenn and he was not supposed to sell it, because it was a present. In my “innocent voice” I just piped up, “Well, Leroy, you don’t have to sell that glass to Billy, just GIVE it to him.” Billy nearly split a gut trying not to laugh and Leroy just about passed out! I was only trying to be helpful…..

Billy and I are having dinner with my nephew and his wife. Naturally we invited Leroy, never thinking he would accept. We are planning on Chinese tonight and Leroy HATES that kind of food. Leroy jumped at the invite, but first we had to stop at his house. Leroy’s house is so depressing and full of stuff it literally makes my “tits itch”. We don’t want to stop there, but what could go wrong?

On the way we had to detour to Red Lion to stock up on some brews. I worked in a supermarket in my past, so I can feel for the kids stocking the shelves and running the registers. As we were leaving one of the stock boys crashed an empty shopping cart into the side of the rows of empty carts. I had to say, “Pull his license!” Billy added, “Where’d he learn to drive?” That poor kid: his face got so red and then he started laughing. We make fun wherever we go!

We pull into Leroy’s and he is more messed up than usual. He screams something to us through the door, and then appears with a dim lantern. His power was out.

· From here I have to use bullets as to how things unfold.

· We have to go into the finished lower lever to find the breaker box. This entails moving piles of stuff. The breakers are all fine.

· Leroy attempts to call the power company. Then he realizes he can’t use his phone without electricity.

· He takes Billy’s cell phone and calls the number in the phone book. Leroy screams back at the automated voice, and curses he can’t remember the numbers they tell him to call.

· Then he finally gets a pencil to write the numbers down and he breaks the point.

· At this time I stepped backwards into a pile of something. Then I smelled an odor that confirmed my worst fear: I had stepped into shit from the dog. It is everywhere in that house.

· Now the downstairs reeks of dog-shit. I had to go outside to clean off my shoes.

· Billy’s phone went dead, so Leroy had to root through the crap in his Jeep to find his cell phone.

· After he finally made contact with the power company he needed some orange juice. Leroy is diabetic. Opening the ice box door he keeps it open as he leisurely looks at the inventory on the shelves. I can’t take it, “Shut that door Leroy, you’re losing all the cold air!” I said. I swear I I keep the door to my fridge open more than 5 seconds I hear my mother screaming that to me in my head!

· He shook up the orange juice container and opened the lid on the last shake going up. Orange juice spattered everywhere in the kitchen.

· As we go to leave I spy some neighbors on their front porch. I shout to them asking if they had power. “No, they answered, it went out halfway thorough the basketball game, it is supposed to be back on by 7:00.

· The reality dawned on me: Why did we not just ask the neighbors FIRST and we could have saved ourselves all that aggravation???

Just typing out that episode gets me going. I have to call it quits for now. Leroy is such a paradox. I have known him for almost as long as I’ve known Billy. But, in the past twenty years he has really developed into a real “needy, high maintenance” person. His negativity and helplessness just drains me of my positive energy. Billy is about his closest friend in the world. He has no support or “extended family” as I like to say to fall back on.

Returning from these trips makes me so thankful for my daily routine and the friendships I have cultivated. My little Daggy just came in the side door and is perched upon my lap. It is time to post this entry, pour out some box wine and break off a chunk of Trader Joe’s Bittersweet Chocolate. Then it will be time to relax to a Jack Benny radio program on the internet.