Gutbucket Quest (22 page)

“This is wild,” he said, looking around rubbernecked.

Nadine bumped him with her shoulders. “Hey,” she said. “When we have a big gig, we do it right. This isn’t just for us, you know, not just for the Gutbucket and all. This is for all the people who are coming to hear the blues. They’re looking for a show, and a show is more than just what’s on stage. They want to be able to get good food and T-shirts and records and anything else they can think of. They want to fuck in the grass and swim in the river. They want to see how they think
we
live, see
us
fucking in the grass and swimming in the river. We’ve got to give them all that. Without them there’s no reason to be here at all.”

They walked to the stage, thinking that’s where they’d find Progress and their other friends. “You ever get freaked out by the audiences?” Slim asked absently.

“No,” Nadine replied. “About the worst I ever get is drunks trying to get into my pants or wanting me to sing some horrible crying in your beer song. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Slim said uncertainly. “Just a feeling. I had some bad experiences in the old days. There’s always an endless supply of psychos and loonies and horny little girls that wanna go home with the guitar player. I used to take advantage of that, before I learned better. I’d take two or three home with me at a time. Fuck one and watch the other two love on each other, and then fuck them, too. Hey, I was young and stupid. It was fun and it make me feel good and they’d do anything just for the chance to get their hands on someone that stood
up there in the lights playing. That can fuck your head up pretty good. It did mine, anyway, for a long while.

“But along with those you get the loonies. The boyfriends and fathers who wanted to kill you, or at least beat hell out of you because you dared to give their little girl what she wanted. And the people who didn’t like rock and roll or blues or whatever you were playing. Now and then, though, you’d get an honest to goodness crazy, a guy with a gun or a knife or a bomb, who didn’t think there was anything finer he could possibly do with his life than snuff some hardworking ‘star.’ No good reason, no logic, no sense to it. Just headlines. That worries me here. It worries me that Pickens might have loaded the crowd with crazies.” Who might try to get rid of Slim by messing up those he loved. He wished he could abolish that concern, but he couldn’t, quite.

“I don’t think so,” Nadine said. “That’s not his way. Crazies are too independent. T-Bone wants his people to follow his orders and be good little slaves. Besides, he wants to humiliate us, break us, take the music away. I don’t think it would satisfy him for some crazy to just kill us. He wants to win, to get control. And we’re one of the things he wants to get control of. Then when he has us down, he wants to gloat. He’s a nasty man.”

They walked up the steps to the stage. “I hate him,” Slim said. “I really do.”

“Why?”

“Because he wants you,” Slim replied, blushing a little with the ardency of this feelings. “Ever since we went to his office and he made it clear he wanted you. I’ve hated him since that moment. I think you
were
what he wanted when he kidnapped you. I don’ think he wanted to kill anyone the way Progress says. I think he just didn’t plan it very well, or he underestimated us. But whatever it is, I think he wanted you.” And that was nudging closer to the truth. T-Bone might want to
have Nadine, and make Slim watch. Then give him a chance to vacate this world.

“Maybe,” Nadine said. She pointed to a crowd of men gathered around the sound board. “There’s Daddy,” she said.

Progress turned as they approached. The side of his face was still bruised, but the gold-toothed smile was back, and shining more broadly than ever. “Howdy, chillen,” he said. He turned back to the men at the board, muttered a few instructions and turned back to Slim and Nadine.

“You okay, Daddy?” Nadine asked.

“Sure I is,” Progress replied. “A little worse for wear, but nothin’ permanent. I been worse and hurt more. How about you kids?”

“Shaky,” Slim answered. “But so far, so good.”

“I talked to Eli,” Progress said. “I know what he told you. You okay with that? You livin’ with it?”

“Okay?” Slim shrugged. “Nah. Not really. I don’t see that there’s much choice, though, so I guess I just get through it the best I can.”

“Good for you,” Progress said, slapping Slim on the back hard enough to nearly knock him over. “How about you, Nadine?”

“I’m fine, Daddy. Just a little worried about Slim.”

“Yep, I can see that. Anyhow, why don’t we go have us a little bite and get set up. You’re gonna need some playin’ time, Slim. I knows that amp you done got. It’s fine, fine equipment, but you’re gonna have to cozen it a bit. The man who built it, Dusty Hills was his name, he sorta enchantivated it. He was lookin’ for a way to amplify the power, you see. But the thing has its likes and dislikes, so it can back up on you if you don’t treat it right and take it in hand.” Progress chuckled, shaking his head. “Ole Dusty,” he said, “he was a good boy, but a mite crazed.”

“Oh, good. Just what I need. An amp with a mind of its own. Like I don’t have enough to deal with.”

“Now, son,” Progress said, patting Slim’s shoulder in a fatherly fashion that Slim basked in. “Don’t awfulize it. I knows you think you got a hard road, but you’re ridin’ the clutch. You gots to let yourself up a little. You’ll have the best of the backroom boys behind you, and me and Nadine’ll be right up there with you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Slim said. “Nadine and I, we’ve talked a lot, so I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Just a little scared.”

“Well, son, to tell the absolute truth, I guess we all are, a little. But sometimes you just gotta kick it in the get along. You gots to know what you’re doin’. You got the power, plenty of that. You got the amp and you gonna have the Gutbucket.”

“Oh,” Slim said, almost bitterly. “Let’s not forget Shango.”

“Yep, that, too. Ole T-Bone, he ain’t never gonna be able to beat All
that.”

“Daddy,” Nadine said. “Isn’t it enough just to get the Gutbucket back? Do we have to go after the rest of it?”

“You talks like it was easy, girl. Slim’s gonna have to steal the Gutbucket back, and that ain’t no cinch. But if he does it, we gots to go all the way down with it. If we don’t, T-Bone’ll never give up whippin’ on us, or tryin’ to. He’s a damn tush hog, bullyin’ everybody. I don’t much likes it but we’re gonna have to kill him too dead to skin.”

Slim laughed. “Okay,” he said. “But listen here, talk’s cheap but it takes money to buy whiskey. How in hell am I suppose to steal the Gutbucket?”

“Not sure, son,” Progress said. “But T-Bone, he might be bad and he might have power, but he’s kinda stupid, too. No imagination. He’s the kinda man would ride a horse every week, but he’d be pissed off ’cause he had to go the same direction as the horse. That’s what I’m countin’ on. His stupidity.”

They’d walked and talked their way to the big circus tent. It was filled with chairs and tables and people eating and a smell of food that was almost overpowering. The three of them sat at a table and, after a
man in Torriero white had taken their orders, Progress continued his talk.

“The way I figure it,” he said, “is that T-Bone’s gonna have a few of his boys outta sight, holdin’ the Gutbucket. But we’ve got a whole slew of folks gonna be up on that there stage buildin’ up the power for the blowout. T-Bone ain’t gonna sit by for that. He’s gonna be around. I got some boys I hope are gonna distract him. While he’s boggin’ off, that’s when you makes your move, you and Nadine.”

“What move do we make?” Slim asked.

“That ain’t up to me, son. That’s gonna have to be up to you and Nadine. You’re the ones takin’ the risks, you’re the ones got to be in control of it. You and Nadine make a mighty fine team. Use that and go from there. Trust your feelings. You been doin’ fine so far, but the hard part’s comin’ up, and I ain’t
even
talkin’ about stealin’ the Gutbucket.”

“That’s
not
the hard part?” Slim asked incredulously.

“Nope,” Progress replied. “Not for you. Remember, even after gettin’ it, you still gots to play it. You gots to call down the power and bust a move wide open.”

“That’s right,” Nadine said. “All the things we’ve been talking about. The surrender.”

“That’s it, son. Remember, when I first told you ’bout the power. I told you you was gonna have to surrender to it, that you was gonna have a hard time with that. You’ve changed a lot since you first fell in here, but that hasn’t changed out of the way. You’ve given a little, but you still got a ways to go with it. You still got a heavy load to carry. I’m sorry about that, truly I am. I didn’t know when we first met down at the creek that you was gonna have as much weight on your shoulders. I wish it was different, but it ain’t. It’s all on you. We’ll be backin’ you up, but you still the one’s gotta step out in front with it.”

Slim sighed. “You know,” he said. “It’s funny, but in a way, that’s what I wanted. Not with my mind, maybe, but with my heart. As long
as you and Nadine believe me, I can do it, or at least, I can do my best. Being scared isn’t nothin’. I’ve lived most of my life scared of one thing or another. Still managed to get up and around. I guess I will this time, too.”

“There you go,” Progress said.

Their food came at last, and they ate silently, listening to the conversations around them. Folks were worried, they could tell, but generally in good spirits. Slim heard his own name mentioned several times, and that puzzled him. How could these people know him? Or was he, in fact, a mysterious figure, a name they’d heard mentioned as being a part of it all? Did they, any of them, know what was really going on? Were they all good guys, or were there a few Vipers in the crowd?

As he ate the last of his hamburger, Slim tried to calm his harried thoughts. He should be excited. He’d be up on stage tomorrow, playing the living blues for a festival crowd that wanted to hear it. If he lived. He’d never thought much about his own mortality, nor did he now. People, he thought, spent far too much time worrying about dying, and didn’t leave much room for living. Right now, he had about everything he wanted. Room to move, music to play, a woman to love, friends and adventure. He had a whole new world to discover. So why, he wondered, was he so much more interested in trying to figure out what was going on inside himself?

“We best be heading for the tents,” Progress said. “We gots one big tent, figured it’d be safer that way. It’s partitioned off, so you kids’ll have privacy. Belizaire’s comin’ along later on. Mother Phillips is here, takin’ care of her business. Heap of Bears is off in that metal eyesore of his, drummin’ and walkin’ and whatever else he does, puttin’ his own whammy on the whole shebang. Eli is—well, he’s Eli, you know how he is. He’ll be there when we need him. It ain’t the best situation in the world, but we figured it was the safest. For now, we’ll get you settled in and then you can have time to rehearse a little.”

“What are we gonna play?” Slim asked. “I mean, it doesn’t seem to
me like this is the kind of situation where anything will work if we just jam. And I haven’t played with any of y’all before, so what’s what?”

“That’s gonna be up to you, son. It’s your gig, you gots to pick the songs. We can play along with most anything, just compin’, you know. When it’s time for you to stand out, though, you gots to be goin’ with what you know. You the one’s gotta do the pickin’. Me and the boys and Nadine, I s’pect we all know about the same songs, so we’ll just stand and rehearse and then you and us can figure out what we wanna do. Fair enough?”

“I suppose so. It’s just that, right now, my mind isn’t thinking much about songs.”

“Aw, son,” Progress said. He smiled broadly and, even in the dim light of the tent, his teeth flashed brightly gold. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just one-take Johnsons. Just do it. You was born for the blues, son. I can feel it. You just been sidetracked by all this mess. Once you start playin’, you’ll know where you are. Just remember, life don’t be no rehearsal. Don’t hurt nobody who don’t hurt you first. Don’t hurt yourself, dress nice and go on all the rides. Nothin’ to fret about. This be a barrelhouse town, son. These folks a-comin’ out here, they’re wantin’ the real blues. That’s gonna inspire you to come up with what you need. Just use your common sense.”

“You got it,” Slim said happily. “Though no one’s ever accused me of having common sense before. I dunno. I’ll crank it up to patent applied for and kick ass. Don’t know any other way to do it.”

“That’s the spirit,” Nadine said, tickling him.

“Yeah—why, they’ve trifled with the wrong alert, steel-nerved chap, this time.”

“Now wait a minute, baby,” Nadine said, intensifying her tickling by going to the use of both hands on his ribs, which she knew from experience were a particularly tickle sensitive part of his body. “Let’s not strain the old brain pan with attic wit, huh.”

“Oh, just you wait, Nadine. Right there—I’ll think up a retort.
I’ll come back at you like lightning—you’ll be sick at your stomach with sheer envy at my wittery.”

“Say,” Nadine said, trying to hold in her own laughter and generally having as dismal a success at it as Slim. “I bet you think you have almost human intelligence, don’t you?”

“Hey, it takes a lot of thought to appear swayve and deboner.”

“I’ll deboner you, sucker. I don’t mind you crying on my shoulder, but your nose is dripping on my neck.”

Slim turned to Progress and held his hand up to his mouth confidentially. “I don’t know about you,” he said in a stage whisper, “but I think there’s some cahootenizing going on here.”

“That goes for me, too,” Nadine said in mock indignation. “Though we’re enemies, we’re bonded by the bounds of friendship and true love.”

“Right,” Slim replied. “We’re fellow bounders.”

The two of them fell into each other’s arms laughing wildly. They paid no attention to anyone else in the tent as their hands squeezed and tickled and touched. Nor did they see the happy smile on Progress’ bruised face, or hear his sigh of relief. Nor did they hear him say to himself, “Good, things are back to normal, almost.”