Gutbucket Quest (28 page)

And when they stand in moonlight,

Your heart flies to the stars,

And just along about midnight,

They’ll take you very far.

Tejas women

Know the way

To keep you hangin’ ’round.

Tejas women

Don’t need your heart,

What they want is further down.

And when she stands before you,

Your life is in her hands,

And when you’ve tasted her sweet lips,

Buddy you’ll understand.”

It sounded good for a first time through. Slim could feel the power build to a nearly unbearable level. Then—he went black. His fingers still played and his voice still sang, but he wasn’t there with them. He was, abruptly, in world of thunder and lightning and wind.

Shango had finally returned.

There was a presence, or something much like one. Huge and old and powerful, Earth wide and ebony black. Images filled his mind and soul. The planet Earth, wreathed in a constantly moving, charging and discharging field of magnetism and electricity. But there was a sentience behind it, a sentience whose attention was now turned to Slim, sitting and playing on a small stage.

He saw, for a moment, overlapping visions of both his world and the world where Tejas existed. Then his mind was sucked into a vortex and spun. He felt himself come apart, molecule by molecule; then he was brought back together in light and heat. He felt—gratitude?—love? Whatever it was, it was now inside him, a part of him. Perhaps it always had been. It moved with his rhythms, or he with it. He wasn’t sure which and it didn’t matter.

He was once again shown the double image of the worlds, and he was offered a choice. But he knew, and communicated to the being, to Shango, that there was no longer a choice. He was a man of Tejas, a man of the blues, and would remain so.

Then he once again felt the Gutbucket in his hands. The song was over and he had come back to consciousness, fully rooted in the world he loved, awake with the sound of thunder. Lightning crashed in the sky and he cried out into the microphone, “
Boogie, chillen!"

He started out slow and alone, building the grove till it was rock-hard boogie. Loose and free, at last, he slapped the strings carelessly, trusting to the power and to Shango. He played with it a little, hitting harmonics and octaves, wandering and finding the feel. When he had a hold on the groove that was solid and immutable, he started to sing:

“Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey,

Hey, hey, hey,

Working the midnight job, yeah,

Walkin’ down easy street,

I hurt, hurt, hurt.

Everybody been talkin’ ’bout,

Talkin’ ’bout,

A strange love,

But I dropped in that night,

I did the boogie, chillen,

Did the boogie low,

I did the boogie high,

Did the boogie, chillen.”

The lightning began popping and crackling as he sang and played. It rose and fell from the ground, surrounding the threshing floor. Pickens and the Vipers began to look afraid and Shango rode Slim’s soul.

"Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey,

Hey, hey, hey,

It’s late right now,

Ooooh, oh, oh, yeah,

I went down one night,

I hurt, hurt, hurt,

I really hurt,

I hurt, hurt, hurt,

I hurt,

I gotta tell ya,

Hey-ey-ey-ey,

Hadda boogie,

Boogie, chillen.”

Slim began to fly on the song. Shango held his soul, the Gutbucket held his mind, and the Amp brought it down to a right, tight focus that fed it all into the sky.

“Do you wanna boogie,

Yes, do you wanna boogie?

Do the boogie, now,

Hey,

Hey, hey, hey,

Hey, hey.

Let me tell you something,

I went down one night,

Went down,

Oh, I hurt,

I hurt, hurt, hurt,

I hurt,

I hurt,

Hey-ey-hey,

Did the boogie,

Feel good,

Feel good, good, good,

Feel good,

Feel, feel feel,

Feel good,

Do the boogie,

Boogie, chillen.
”

He slammed down on the strings when the solo struck him. A white-violet bolt of lightning flashed to the ground and struck a Viper. The man in black screamed and fell to the ground, burnt and smoking, his gun a twisted mass of metal fused to his hand. Slim fingertapped a
quick pop riff and lightning walked along the ground, taking out five Vipers in succession. He moved down to the bottom strings and the thunder roared from his fingers, shattering glass in every car, van and pickup in the parking lot. He slid to the sixteenth fret and picked the glass up off the ground and fused it back in place, laughing.

He could do anything, he thought. A mistake. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a shock coursed through the Gutbucket, stinging his fingers. A warning not to get carried away.

He began playing an easy repeating riff, copying himself in octaves up and down the scale. Lightning played in the clouds, lighting up the sky in white and violet and pink. He wondered why people never realized that lightning came in different colors depending on intensity. As he wondered, the thought came—from Shango, he knew—that the colors were also emotions. He intensified his playing and consciously shifted into violet and blue.

Nadine raised her arms and stood shaking and screaming to the music. As she did, a cold wind began to blow, and Slim knew that Yansan was also present, and that Nadine had finally accepted the power. He started fingertapping again, playing faster and faster. Though the sun had set and the black clouds blocked the moon and stars, lightning was flashing so quickly that the threshing floor was lit as brightly as day, but with a strange light seldom seen by humans for more than a split second.

He focused his attention on Pickens. Doubt showed on the fat man’s face, then fear. Pickens began to run.

It was time to end the song.

Slim waited until Pickens had reached the edge of the crowd, and then he motioned to the band and put all he had into the concluding chord.

Strings slapped and whipped off the guitar. A huge, twined bolt of lightning exploded from the ground. It threw Pickens up into the air, then arced back down, striking him in the chest. For a moment, only
a moment, he was a person-shaped glow of violet and blue light. Then he was gone.

Slim unplugged the Gutbucket, laid it gently down beside his chair and collapsed.

When he woke, his leg hurt like a sonofabitch. He was in the tent where he had watched the spider. Nadine, Progress, Belizaire, Mother Phillips and Elijigbo stood looking down at him.

“Gee,” he said weakly. “I had this strange dream, and you were all there.”

Nadine laughed. “I think he’s all right,” she said.

He sat up painfully. “
The Gutbucket”
he cried.

Progress smiled. “Right next to you, son.”

Slim reached down and felt it, picked it up. It was warm in his hands and he could feel a pain of broken strings, but it remained silent. He held it out to Progress. “Here,” he said.

Progress shook his head. “No, son,” the old man said, just a glint of gold showing in his half-smile. “It’s yours, now. You wouldn’t have been able to play it at all if it wasn’t meant for you.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Just treat it right and don’t misuse the power. That’s the heart of the blues you holdin’ there. Don’t you go forgettin’ that.”

Slim turned to Elijigbo. “What about Shango?” he asked.

Elijigbo shrugged. “Gone,” he said quietly, almost sadly. “The task he came for is done. If you call on him, or he needs you, he will come again. But he is a solitary Orisha. He will not bother you.”

“Then I’m okay?” Slim asked. “We won?”

Progress nodded vigorously. “Yep,” he said. “Thanks to you and Nadine. You’re gonna have a mighty sore leg for a while, and your fingers need to heal, but you okay mostly.”

Slim held his hand in front of his face and looked at his fingers.
They were cut and bloody from the strings that had snapped on the final chord. He felt the pain only as he saw the wounds.

“Nadine,” Slim said, almost frightened and whispering. “Is everything all right?”

She shook her head side to side and laughed. “No, stupid,” she said. “Everything’s
not
okay. You’ve got a fucking bullet hole in your leg, no food in your gut, you’re about five shades whiter than you should be, you need a bath and we have a honeymoon to get started on. Now, you want the
full
report, or are you ready to go home?”

“Oh, I’m ready,” he said. “I’ve been ready for years.”

“Then grab your axe and get up off your butt and let’s go.”

He leaned on Nadine as they walked to the van. But, to tell the truth, he didn’t even really feel the pain in his leg.

24

All along there have been good reasons to play
—
I like it, a lot of other people like it, it’s fun. But beyond that, it can help us out in all kinds of ways. Music really is a way to reach out and hold on to each other in a healthy way. It’s helped me to open up and take a chance on loving people, instead of just isolating and suspecting everybody I run into.

—Stevie Ray Vaughn

Man you go through a lot when you’re out there playing. I done been through so much . . . I could write a book
. . . .
man, I could tell you some
facts.
Blow your mind.

—Albert King

I
t was the first day he had been able to get out of bed. Progress and Belizaire had told him to stay there, and then they had gone fishing. Nadine insisted, and when Nadine insisted, it was no use even trying to argue with her. Besides, she had ways to keep him in bed, and it hadn’t been a hard order to follow since his leg wouldn’t support him. But he’d woken up this morning and decided to fix breakfast.

It had been two weeks since the festival, since he had . . . No, it would do him no good to remember what he’d
had
to do. Better to remember what he had been
able
to do.

He played. He was finally a bluesman, all the way. But, more importantly than that, he had the good, sweet woman who was still asleep in the bed they’d shared almost constantly for the last two weeks. They’d made love, they’d talked and they’d played silly games that made them laugh. And they knew each other, knew there was little difference between them.

He slid thick slices of ham onto two plates, put some hash browns beside them, then took easy-over eggs from the frying pan and placed them carefully on top of the ham slices. As he put the plates onto a tray and was turning to get the coffee, he heard noises from the bedroom. He smiled, knowing that when Nadine woke fully and had eaten, she would want to make love. And today was the day he was getting out. They were going to go see about getting some gigs.

“Nadine?” he yelled. “Honey, is that you?”

The only answer he got was the sound of a yawn and a stretch and the image in his mind of what Nadine’s breasts and stomach looked like when she stretched. He put two cups of coffee on the tray, picked it up and headed for the bedroom. He still limped, but carried it all easily.

When he went in the bedroom, Nadine looked up at him, tousle-haired and sleepy-eyed. The sheets were drawn down to her waist, leaving her upper body bare. It was an almost painful sight, seeing her naked, caramel skin limned in yellow sunlight from the open window. Slim had always thought women looked awfully soft and cute and vulnerable when they first woke up. A wave of desire washed over him, and he realized how very much he loved this woman he’d been through such a lot with, through
everything
with. Everything he now felt was important in his life, anyway.

“Rise and shine,” he said happily. “After this, you can bring me breakfast.”

“Why?” she said. “I’ve been getting your breakfast the last two weeks. Besides,” she said, smiling wickedly, “I think I
like
it this way.”

Author's Notes

PIERS ANTHONY

I answer an average of 150 letters a month, always hoping that will diminish. All of the collaborations in this series grew out of that correspondence, because I am sympathetic to the situation of others, especially hopeful writers. I know how difficult it can be to make that first sale and publication, having taken eight years to make that breakthrough myself, and I know how hard it can be to maintain a career in writing, having been blacklisted in the 1970s for being right. My position is now secure, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule, in this business. There are those with talent and good will who nevertheless struggle, and Ron Leming is one of them. Thus, I have done what I can to help him get established. In a better world, such as the one he created in this novel, no such help would have been necessary.

I first heard from Ron in 1989 as a reader of my novels, and a professional writer and artist in his own right. Over the years there were a number of intelligent, thoughtful, feeling letters from Ron, as he explored the truths of the world as he perceived them. But his mundane situation was deteriorating, and there came a point when he was broke, having no money to buy food. He was slowly starving, literally. Somehow the social services manage to miss a number of real folk, and not necessarily by accident. I phoned the police in his region of Texas to ask them to check on Ron, and they told me that such a request had to be originated from my home state, Florida. So I called the local police, and they told me that such a request had to go to the home state of the person concerned. It was, in short, a runaround. I
pushed the issue, and finally the police in Ron's area agreed to check into the situation. But they never did.

I do what I can for my readers, in my fashion, but there are constraints. I gave Ron two pieces of advice. One was to check with the Author's League, which offers financial help to writers in need regardless of their membership or lack of it. The other was to write the first draft of his novel in pencil on scrap paper, because though he had no computer or typewriter he did have time. The creative process does not require an expensive computer system; I wrote my own novels in pencil for seventeen years before switching reluctantly to the computer. He followed both bits of advice, and that impressed me; there are those who seek help but who aren't interested in actually helping themselves in practical ways. So when the Author's League help was not enough, I loaned him money myself, to get him out of his immediate fix. And when he completed the novel, but couldn't sell it, I took it over collaboratively, adding my name, expertise, and experience to it. Thus did
The Gutbucket Quest
come to be the present volume.

I don't like to interfere in the lives of others, but sometimes it seems warranted. I am not certain that what I am doing with these collaborations is right, either technically or socially, but hope that it is. I think that this novel would not have existed had I not acted as I did, and perhaps that is my justification. My concern is of course for human need, but also more specifically for human expression. The world may not care whether
The Gutbucket Quest
exists, but I do. It has helped to broaden my horizons, because though I have always liked folk songs, my knowledge of the blues is close to nothing. Thus I would never have produced a novel like this on my own. The language differs from what I would use, but I believe in authenticity. I hope others appreciate the novel for its totality, rather than taking narrow issue with its vocabulary.

And those interested in further information about me may check my Web site at www.hipiers.com.