Gutbucket Quest (11 page)

She wouldn’t talk any more on the way to town, but Slim was pleased and surprised when she grabbed his arm and put it around her small shoulders and then snuggled in close against him. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a joke to her as he had been.

10

Not only are the blues viewed as having physical attributes, which allow them to walk and run, talk to and shake the victim, but they can also predict the future and cause emotional reactions. They can even enslave the sufferer . . .

—Daphne Duval Harrison,
Black Pearls

The Blues Ain’t Nothin’

I’m gonna build myself a raft, and float that river down,

I’ll build myself a shack in some old Tejas town, Mmmm, Mmmm,

’Cause the blues ain’t nothin’, no the blues ain’t nothin’,

But a good man feelin’ down.

Goin’ down on the levee, gonna take a rockin’ chair,

If my lovin’ gal don’t change, I rock away from there, Mmmm, Mmmm,

’Cause the blues ain’t nothin’, no the blues ain’t nothin’,

But a good man feelin’ down.

Why’d you leave me blue, oh why did you leave me blue,

All I can do is sit and cry and cry for you, Mmmm, Mmmm,

’Cause the blues ain’t nothin’, no the blues ain’t nothin’

But a good man feelin’ down.

I
t was a slow day at Mitchell’s. The waitress moved languidly to take and fill their orders. They got a pitcher of beer and all three ordered the chili and corn bread, bottomless-bowl style. The chili was full-bodied, spicy and satisfying, the corn bread light, but tight, yellow and solid. Slim could taste why it was the specialty of the house.

“Progress,” he said. “I can feel it now—the power I mean. But I didn’t know what I was doing. How do I make it work? How do I control it?”

Progress kept on eating and thinking. Slim waited for him to answer, which he did, after a few minutes and chews. “Well, son,” he said. “Onliest way I can tell you, is by talkin’ blues, ’cause that’s what it is, you see? It’s about upholdin’ values and havin’ fun. The power’s there for you, for anyone. But there’s lots of things people don’t want to hear, and the last thing they want to hear is that power and freedom comes from discipline. That’s somethin’ you got to have. I guess players got it ’cause we got to work so hard to learn to play and keep it goin’, and ’cause we gots to work into the structure of the music. But you gots to give it latitude, too. Latitude’s your wings. That’s important. You be feelin’ slow, or fast, or in between, and you want to lay back, but blues players don’t slow down, they stretch time. They lay back so much they come sneakin’ up on you.

“I’m talkin’ an attitude now, not chops. Chops is fine, but chops is just chops, just tricks. You want the real power. It’s like bein’ a singer. You might be a great singer, but if you don’t have a great song, what are you gonna do? It’s the same with players, and with the power. If you don’t have a great song to play a solo with, a good heart to base the power on, a base or foundation to do somethin’ melodically, chops don’t mean nothin’.”

“I don’t understand,” Slim said. “I don’t get what you mean.”

“It’s what I’m tellin’ you son. To use the power to fight, or enhance or enchant, you got to harmonize with the situation, work with what’s there. Songs and people are weird things. If you pick everything off of ‘em, all you got left is the bare bones, then you got to follow that. If you’re a painter, then you start out with an empty canvas. If you’re a player, your canvas is silence. Now if you fucks around with that—if you’re a player you fucks around with silence. And you leave some spaces, you leave some movement. Maybe it ain’t quick or flashy, but it works better and it’s a lot harder than just knockin’ off few quick licks. Savor each note before you go on to the next, and come up for air, too. Don’t forget to breathe and play the spaces as well as the notes. That silence is a condition of the sound, just like sleepin’ is a condition of life. You understand?”

“I think so,” Slim said. “Sort of, coming at it sideways. I just don’t know if I can do it.”

“You already has, son. Look here, you gots to remember no matter where you is, that you’re on stage and you gots to give it everything. Don’t forget what you’re doin’ there. If you wants to show the peoples what playin’ is all about, you get on it and
show
‘em. When you put your hand in the air you better mean it. You don’t get out there and act like no weasel, you stick that arm in the air and you make that guitar do its thing.

“You see, son, people ain’t looking for the meaning of life. What they want is an experience of bein’
alive.
If you wants to use the power good, if you wants to help the peoples, what you gots to show ’em is a way to live in the world, to live with people. A lump in the throat is worth two on the head. You gots to sing like you don’t need the money and dance like ain’t nobody watchin’. You do that, and the day will come when you trust
you
more than you do now. It’s a choice. You can be one of two things. You can look like one, or you can
be
one.”

Slim started on his second bowl of chili and his third beer. He thought about what Progress had just said. It did make sense, if you thought of the blues as power. Like his own blues, though, there was a connection missing, and he had to ask. “What about love, Progress? Where does love fit in?”

He’d come to think that, no matter how hard he loved, he didn’t know how to love, and that that was what was missing, what was holding him back.

“Oh, son,” Progress said. “Come on and wake up, the early bird get the pancakes. Love’s what’s there, the heart and soul of it. Love’s the only thing in the world matters scratch. Everything else grows out of that.”

Progress looked sad, and Slim wondered if he was thinking about his wife.

“Let me tell you how to love,” the old man said. “Because there’s only one way in the world to do it right. See, when you love someone, you gots to love that person like every moment’s the last time you’ll see ’em ’cause if you don’t, if you don’t, and somethin’ happens to ’em and they die, you’ll think, ‘I didn’t hug ‘em, I didn’t tell ’em I loved ‘em,’ or you’ll think, ‘We argued and out last words was angry.’ And son, if that happens, it’ll tear your heart out the rest of your life. That’s why you gots to make the things you do and say count forever. You gots to dust your blues and make your love come down, every minute, every day. ’Cause that’s a mighty power, too. Maybe the mightiest. But it’s a power you cain’t use, cain’t hold on to. It’s a power you got to constantly give away. You see? The onliest thing in life that’s free is love. Everything else, you can earn or steal.”

Slim shook his head. “That’s almost too deep to get under,” he said. “I hope I can love that way. I wish I could. What about you though? Why didn’t you ever get married again?”

Nadine punched him in the gut. “Slim” she said, looking at him
angrily. Then, rather than say anything else, she got up and headed to the bathroom.

Progress chuckled through a mouthful of corn bread. “Don’t mind her,” he said. “Nadine’s a double-barreled woman. Just about the time you think the smoke’s cleared, she’ll open up and let you have the full load.” He sighed and looked at Slim with sadness in his eyes, sadness and hurt. “She don’t like to talk about her mama much. Thinks I don’t either. But don’t you worry none about her. I know she’s a hard woman, she can get way down on a man. But that’s just her way, you see. She’s all the time testin’ a man, seein’ if he lives up to it. Was I you, I’d just lay back and mole when she’s jivin’, ‘less you can think of a good answer. But when it’s time to move, then you jump up and stand out and take care of your business. You’re makin’ her love come down, don’t give up just cause it’s hard.”

He paused reflectively. “Far as me and her mama, truth is, I just couldn’t find no better woman. There was lots before her. I’d be lyin’ if I said there wasn’t. But emotionally, sexually, in every way, there just couldn’t be no one after her. Oh, I have me a woman now and again, but it’s just feedin’ the fire. It ain’t marryin’. It’s one thing to spend a night or two with someone soft and friendly, but it’s a whole other gig to spend a life.”

Progress looked around suspiciously. Nadine was still in the bathroom, so he moved his chair close up to Slim’s.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, smiling. “Big secret. Maybe it’ll help you. Probably it won’t. Most folks it don’t. See, the thing is, when it comes to men and women—anybody, I guess—peoples behave the way other folks expect ’em to. You gets together with a nice lady, see, and you expect her to act in a certain way. And she’s ex-pectin’ you to act in a certain way. So’s, with each of you doin’ so much expectin’, you naturally try to live up to each other’s expectations, good
or
bad. So what I figure is, what you got to do is to always
expect the best from people. Then they’ll try to give the best, maybe. It’s a hard way to live, I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t. It’s livin’ on faith, is what it is, but if we expect a person to act a certain way, then we moves ’em towards makin’ that the easiest way for ’em to act. So if we act in faith that the other person gonna give us their best, that’s just what they gots to do, seems like. And by actin’ in that faith, their expectations of
you
will change for the best. That make any sense to you?”

“Yeah, it does,” Slim said. “It makes a lot of sense.” Slim had always expected the best, he thought. But if he was brutally honest with himself, he always expected the women to treat him cruelly and abandon him. Now he wondered if that expectation, and the way he, himself, acted because of it, was what caused the women to act the way they did. They were reflecting his pattern.

“Good,” Progress said, shifting his chair back to its place in front of his plate. “Hush up, now. Here comes Nadine back.” Then he sniffed. “You smell anything?”

Now Slim became aware of it. “Something burning. Bad smell. Almost like—”

Nadine pulled out her chair to sit down, and screamed. There was something on it, burning.

Slim lurched up, grabbing for the thing, to get it the hell out of her way. But Progress moved faster, blocking him off. “Don’ touch it”

Then Slim realized what it was: the flaming Glory Hand. Right there by their table, on her chair. It had been out of sight until she pulled the chair out.

A stout, tough man armed with a beltful of knives and cleavers forged across to them. Slim was alarmed, but Progress wasn’t. “What’s this?” the man demanded.

“A Glory Hand,” Nadine said, shaken and disgusted.

“I know that, girl! What’s it doing here?”

“Mitchell, it’s after Slim Chance, here,” Progress said. “Showed
up twice at my house. Once I threw it in the river, once I boxed it and put a hound to guard it. I sure don’ know how they got it here. Nadine was sittin’ right there not a moment ago.”

Mitchell nodded. “Well, it ain’t going to bother you no more,” he said gruffly. He hauled a cleaver from his belt and spiked the hand with it, using precisely enough force to catch it without cutting it in half. The flames doused the moment the blade touched it. He lifted it high. “Disinfect this chair,” he barked at the waitress. “Bring ‘Dine a new one.” He marched off, bearing the hand, as the waitress hastened to exchange chairs.

“He’s mad,” Progress said with a certain satisfaction. “There won’t be nobody sneaking nothin’ like that in here again. Nobody does a thing like that to him twice.”

Slim, though shaken, tried to make light of it. “Sure made Nadine sound off, though”

Nadine sat down, glaring at Slim. He only smiled at her. She looked at Progress, then back at Slim. The confusion was clear in her eyes as she looked down to dip her corn bread in her chili.

Progress cleared his throat, and he and Slim laughed, which made Nadine glare at them again. Slim tried to concentrate on his chili and beer, but Progress wasn’t finished.

“Slim,” he said, just as if nothing had happened. The gold teeth were gleaming now. “What you like to drive? We gots to get you a vehicle.”

“Progress, I can’t let you keep buyin’ me things. It isn’t right.”

“Daddy,” Nadine interrupted. “Let him be. If he doesn’t want it, he doesn’t.”

“Oh, bullshit, Nadine.” He turned to Slim and looked him straight in the eye. “Look here, son,” he said. “I gots more money than I can spend. You come into this here world with nothin’. How you think you get along? You gots to have a vehicle. After this here
trouble is done and you start workin’ gigs, then you pay me back as you can. Now what you like to drive?”

Slim considered a moment. In his whole life no one had ever been generous to him before, and he didn’t know how to handle it, or even how to accept it. But he knew that he felt good for someone believing in him enough to extend the generosity.

“I guess I pretty much like vans,” he said. “They’re all I’ve owned the last twenty years. I can fix ’em up nice and stuff.”

“Well, then,” Progress said. “If we’re all finished eatin’, let’s go down Sixth Street and see can’t we find somethin’ you like. What you say?”

Slim though about protesting again, uncomfortable with the gift giving, but Nadine shook her head.