FINANCE FOOLISHNESS

Doom and Madness in Search of a Finance Director

By

Jimmy Joe Meeker

First Published in The Wilson County Advocate, Vol. 5, No. 29, ©August 10, 1993 by Donald W. Gillette

Nothing good in life is ever easy.

That was the nature of the sermon I delivered to half a dozen drunken guests at the Holiday Inn in Memphis last week where I found myself holed up after a particularly grotesque (but interesting) incident forced me into a vacation. Why I chose Memphis for this get-away, I'll never know, but it's closer than Panama Beach and I am, after all, a Doctor of the Blues, so that city seemed like a safe bet.

But I digress…

The week before last, I thought I'd finally found a local news story worth covering. You see, about six months ago, I became extremely tired of the same old bullshit politics and decided, then and there, to turn my efforts to other things…unusual things…things that had nothing to do with county or city politicians; that is, unless I deemed it newsworthy. Which is probably the wrong attitude to bring to a job like this, but it seems to have served me well in the past.

And then, in the midst of these doldrums, I got interested in the predicament of the county finance director who, I understand, was writing checks the county couldn't cash. I supposed research was in order so that I could bring readers all of the behind-the-scenes gossip and innuendo, but I don't operate like that…I make it up as I go along. So I began to speak to every half-wit in Wilson County to try and determine if there was any possible way I could get several people to tell me the most outlandish story imaginable about what happened.

I heard things that made my skin crawl.

One guy told me the finance director had cashed checks for people on welfare and had taken food stamps in for property tax revenue. Probably not a bad idea, but totally false, yet this hapless idiot believed it.

In days gone by, you could normally believe everything you read in the newspapers--now, not only can't you believe anything you read in the newspapers or see in the media, you don't even want to because somewhere, someplace, somehow, some yahoo will read a headlines and concoct an entire story to tell you that has nothing to do with the truth. And since fully half of the people I talked to can't read "See Spot run," this sort of thing happens a lot.

I talked to the publisher of The Wilson County Advocate about this phenomenon and he explained this was the reason we run such outrageous headlines and always make them so big. So people don't have to read the stories.

I let that go without saying a word.

Anyway, along the same period of time that the school system's finances were supposed to be transferred to the county finance director, there was also a story in the Nashville Tennessee about Omar The Snake Man's untimely demise. The very next person I saw told me that Ron Gilbert, the county finance director, was actually Omar and that he'd been bitten by a cottonmouth rattler while going through Don Simpson's desk late at night. The rattlesnake was supposedly hidden in Simpson's desk to keep intruders at bay. The teller of this tale assured me it was fact and swore that Simpson had murdered the previous finance director, Chuck Something or Other, with an axe and then buried his body in a vacant lot in Norene.

And that very well may be, but you couldn't prove it by me. At least as far as you know.

But back to my sermon…

After trying unsuccessfully to get someone to actually tell me that the finance director's actions were simply a bank error or that someone just goofed, I high-tailed it out of Lebanon for a much deserved break. Once inside the Holiday Inn, I set up my typewriter, called the desk for Wild Turkey and twenty-pound bond paper, and began to write the story. I got two words down on that simple, twisted old Royal and the "E" key broke off.

Now, as anyone who can read and write will tell you, it's impossible to write in English without an "E". Three-quarters of the words in the dictionary have an "E" in them. And the story I had to write was good, too. It was filled with anecdotes like the two I remembered above.

Except that by the time I'd finished the bourbon and tried to get the whole article down using a pencil, I'd forgotten all but the aforementioned two.

Nothing good in life is ever easy. So you'll have to believe me. The story I had in mind was good. And it wasn't easy to listen to all of the crap I had heard in its preparation.

And now it's gone for good.

So after reading the Gideon Bible in my room for a good hour and a half, I took it upon myself to enlighten the crowd gathered under the mezzanine on the fourth floor.

I was sitting by myself in the room when I felt a sudden and extremely powerful movement at the base of my spine. Good God! I thought. What is it--a leech? Are there leeches in this stinking motel room, along with everything else? I jumped off the bed and began clawing at the small of my back with both hands. The thing felt huge, maybe eight or ten pounds, moving slowly up my spine toward the base of my neck. I'd been wondering ever since starting work on this story why I felt so low…but it never occurred to me that a giant leech had been sucking blood out of my spine all along; and now the goddam thing was moving up toward the base of my brain--straight for the medulla--and I knew as a professional that if it ever reached the medulla, I was done for. It was at this point that I was seized by serious conflict because I realized--given the nature of the thing crawling up my spine and the drastic effect it would have, very soon, on my journalistic responsibility--that I had to do two things: first, deliver my sermon and secondly, get the hell out of Memphis. And so I decided to speak. And then I had to leave. Quickly.

Yes, the management called the police. Yes, I had to pay hush money to the girl who cleaned up my room in the morning because of an unusual proposition I made to her concerning all the shampoo on her cart and a certain portion of her anatomy. Yes, I had to leave the motel before the cops showed up and tossed me into the bowels of some lightless cell under the Mississippi River.

But, all in all, it was a good experience. I have vowed to never again involve myself in county politics.

Unless I deem them newsworthy. Which is probably the wrong attitude to bring to a job like this, but it seems to have served me well in the past.

Hmmm… Déjà vu.

All over again.

No one here gets out alive.

XXX