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1
As the three of them filed through the door of their motel room, Spooks glanced around as Ben turned on the lights. “Wow, Grenwald appears to be a master of understatement,” she said as she dropped her suitcase on the floor. “He said ‘it’s nothing fancy’ which I now know to interpret as ‘it’s the lowliest fleabag in Georgia.’”
Ben nodded as he collapsed on one of the two beds. “Yeah, but at least we’re not footing the bill.”
“Hey, don’t get too comfortable there.” Spooks pointed to the couch across the room. “That’s your bed over there.”
“Who says?” Ben countered as he placed his hands behind his head in an effort to look as comfortable as possible.
“I say,” Spooks replied, the edge of anger growing in her voice.
“That’s enough, you two,” Amberlin said as she entered the room. “It’s important that we treat each other with respect. Spooks, you and I will share a bed and Ben will sleep in the other one.”
“Yeah, and the next night Amberlin and I will share a bed, and you can have the other bed to yourself," Ben added with a broad smile on his face.
“That’s not going to happen,” Amberlin replied.
“Damn right,” Spooks agreed.
“Okay, okay. I was just joking.” Ben swung his legs onto the floor. “Now that we have our sleeping arrangements settled, I’ll go get the rest of the stuff from the van.”
“Good for you,” Amberlin. “That’s the spirit.”
On the way to the van, Ben took a detour to the payphone he'd seen as they had checked into the room. He reached into his pocket and took a handful of coins out. Picking up the receiver, he dialed a number, paused for the prompt, and dropped several coins into the slot. He waited until the ringing stopped and a husky voice answered on the other end. Apparently, he'd awoken them.
“It's me," he said without bothering to identify himself. "We're here...no troubles to speak of. I'm keeping a close eye on both of them." He paused for a moment before adding, "Don't worry. They aren't going to give you any trouble, and you're going to leave them alone. That was the deal." He paused again for several seconds listening to the response from the other end. "Okay...okay. I got to get back. Yeah. Love you too, Mom. Tell Dad to break a leg." Another pause, then, "It's a saying for someone about to go on stage. It means good luck." He took a deep breath as he waited for his mother to stop talking. "Okay, I got it. Doing God's work isn't the same. I'll call you in the next week or two. I don't have a clue where we'll be."
He hung up the phone without waiting for a reply and resumed his trip to the van, feeling like a lowly worm of loathing. At the van, he reached under the driver's seat and pulled out a plastic bag from which he took a small pipe. Just a few tokes, he thought as he lit up. I've earned it today. Besides, no telling how long it will be until I have another chance to relax like this. By the time he started back with his arms filled with luggage, the feeling of loathing and self-hate had all but disappeared.
2
A few days after their arrival in Atlanta, Ben entered their motel room and dropped a card on the bed where Amberlin was lounging. “What’s this?” Amberlin said as she picked it up to examine it.
“It’s your fake I.D. just in case,” Ben replied dropping into the couch that now doubled as his bed.
“In case? In case of what?”
“In case one of our places gets raided by the cops, or if we run into a persnickety manager and asks to see proof of your age. Neither is likely to happen, but it’s best to be prepared.”
“Oh, I see,” Amberlin replied continuing to study the card. “So, I’m now twenty-one and licensed to drive in Georgia. How in the world did you manage to get this and in just a few days of our being here?”
“I didn’t get it. Grenwald pulled the strings. He was covering his own ass as much as yours. Put it away somewhere safe and hope to hell you don’t need it.”
The next several weeks were filled with a whirlwind of activity as Grenwald booked them in an assortment of night spots in the Atlanta area before announcing that their next gig was to be in Nashville, Tennessee.
“You’ll love it in Nashville,” he told Amberlin and Ben as they sat in his office hearing the news for the first time. “And they’ll love you too. Be sure to sing ‘My Mother’s Eyes.’ Maybe plan on closing the first set with it so they’ll be hungry for more.”
“But I was hoping we’d get to stay here in Atlanta a bit longer,” Amberlin started to protest, but Ben cut her off.
“That’s great, Harvey. We’d love the opportunity to sing in the country music capital of the world,” he said as he turned and gave Amberlin a wink.
“But we don’t really sing country music,” Amberlin whispered back. “I’m much more comfortable sticking with folk.”
“This could be a great opportunity to expand our horizons,” Ben replied. “Plus it would be best not to stay in any one town too long...you know what I mean.” He nodded over his shoulder towards the office door indicating where they’d left Spooks.
“Yeah, maybe so,” Amberlin replied, still unconvinced. It would be good to get out of the fleabag of a motel and Nashville wasn’t that far away. Just a few hours drive. They’d taken some of the money they’d made and invested it in a general overhaul of their VW bus so it was unlikely it would give them any more problems, at least for a little while.
Unfortunately, Grenwald was wrong once again. Amberlin didn't love Nashville. In fact, she hated it, and the feeling was mutual. Except for "My Mother's Eyes," the rest of their repertoire was received with little enthusiasm, and several of the folk ballads were downright booed. The only high spot Amberlin could claim from her "Nashville experience" was hearing President Kennedy's speech to a joint session of Congress.
The three of them had decided to take in a movie to raise their mood which had dropped steadily since arriving in Nashville. They each had their own vote as to which movie they wanted to see, but Amberlin won out with "Breakfast at Tiffany's." It was in the Movietone News that preceded the main attraction where they watched history being made.
The news clip started with Kennedy speaking about the rapid changes happening in space:
“Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take.”
Amberlin sat up straighter. She enjoyed hearing the President speak with his Boston accent and New England directness. She nudged Ben and Spooks who were sitting on either side of her.
“Listen. I think he’s about to say something really important.”
Kennedy went on to point out how the Soviets were clearly ahead in the race for space, but that didn’t mean America shouldn’t do whatever it could to catch up.
“For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.”
“I think I’m falling in love,” Amberlin whispered as she leaned over to Ben.
“Well, if I’d known going to the movie would have that effect, I would have invited you long ago,” Ben replied.
“Not you, silly...him.” Amberlin pointed to the screen.
“Oh.”
Amberlin couldn’t help but hear the note of disappointment in that one word. She was still thinking about it when she heard Kennedy say, “I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals: First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
“What did he just say?” Ben asked, sitting up straighter in his seat.
“He said we’re going to the moon!”
“No way.”
“Well, you just wait and see. Our President is a man of vision. I grew up with such a man, my Papa Herb. He once told me, ’We never know what we’re able to accomplish until we try, and trying starts with a declaration.’ President Kennedy just made such a declaration.”