The rest of the stuff was in the same vein: airbrushed apostles at a long table staring beatifically at Christ as he spread his arms out to either side ($750); a sequined Virgin Mary staring up at a rhinestoned Christ on the cross ($900); and, of course, Christ in the clouds with his arms around Ail-vis as the two stare down at a miniature stylized rendition of mourners filing past the grave at Graceland ($1,400). The painted title above that one read THE KING MEETS THE KING.
You know, one of these days, a few centuries down the road, archaeologists will excavate the ruins of Nashville, Tennessee, and they’ll come across this place. And they’re going to think we were all like this.
I shook my head in wonder. As far as I was concerned, the success of this venture only validated my long-held belief that there is a significant portion of the populace whose wallets are bigger than their brains.
Other racks had clothes decorated in a more secular fashion. If I wanted, for instance, a six-hundred-dollar jacket with an airbrushed George Jones or a Hank Williams, Jr., or a Tammy Wynette, this was the place to get it.
A young woman with flowing black hair, wearing a floor-length paisley granny dress and sandals, stepped out from behind a curtained door at the other end of the room next to the counter and cash register. She looked to be early twenties at the most, with the glazed look that marks Nashville’s considerable population of hippie wannabes.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like to see one of these jackets with Garth Brooks on it.”
“Oh,” she said, then let loose with a long sigh. “We had one with Garth on it, but his people got a court order and made us quit selling them. Said the image of his face was his property and we couldn’t use it. He’s the only one who’s ever complained. Most stars are proud to be on a Jericho’s jacket.”
“Maybe you should have offered him a royalty,” I suggested.
“Naw, not worth it.”
I wandered between a couple of racks casually, fingering the clothes as the young woman watched me. We were the only two in the store, as far as I could tell. Of course, at these prices you didn’t need a high customer volume.
“This stuff is really nice,” I said, hoping God wouldn’t strike me down for bearing false witness. “Who does it? The custom artwork, I mean.”
“Oh, we have a number of artists who create for us.”
“Hmm, they don’t sign their work, though.”
“Most of them figure it’s their way of doing God’s work. They don’t want any recognition. It’s all His glory, anyway, right?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ve always been curious about this place, but never stopped in before. How long’s it been around?”
She turned a blank look on me. “I’ve been here almost two years. I don’t know how long it was here before that.”
This young woman struck me as the kind of person a cult recruiter would look at and the words Dead Meat would come to mind.
I noticed a small, white plastic bin on the counter next to the cash register. Tucked inside the bin was a stack of leaflets. I walked over and picked one up, then unfolded it. It was an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch sheet, tri-folded, printed in red ink. The headline across the top read ARE MASONS THE TOOL OF THE DEVIL? The rest of the pamphlet was filled with a diatribe about how every evil in the world was perpetrated by the Masonic conspiracy in conjunction with the Illuminati and the Trilateral Commission, or some such nonsense.
I suppressed a chuckle. I always thought the Masons were those fat, middle-aged, balding guys who wore sequined fezzes and clown suits and rode miniature motorcycles in the Christmas parade and collected money for underprivileged kids. Or were those the Shriners? Hell, I always mix them up. In any case, it’s hard for me to imagine either of them being a tool of the Antichrist.
When I turned back after scanning the paper, she was staring at me intently. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Charlotte.”
“Hi, Charlotte. I’m Harry. You believe all this?”
She nodded her head. “You should, too.”
“Tell me, Charlotte, who owns this place?”
Her expression shifted instantly to one of distrust, maybe mixed in with a healthy dose of pissed off.
“Who are you?” she said, sharp now.
“I’m nobody. Just curious, that’s all. Where can I find Brother Hogg?”
Boy, that did it. Her eyes darkened; that deer-in-the-headlights look was gone, replaced by that of a dedicated soldier of the cross.
“You’re a reporter, aren’t you?”
“Everybody keeps accusing me of being a reporter today,” I said. “No, Charlotte. I’m not a reporter. I just want to talk to Hogg.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Oh, c’mon, Charlotte, lighten up. I might buy something.”
“I said leave,” she repeated, this time her voice about twenty percent louder than before. I saw a shuffle in the curtain, and two guys stepped out from the same room where Charlotte had been. They wore white T-shirts that let me know in no uncertain terms how much they could bench-press. One had hair the color and length of a lion’s mane, with a short, well-trimmed reddish beard. The other was just plain dark and looked about as mean as a snake.
“Gee, I’m sorry if I upset you.”
“Goodbye, sir,” she said, one last time.
I stepped to the door and opened it, then turned back to her for a moment. She really was quite lovely; what a waste.
“See you guys around,” I said.
So discreet was apparently an understatement. The Pentecostal Enochians were not only disinclined to advertise their ownership of Jericho’s, they were liable to pummel you to goo if you asked too many questions.
I cut over to Church Street, crossed the Viaduct just before you get to the Downtown YMCA building, then left again and found a parking space a couple of blocks down on the street in front the Tennessee Workmen’s Protective Association Building.
Phil Anderson’s office was on the fourth floor, with a window that looked out over Capitol Hill and toward North Nashville. The blazing red Bruton Snuff sign over the U.S. Tobacco Company glowed like a landmark in the deepening afternoon shadows. Farther north, the traffic was just beginning to back up in the northbound lanes of I-65.
I sat in the reception area outside a bank of offices for about ten minutes. Once Phil saw the videotape of the Shaquille O’Neal of the bricklaying set, I was going to be an insider here. I could feel it. I’d do a written report once Phil told me what he wanted to see in it, and I’d be available for court testimony if civil suit or prosecution arose; at my customary fee, of course.
All in all, not a bad gig. I felt pretty good.
A long line of beige-colored metal doors ran down the hall to my right, past the middle-aged secretary whose fingers buzzed away on a word processor. One of the doors flew open and an imposing Phil Anderson stepped out. I’m about six feet tall and have a tough time maintaining one sixty. Phil’s got at least four inches and a hundred pounds on me, and he moves like a hyperactive kid who forgot his Ritalin.
“Harry, you rascal, how are you?” he demanded in his booming voice. The secretary’d heard it before. She never broke rhythm on the keys.
“Fine, Phil, good to see you.” I stuck out my hand and he jerked it like a pump handle. A long lock of shiny brown hair drooped down over his forehead, and great bags hung under his eyes. I realized then where I’d seen him before; he’s what Thomas Wolfe would have looked like if he’d lived into his late forties and spent too much time on the couch with a six-pack and a case of potato chips.
“C’mon down here. We’ve got a VCR and a monitor in the conference room. A couple of the other guys want to see this tape, too.” He turned to the secretary. “Jane Ellen, call Rick and Steve and tell ’em Harry’s here.”