Nashville: The Mood (Part 1)

By Donald H. Carpenter

Is Nashville simply Music City? The capital of Tennessee? Or is it something else? A state of mind? A dreamlike landscape? A world of happiness, ordinariness, hypocrisy, vicious gossip, and political skulduggery? Where politics, religion, sex, and crime cross paths in such a way as to be almost indistinguishable? Find out....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donald H. Carpenter
• Release date: Jan 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311296245

Donald H. Carpenter

Donald H. Carpenter is a former certified public accountant who is the author of six books: Dueling Voices, I Lost It At The Beginning, 101 Reasons NOT to Murder the Entire Saudi Royal Family, He Knew Where He Was Going (?), Man of a Million Fragments: The True Story of Clay Shaw, and LANNY. He is currently working on a fictional series about Nashville.

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NASHVILLE: THE MOOD

PART 1

by Donald H. Carpenter

Copyright ©2013 by Donald H. Carpenter, LLC

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Cover design by Charles Hooper

Printed in the United States of America

NASHVILLE: THE MOOD

PART 1

Congressman Joe Caldwell had grown to hate meeting with the mayor of Nashville. The mayor was in the first year of his second term, and Caldwell had gotten along well enough with him the first year or two. But after that, it seemed like every time the Mayor called on him, it was about something more controversial than the congressman liked to deal with. The congressman was known for employing a sure and steady hand, and staying away from, or skillfully straddling, any issue that reeked of controversy. He had long developed a knack, probably from his father, a career politician before him, of seeming to say something that would satisfy both, or all if necessary, sides of an issue.

The congressman thought back, trying to remember when these calls by the Mayor had first begun. He knew that he hadn’t seen the Mayor for a couple of years; probably that was why he had gotten along with him as well as he did. Then the Mayor began requesting a session with him whenever he was back in town from Washington, or at least it seemed like it was every time. And the more he saw the Mayor and talked with him, the less he liked him. Maybe he didn’t really dislike him, or wouldn’t have if he had seen him in other circumstances, but he didn’t like someone bringing a controversial issue to him. To the congressman, controversy signified an opening for a potential opponent to drive a wedge into, and that was always bad news for a career politician.

The congressman had handled his opposition deftly for almost twenty years, and he wanted it to stay that way. He had only had a token opposition, mostly because he had straddled so many issues, and because his office had been excellent in handling routine correspondence and inquiries from voters. Occasionally, the congressman would even call a voter directly, if a voter had provided his or her telephone number in a letter or e-mail.

There was always a challenger, of course, but what the public didn’t know is that many of the challengers the congressman had had over the years had been conjured-up challengers, someone the congressman’s organization had sought out to provide a seemingly credible opposition, which the congressman could then relatively easily brush aside. The congressman had made so many efforts in his career to avoid controversy; the one thing he feared most was that his efforts to manufacture an opponent would come to light one day.

It was an unusual situation. The congressman, and his father before him, had been very adept at making friends in both parties, so that he didn’t really draw any serious opposition from either party; there was an unspoken agreement that powerful individuals in both parties would support him, or at least deter major opposition. In exchange for that, of course, the congressman adjusted any beliefs he might have had about particular issues to the needs of his constituents and the power brokers in his district, regardless of party.

The mayor was announced, and soon entered the room. He shook hands vigorously with the congressman and took a seat across the desk from him. The mayor was in his late thirties, some twenty-five years younger than the congressman, and although they came from the same party, the generational differences had been marked since the mayor had entered office. Privately, the congressman wondered if the mayor had eyes on his seat. Privately, the mayor had begun to think, although it had been a slow process, that the congressman had out-served his usefulness in the modern era.

After exchanging some small talk, the mayor got down to the reason for his visit. He wanted the congressman to meet with a group of prominent Nashville gay activists, whom the congressman had been gently rebuffing, or avoiding, for some time.

Congressman, these people are feeling that you are not wanting to see them, the mayor said gently. I think you’re close to alienating them permanently, unless you take some steps to reach out to them, or at least let them reach out to you.

The congressman leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. He hated some of these modern-day issues. Things seemed to be changing so rapidly he couldn’t keep up with them. Gay issues, in particular, were thorny ones. He really didn’t care much about it one way or the other. He had known numerous gay individuals in one aspect of his career or another, and as long as he was away from his home turf, it didn’t really matter. But his constituents had a much different view. Several years before, the voters of the state had overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The congressman had skillfully avoided taking a position on that one way or another; he had simply ignored it, and let the overwhelming voice of the people be heard.

What do they want now, do you think? Congressman Caldwell continued to look out the window, and his tone was one of information-gathering, not of any kind of judgment.

I think they want to talk to you about this reversion therapy measure they want passed. The congressman turned back to his desk, placed his elbows on it, and grasped his hands together. The mayor could see a bit of frustration on his face; he had seen it many times before in times like this.

You know, we made it through the sodomy issue a few years ago without having to take a stand on it, the congressman said evenly. The Supreme Court took care of it. It was a little iffy for a while, but I never got cornered on it. Now we have this gay marriage thing that’s working its way through. The Supreme Court, hopefully, will take care of that without us having to take a stand on it. It’s one thing to take a stand on something where everyone already agrees with it. It’s another thing when the population is split fifty-fifty—or even worse, where they’re split eighty-twenty against you.

Well, it’s kind of like the civil rights era. We have to undo everything that was done before. Unwind it, step by step. This is the next step, and they want to talk to you about it. I told them it was better done state by state, and they should lobby the state legislators, but they have this idea that if you said something positive about what they want to accomplish, it’ll be a big help.

The congressman sighed heavily. Well, see if you can push it back as long as you can. I’m leaving town tonight, going back to Washington, and I’d like to avoid this on this tripDo this for me, and I’ll owe you one. OK?

On a late afternoon in early spring, Joe Rudolph cruised down Murfreesboro Road, near the area where Parris Street, Fesslers Lane, and Foster intersected. He was on routine duty with the city police, just looking for anything that needed taking care of. He wasn’t especially looking for the streetwalker community, but he happened to be in the right area for it.

The streetwalker issue in Nashville was a lot less public than it used to be, and a lot of people attributed that to better law enforcement, community support organizations, and the like. But Joe Rudolph knew better; it was the Internet that had done it. He knew the volume of sexual services for sale had not decreased; it had increased dramatically. But it was diffused in many different directions, and many of the old workers had gotten off the streets and behind a computer.

There were still a number of women out walking, though, ranging in age from the early twenties to probably the mid-forties. It was a bright, sunny, cloudless day and the temperature was warmer than it had been in previous weeks, perfect weather for streetwalking. Over a span of several blocks, Rudolph counted seven that he identified with reasonable certainty as being part of the trade. He also saw the usual collection of males walking up and down the street, seemingly communicating with the women on cell phones; the men served the purpose of both pimps and drug dealers, with an occasional manipulative boyfriend mixed in. Rudolph recognized several of the women; they had been working in this vein for at least a decade, possibly longer. They had been busted many times, but had refused to abandon that way of life; they had settled in, for better or for worse. There were several new entries into the field, though. That wasn’t unusual at all; in fact, it was the norm. Women came and went, sometimes checking out a particular part of town before settling in somewhere else, or dipping their toe in the trade to see if they even could survive in it. Rudolph hadn’t done any scientific studies—all of his conclusions came from casual observations over a period of years—but he felt he knew what he had observed and knew the way it worked.

Rudolph pulled over in a parking lot at a small grocery store, across the street from a rundown motel. The motel had had a reputation, for years, of catering to the sex trade. At one time, it had been seized by the Federal government