Spending my life in music, I had more than a little experience with drugs. Not the superstar ‘I’ve got money so fuck the world’ scenario, but the day to day, grind out for a living musicians, who fell prey to the ready availability. Knew three who ended up in jail, five that lost everything including their families, and two who lost everything including their lives.
I had dabbled. I was young, it was available, so I sampled.
I didn’t like pot because I didn’t smoke and it tore my lungs up. I was scared of heroin so that was out. Did two lines of coke once and played so badly, they cut my amp off. I was so messed up I didn’t even realize it. I still drank, rarely to excess.
Luckily, I looked around, saw what it was doing to my friends, and stopped.
…………………….
Mrs Myers, or ‘Nonnie’ as her she had her students call her, was distraught.
“I can’t get that kind of money up. What am I going to do?”
My first response would have been leave him where he was, but I knew she wouldn’t do that. I was afraid she would do something foolish like remortgage her house if I didn’t step in.
She had something of value, something she didn’t even realize she had. Her husband was the one who got me started collecting guitars, and she had a few of them left.
“Nonnie, I think I can help you. How many of Carl’s old guitars do you still have?”
“I don’t know, Wiley, he packed them all up when he got sick and told me to give them to Carl Jr. when he passed. When Junior died and I forgot all them. They’re in the back bedroom still, I guess.”
They were still there. Apparently the grandson had no idea how much they were worth, or they would have been long gone. Everything he had was top of the line, and he had a life time to collect them.
He had five guitars. The first three were valuable, but not rare. On a quick sale I could probably get between eight and twelve thousand for all three.
The other two fell into a completely different area. They amounted to the holy grail for guitar collectors.
One was a 1953 gold top Les Paul, made the first year they put serial numbers on them. This one was in the low three hundred range. It still had the original box and paperwork, and more importantly, it was signed by Les Paul himself, and there was a picture of him in the late fifties holding the guitar. The picture was inscribed with “Carl, treat it well, play it often, love the music, your friend, Les Paul.”
The Les Paul model was actually designed by one of Gibson’s engineers. Les was brought into the project pretty late, a fifties version of branding a product.
Truth be told, the ’53 model wasn’t a very good guitar. It was a bitch to keep tuned and wasn’t really that playable. This didn’t matter at all to most collectors.
By 1957 they had taken the bugs out and had a very good product. The other guitar was a 1957 sunburst Les Paul, also with original paperwork and case. Together they could bring in the mid six figures at the right auction.
I wrote Nonnie a check for the first three, giving her full value. I wasn’t in this one for a profit.
I gave her fifty thousand for a 25% interest in both Les Paul models, having my lawyer draw up a binding contract. We immediately shipped them to Sotheby Auctions in London for an instrument sale they had coming up. We insured them for half a million.
She bailed him out, and the judge put in a proviso that he had to wear an ankle bracelet and could not leave town. If he passed the city limits the bond would be revoked and he would be back in jail.
I had a long talk with the bondsman. Most bondsmen are nice guys if you play by the rules, and this one actually liked Nonnie. We agreed that in addition to the bracelet one of his guys would spot check him several times a day, as long as I paid for his time. I thought it was a good investment.
……………………
This put a serious dent in my ready cash, so I called up a guy who had been bugging me about the Mach 1, and sold it to him for $35, 00. I could have probably gotten a lot more for it if I put in one of those auctions you see on television, but one, I needed working capital, and two, I knew it would piss Sammi off.
It did. She raised hell, she actually loved the car.
“Damn it Wiley, I was hoping you would give it to me for a wedding present.”
I just smiled, which made her angrier.
“I told you when you started driving it not to get attached. I needed the money so I sold it.”
I’m sure with her knowledge of my finances she wondered why I needed the money, but she didn’t dare ask.
“When are we going to look for me a car? I need one pretty bad.”
“Tell you what, after the benefit we’ll address your transportation problem. Right now I’ve got to focus on that.”
“And our marriage.”
She all but spit the words out.
“Oh yeah, I’m working on that” I replied.
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Suddenly, I was tired. Tired of Sammi, tired of the band, tired of responsibilities, even tired of Moira because I couldn’t have her. Most of all I was tired of me and the continual mess my life had become. I declared an unscheduled holiday and disappeared for thirty six hours.
I was even tired of driving my van, I actually missed the Mach 1. Changing my voicemail to say I would be unavailable for the next twenty four hours, I rented the most powerful Mustang they had on the lot, and drove off into the sunset.