Greenville's free alternative weekly

Five Points Confidential remembers Jeff Whitt and Eddie Lee

Five Points is a poorer place these days, but it has nothing to do with how much business we’re doing: We’ve lost some good friends in the last couple of weeks. Five Points Confidential pays tribute to both Jeff Whitt and Eddie Lee, two very different men who brought life and love to the neighborhood, both of whom displayed disparate personalities, though each in their own way fairly pulsed with character and conviction.

They are equals now, though, in unfortunate, untimely, and preventable death.

Jeff Whitt. You couldn’t miss him. But it wasn’t just his size, or the strength of his handshake, or even those clear, blue eyes of his: It was how he carried himself. It was how he brought vim and vigor to the street. He breathed ambition, and it was not for naught: His business acumen (and attendant successes) were things of beauty to be envied and emulated.

It was a great day for my business, indeed, when we found out that Jeff and his partner Joey—“House” to his homies—decided to apply their skill set into transforming the Speakeasy from grungy watering hole to the comfortable and inviting place that it has become. Sure, we’d always had a bar next door, occasionally run by some fairly nice people—but a dirty college beer-bar isn’t necessarily the best neighbor to have next door, not when you’re hosing down the sidewalk twice a week because some underage USC kid can’t hold his Zima.

But when Jeff Whitt tore that place out and rebuilt it in the image he had, as a place in the college ghetto for grownups to go and hear some smooth jazz playing while they enjoyed a “real” beer, I knew we had not only some cool cats moving in, but even more importantly, we now had professionals next door who weren’t messing around, who would have no truck with foolishness. Jeff did not suffer fools; he was too busy.

Nor did Eddie Lee dither with those that were not serious about their actions as human beings. You might not know him; Eddie was not a visible pillar of the business community like Jeff, but he brought the same conviction to his political activism as Jeff did to opening successful taverns. Whether he was feeding the hungry, or protesting against our very own home-grown terrorist training camp, the School of the Americas, Eddie’s deeply held convictions regarding justice and peace drove him to sacrifice his time and money in a valiant effort to raise consciousness.

And his was a successful crusade, in many ways: Eddie inspired quite a few people with his vociferous brand of activism, his dedication to truth-telling, his notion that through the efforts of patriots like him, we could usher in a new age of progressive attitudes in our wounded society. In death, he continues to inspire—his energetic engagement is an example to be followed, no matter your issue or political leaning.

But at the risk of turning this brief memorial for two absent friends into some sort of cautionary polemic, the “preventable” aspect of their deaths simply has to be explored: In Eddie’s case, he expired because of an obviously long-simmering yet undiagnosed and acute ailment. Why undiagnosed? Eddie was not a person of means; he had no health insurance, and could not afford a doctor’s visit and expensive medical tests. The system let Eddie down, and its failings extend to fifty-odd million others for whom health care is a luxury. For shame, Americans. Reign in the corporate culture and take back your lives. That’s what Eddie would say, if he were here. Would he have lived had he received a modicum of affordable health care? Well, well, I guess we’ll never get to know. What a piteous circumstance, this.

And as for Jeff, who I considered to be a pretty smart guy, I must say to him and all of you that “Seatbelts Save Lives” is not just some pithy aphorism—it is wisdom to be heeded, and potentially ignored at the greatest price possible, that of the loss of one’s life. You only get one, folks. Forget “Click it or Ticket”; do it to keep yourself ambulatory, to remain above ground for a tad longer. Had he worn his seat belt, would Jeff have just only been injured instead of so grievously taken from us? I wish we had the chance to know.

Godspeed, Jeff Whitt and Eddie Lee. Life around the neighb is going to be a lot less fun without you guys.

—James D. McCallister is the co-owner of Loose Lucy’s, and also writes stuff: His novel King’s Highway will be published in June by Columbia’s own Red Letter Press.