Born Under a Bad Sign

By Jeff Widmer

On the 50th anniversary of Woodstock comes a gripping story of love and obsession, set in one of the most turbulent times in American history.

It is 1969, capstone of a tumultuous decade, and life in the rural town of Pennsboro, Pa. is about to explode. A dam that would flood the valley pits family against family. Protesters riot. Buildings burn. Amid the chaos, two lovers risk everything to fight for their dreams.

Elizabeth Reed feels conflicted. She loves the river the government wants to dam, and a musician who can’t settle on any one person or place. Hayden Quinn, the guitarist Rolling Stone calls the next Jimi Hendrix, feeds a single obsession—to play Woodstock, the biggest concert of his life. He presents Elizabeth with a terrible dilemma: stay to save her family farm, or relinquish her dreams to follow Quinn into the unknown?

With saboteurs targeting everyone she loves, Elizabeth faces the greatest risk of all—whether to trust herself.

Rich in unforgettable characters, brimming with social insight and historical detail, Born under a Bad Sign is a dramatic and nuanced portrait of love and loss in the Sixties—a coming-of-age story for a generation.

Jeff Widmer is the author of seven novels and three books of nonfiction, including Peak Season, with real estate agent CW McCoy, and Mr. Mayhem, featuring the defrocked journalist known as Brinker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff Widmer
• Release date: May 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463931004

Jeff Widmer

Jeff Widmer is the author of the CW McCoy and the Brinker series of crime novels and well as numerous standalone novels and non-fiction books. A former journalist, advertising executive and nationally syndicated reviewer, his work has appeared in publications ranging from Advertising Age to US Airways magazine to National Geographic World.

Book preview

FROM BEYOND THE hills came a jagged flash of light. Elizabeth Reed counted five seconds before the sound rumbled across the infield of the raceway, this makeshift venue for the largest outdoor rock concert on the East Coast. Another flash, and another ripple of thunder. In an improvised call and response, the crowd echoed its approval. The tower that held the lights and PA system trembled. So did Elizabeth’s arms and legs. She let the dizziness pass and, willing her stomach to settle, tucked both cameras under her arms and climbed to the sky.

The warm-up band had just finished, the announcer promising that Orwell, fresh off its national tour, would soon take the stage. A wall of people surged forward. Despite the July heat, this was the group’s homecoming and the locals had turned out in force, thousands of ragged kids with beards and muumuus, jostling each other in a fog of beer and smoke. Two years after Monterey Pop and the festival had come of age. So had the band.

The tower swayed enough that Elizabeth questioned her bravado. Despite the knot in her stomach, she climbed past speakers and spotlights for a better view of the stage, a plywood floor laid across a half-dozen flatbed trailers. The platform had been hastily rigged for the festival, the biggest in Pennsylvania’s Minisink Valley and a warm-up for one she’d heard could be even bigger, next month’s Woodstock Music & Art Fair in nearby New York.

That was the real object of the evening’s performance, a final rehearsal for Orwell and its leader, Hayden Quinn, the guitarist Rolling Stone had called the next Jimi Hendrix, the man that Elizabeth, fresh out of high school, had followed halfway across the country as the band’s unofficial photographer. It was make or break time for the group. The band’s manager, Elizabeth’s Uncle Morey, had invited the man organizing Woodstock, Michael Lang, to attend the concert. So far, she hadn’t seen anyone fitting Lang’s description.

As the wind rose to meet the night, Elizabeth realized that, if the crowd pressed closer, the tower could tip. Since her dizziness disappeared if she didn’t look down, she focused on the distance, tracking the Delaware as it wandered between Pennsylvania and New Jersey like a nomad, flowing freely despite the government’s effort to dam the river and drown her family’s farm. With the telephoto lens, she could isolate her property, snug in the rich bottomland of the valley. Camera in hand, river and fields spread below, she felt exhausted, scared, and ridiculously happy.

Voices below startled her. Dressed in black, two members of the security crew waved her from the tower. The yelling morphed into the sound of hammering. Against the raw wood of the stage, Tommy Reed nailed cardboard cylinders to rows of two-by-tens, preparing the fireworks for the evening’s finale. He seemed dwarfed by the munitions.

When the sound system kicked in with a recording of Crossroads, Elizabeth gripped the metal pipes to maintain her balance. Despite the rush of adrenaline, her arms ached from lugging the heavy Nikons all day. With a normal lens, the weight seemed bearable. But when loaded with a zoom and a motor drive, the outfit felt as if it weighed as much as a bale of hay. Before she descended, she snapped a picture of Tommy as he wired his makeshift rig, the camera hot and slippery in her hands. Heaven help them if she dropped it on his head.

As soon as she landed, the security officers assumed their positions in front of the stage while the roadies assembled the last of the equipment. Her older brother Robbie frowned as he arranged cymbals and tightened drumheads, his rusty hair a deliberately unhip buzzcut. Reaching above his head, Cordell White plugged his bass into a stack of amplifiers and plucked a note. Unlike Robbie, who wore his usual white T-shirt and shorts, Del had dressed for show in leather pants, a jacket of purple satin, and a high-crowned Navajo hat with a yellow plume. They both looked frustrated, or mad.

Tommy caught her eye and jerked his head toward the edge of the stage. He, too, appeared angry, a look that was highlighted by chapped lips, hair the color of licorice, and a nose as sharp as a chisel. The only festive thing about him was the tie-dyed headband.

Hey, Cuz, she said, drawing a face that signaled irritation and fatigue.

He smelled of oil and mint. As usual, he wore sunglasses so dark that she wondered how he could see to connect the fireworks. Pecking him on the cheek, she took in the rows of rockets, mortars, and Roman candles that crowded both sides of the stage and felt a twinge of concern. Aren’t they a little close?

Tommy scratched his back with a screwdriver. Close?

To the band.

Another crack of thunder and Tommy dragged a tarp over the pods. Wait and see.

As security stopped a ginger-haired man flashing press credentials, Elizabeth regained the tower. One by one, the members of Orwell wandered onto the stage to a cascade of applause. Robbie positioned his cymbals, Del and Quinn hunched over tuning pegs, and Mattie, jiggling her ample ass, asked the crowd how they were doing. As the band struck its first tectonic chord, the audience thundered their approval.

Mattie belted out the first number with a ferocity that shook the towers, all trace of her Southern accent lost in the ricochet of sound. Robbie thrashed as if he were drowning in one of the cow ponds on the family farm. Even Del, who usually bobbed in place, stalked the boards, his face a darkening cloud.

Quinn followed with a scorching lead that featured a collision of Bach, Thelonious Monk, and Hendrix. Shirtless now and barefoot, he played with a single-mindedness akin to religious devotion, prowling the stage, slashing his guitar, bending strings until they threatened to snap. He hammered the neck with both hands as if playing a piano, the sound a frenetic cross between Paganini and Robert Johnson, the shaman who’d sold his soul to the devil for his talent.

From her perch, she tracked the band, feeling more than hearing the smack of the mirror as it lifted to admit the light, the whir of the motor drive as it advanced the frames. Pace yourself, she thought, or you’ll run out of film.

Like a tsunami, the intensity of the music grew, Quinn hurtling his body into the wave of sound, his head bowed, shoulders hunched, fingers on fire. Dreadlocks flew as he reared, face twisted in ecstasy, the notes tracking across his lips. No matter how many times she’d seen the show, Elizabeth felt stunned, and not just by the acoustical acrobatics. With the flick of his fingers, Quinn guided the music from brave to anxious to calm. Elizabeth felt warmth and humor, sadness and pity, and so much in between. It astonished her that anyone could convey such emotion without the use of a single word.

The band continued the pace, blazing through songs as if racing to an uncertain end. By the close of the set, their faces shone with euphoria and sweat. Robbie raised his sticks, caught the eye of Quinn and Del, and they miraculously finished on the same beat, even as Tommy launched the first volley of fireworks, burning the night in a shower of red and gold.

The musicians filtered off stage, waited a beat, and returned to a swelling ovation. With a deep bow, and a nod from Mattie, they launched into one of the medleys Quinn had arranged as an encore. Even before Elizabeth traced their faces through the telephoto, she could tell that, as the music grew more frantic, they struggled to hear. Hitting the final chorus, Mattie looked over her shoulder as if she were lost in the woods. Robbie buried his head in his drum kit. Del and Quinn traded places, Del moving to the monitors along the wing while Quinn arched over the stage to listen to the PA speakers.

The music had grown so loud that Elizabeth could barely feel the vibration through the camera body as the motor drive cranked through another roll of film, thirty-six exposures in a matter of seconds before she hunched to reload.

This time, the band didn’t leave the stage. They bowed slightly, as if they’d expended so much energy they had little left for movement, before launching into the second encore, a reprise of their single, Bomb Babies, that ended in a cataclysmic version of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Quinn had shortened the piece for maximum impact and, when he nodded, Tommy let loose with his final volley.

From the corner of the viewfinder, Elizabeth watched the skyrockets arc into the night and explode in phosphorescent swirls. She grabbed a shot of Tommy, who timed the bursts to coincide with the downbeat. As the encore hit its crescendo, he quickened the pace, unleashing a white-hot assault that mimicked the original cannon fire. The band fed off the energy, Quinn and Robbie flailing, Del leaning dangerously close to the fireworks while Mattie spread her arms to embrace the crowd.

Then, as Elizabeth lifted the camera to her face, the stage flashed with a blinding light and the world exploded.

2.

ELIZABETH COULDN’T HEAR or see. Her ears felt packed with cotton. A giant white ball roamed her retinas like a spotlight. Gradually, her senses returned with the bite of smoke, the wail of sirens, and the screech of feedback. As the noise faded, she focused on the aching joints where her elbows and knees had hit the stage.

She struggled to understand what had happened. Braced on the bottom rung of the speaker tower, aiming the camera at the band, she’d seen a flash and felt the blast hit her face. Then she must have fallen. She checked the cameras. Both bodies and lenses seemed intact, but when she squinted at the counter on the body loaded with black-and-white, she realized it had run out of film. The shutter release must have jammed during the first moments of the explosion and wasted the entire roll.

The rest of the memory unfolded slowly. Instead of detonating a thousand feet above the ground, the shells had hit the scaffolding that supported the lights. Through the lens, she’d watched the structure collapse, the towers pitching inward under the weight of the speakers. The tarp had collapsed, taking with it a section of metal that crushed the amplifiers and drums.

As the dots before her eyes faded, Elizabeth stood. The infield was a mass of blurry figures, the stage a tangle of metal and glass, with fingers of smoke rising from the fireworks pods. She couldn’t see the band through the smoke, only Mattie, who wavered near the lip of the stage, a gash across her forehead, the blood running into jittery eyes. Sidestepping security, Elizabeth gripped Mattie’s arm before she could fall, hauled her into the wings, and told her to wait for help.

Across the stage, electrical lines sparked and Roman candles crackled, painting the scene a ghastly red. Behind the drum set, Elizabeth saw someone move.

Robbie! she yelled and leaped over the debris.

A security officer spread his arms to block her path. Using the camera bag as a ram, she knocked him off balance and reached her brother as he struggled to his feet, his left arm twisted out instead of in.

Robbie! she cried and reached out to steady him.

His face looked distorted, sweat cutting through a mask of soot, his mouth a grim twist, the wadding from the fireworks salting his hair. He held up his good hand. I got it, he said and shambled across the platform.

Reaching the edge of the stage, Elizabeth caught him before he tumbled into Mattie. Stay here. I’m going for help.

I’m fine. Cradling his arm, he doubled over, winced, and reared back to take in a deep breath.

This isn’t high school football, Elizabeth said. You can’t walk it off.

After what seemed like an eternity, two ambulances rolled into the parking lot and a half-dozen men piled out, bright in their white shirts and cargo pants. They carried bags and wore expressions of grave concern. Elizabeth turned toward the stage and watched Del flail his arms at two security officers as they struggled to remove his smoldering coat. Nearly hidden behind the equipment cases, Tommy sat on the floor, holding his foot in both hands, headband gone, the long black hair obscuring his face. She reached him before the ambulance crew did and, shouting over the din, asked if he was all right. He nodded. Only then did she realize she hadn’t seen Quinn.

She found him at the back of the platform, near a pile of amplifiers, cradling his guitar, a ghost going in and out of focus as smoke drifted across the stage. Elizabeth picked her way over piles of metal, careful not to step on the wires, and knelt beside him, called his name, shook his shoulder. His eyes looked vacant and blood trickled from his ear.

Quinn, she said, cupping his chin and withdrawing her hand only to touch him again. Quinn. Her eyes stung. Can you hear me?

In one hand, he held the guitar. He dabbed at his ear with the other, staring at the blood on his finger as if he didn’t recognize the source. Checking the rest of him, including his bare feet, and not finding any injuries, she helped him to stand. As they passed the front of the stage, he paused to survey the wreckage and, bending an ear to the neck of the guitar, strummed its strings with the back of a fingernail.

* * *

The emergency room appeared as chaotic as the concert grounds, a blur of people complaining of cuts and twisted ankles, their clothing torn, the odd bandana cinched around a forehead trickling blood. They smelled of sweat and smoke and talked over each other, whirring their arms to explain their escape to the sole woman sitting at a reception desk.

Insisting to the receptionist that she was indeed family, Elizabeth followed a nurse in a winged cap through the double doors to the emergency room, waving as she entered to the ginger-haired reporter from the concert, who stood uninjured in the waiting room with a frantic look on his face.

Elizabeth had declined treatment at the scene, and there was no room for her in the ambulance, so she’d told Quinn and the others that she would meet them at the hospital. Yet here it was, almost midnight, and she knew nothing more than she had an hour ago. Even if she could find a telephone, she couldn’t call her parents until she’d seen Robbie. And what would she tell Uncle Morey? That in his absence the band he managed had blown up the stage and, quite possibly, their careers?

Shifting the camera bag to her other shoulder, she turned the corner in time to see the nurse whisk aside the curtains of an examination room, a gesture that reminded Elizabeth of a bad magic act. Inside the cubicle, Robbie sat on an exam table, his bandaged left arm nestled in a makeshift sling. Almost as broad across the shoulders as he was tall, he made the tiny space appear even smaller. Tommy stood near a blood-pressure cuff pegged to the wall. He leaned into a pair of crutches, the leather straps of his wristbands dangling over the handles. He was chewing gum, and still wearing his sunglasses.

Please don’t be long, the nurse said. He’s due in X-ray any minute.

Aren’t we all, Tommy said.

The nurse gave him a stern look. We’ve had a busy night.

Elizabeth dropped the camera bag onto a chair and hugged her brother.

He winced. Easy, sport.

Tommy shuffled forward. Careful. He might break.

Hey, Cuz. She bussed Tommy’s cheek before pointing to Robbie’s injury. How bad is it?

Robbie lifted his arm. I’ve got a b-b-busted wing. He shook his head, as if the motion might loosen his tongue.

He’ll have to use his other hand to jerk off, Tommy said.

Robbie chuckled, but she heard little humor in his voice. She pointed to Tommy’s foot. What happened to you?

I tripped over my own feet.

You couldn’t trip over your own d-d-dick, Robbie said.

Elizabeth ignored him. I saw you crawling on deck with a pair of wire cutters, and then the side of the stage exploded. What happened?

Tommy stared at his bandaged ankle. Bad luck as usual, Cuz.

Ever since he could walk, misfortune had stalked Tommy like a coyote after deer. He’d been kicked by a cow, stung by yellow jackets, and nearly frozen when he fell through the ice while skating. One summer, on a dare from Robbie, he’d tried to see how long he could hold onto an electrified fence. The answer to that was too long. His first girlfriend threw him over for a basketball player. His first week on skis, he broke his leg. The day of his driver’s test, he had all four wisdom teeth removed. He was so high on Darvon he couldn’t park the car.

Robbie seemed oblivious to Tommy’s history. With a chuckle he pointed to Elizabeth’s feet. You still wearing those clodhoppers?

Knowing the changeable nature of the weather in the mountains, she’d dressed in jeans, a man’s shirt with the sleeves cuffed to the elbows, and the work boots she wore on the farm.

What’s wrong with them?

Robbie clicked his tongue. They make you look like a hick.

Better than a one-arm drummer.

Whenever her brother picked on her, Elizabeth would raise the camera, take a shot, and have the satisfaction of watching the glee drain from his face. After years of sibling rivalry, she had quite a collection. Taking a step back, she slid a camera from her bag. The shadows beneath the men’s eyes made them look gaunt. Neither smiled. She snapped the photo anyway.

Tommy, she said, did you call Uncle Morey and tell him where you were?

Done and done.

Elizabeth took in the cubicle, with its ports and outlets, the examination light and small television set extending from a stalk. Through the gap in the curtain, she watched a dozen women orbit the nurses station and felt her impatience build. Where are the others?

Del’s around s-s-somewhere, Robbie said.

His jacket caught fire, Tommy said. The dumb-ass tried to put it out with his hand.

And Mattie?

Her mouth still works, Tommy said.

Elizabeth winced at the dig. Where is she?

Robbie aimed a thumb at the ceiling. Up in Quinn’s room.

She felt a twinge in her stomach, like an arm reawakening from sleep. He has a room, and you’re still down here?

Robbie nodded. Ain’t that the truth.

How did he get a room?

He thinks he has a concussion, Tommy said. Although knowing him, how could you tell?

Elizabeth ignored the jibe. And he asked for Mattie?

He’s the star, Tommy said. What can I tell you?

You can tell me where he is.

I’ll go you one better.

* * *

The hospital—a six floor brick building with a metal overhang for the emergency entrance—wasn’t that big, or tightly guarded. Even with a camera bouncing around her neck, Elizabeth and Tommy walked unchallenged through the hallways on two floors before spotting a group of nurses near the maternity wing.

Excuse me, she said. Press. Coming through.

At first, she thought Mattie was in bed with Quinn, the woman stretched across the sheet, breasts about to boil over her top. Even in normal conditions, Elizabeth envied the singer. Full lips, skin as dark as syrup, Mattie was everything Elizabeth wasn’t, a social animal with the figure of a fertility goddess and a way of twirling her hair that suggested a smoldering furnace below. But this display of ownership hit too hard.

Before she became aware of the impulse, Elizabeth raised the camera and fired a burst of shots, the clack of the mirror bouncing from the cement-block walls. That got everyone’s attention. So did a woman who looked like the supervisor, a shorter version of the ER nurse, with varnished hair and a hint of fuzz above her lip. Visiting hours are over. She ordered everyone from the room.

Quinn fanned the air with his hand and in an unusually loud voice said, Hey, it’s a party. Let ’em stay. He sounded high. Maybe, Elizabeth thought, the nurse had given him something for pain.

The supervisor pursed her lips and, turning on a squeaky heel, disappeared.

Brushing the hair from her eyes, Mattie touched Elizabeth’s shoulder on her way through the door. He’s a little tired right now, honey. I wouldn’t stay too long. With the Alabama accent, her version of tired came out as tarred, something Elizabeth would do to Quinn if he continued to play one of them against the other.

Tommy stood in the doorway, leaning into his crutches. Mattie chucked him under the chin, told him he looked a little worse for wear, and followed the nurse.

As she reached the bed, Elizabeth’s attitude softened. Running her fingers the length of Quinn’s arm, she watched the goosebumps form and felt the familiar tug deep within. He cupped the back of her head and pulled her into a kiss, his lips as soft as water. She drew back to catch her breath. Searching for signs of injury, and finding nothing except a wad of cotton in his ear, she slid next to him.

I thought you were hurt.

He dipped his head and picked at the plastic ID band encircling his wrist. The gesture reeked of exaggerated remorse and only rekindled her anger.

But you’re not, she said. Robbie’s downstairs with a broken arm, Del and Tommy are hurt, and you’re up here entertaining the troops. She curled her fingers to simulate quotation marks and felt pathetic the moment she did so.

He grinned but refused to acknowledge her concern, or look at Tommy. Hey, do you know if Michael Lang showed up, or any of his partners? Or Morey? Where the hell is Morey, anyway?

Her anger turned to exasperation. You could have been killed, all of you, and this is all you think about? Woodstock and your manager? Nothing is ever enough, is it? Every show has to top the last one. More rockets, more amps, more women.

She paused for breath and felt the backlog of fear and frustration sear her lungs. She’d given the last two years of her life to Quinn and desperately wanted the relationship to go someplace other than his bed. If he would just pay attention to what he had. If he could tell her she mattered, instead of letting her guess. There were times she felt like a junior-high science project, an insect pinned to a board under a label that read martyr, unable to stay and unwilling to go.

And what are you doing with Mattie? she asked. You’re the one who told me to never get involved with someone in the band, it’s too messy, you break up and there goes the music. Or have you stopped caring about that, too?

His eyes slid uneasily away.

Are you even listening?

He was humming now, a low rasp in his chest that reminded Elizabeth of the time she had bronchitis. She couldn’t place the song and that, plus his