Gutbucket Quest (7 page)

She lit up a joint and passed it to him as they rode in silence. It was passed back and forth until it was done. Nadine then leaned her head back against the seat and let her left hand rest on Slim’s thigh. He didn’t know whether to scream or cry, but he did know he wasn’t going to move and risk her taking it away. He knew that it didn’t mean anything, that Nadine simply expressed an unconscious comfortableness, but it had been a long, long time since anyone had touched him
with anything nearing affection, and he wanted to enjoy it for the small pleasure it was.

It wasn’t that Slim was a bad man, he was just a lousy husband. Any one of the women from his past would freely admit that he was a hell of a nice guy, a great lover. Just about anything but a decent moneymaker. He was a dreamer and he had a weakness for women in pain and need, women who had problems, who hadn’t found themselves yet. Sad women. He fell in love with them, and in return, he tried to wake them up, teach them to be strong and independent and sure of themselves. Tried to teach them to be free. Unfortunately, once they’d learned all that, they discovered, as well, that he was a weak man with problems of his own. A man who didn’t know how to do much of anything but love, desperately. And knowing how to love didn’t support any relationship. So they ended up abandoning him, going on to better, more successful things, leaving Slim with a badly broken heart and a total lack of understanding.

His biggest problem, his secret problem, was the hurt and rage he felt for women. He couldn’t understand why they all left him, why they all broke his heart. And, not understanding, he was hurt that much more, and the hurt turned to rage and bitterness. Yet, it all stayed inside him. He loved women so intensely, needed them so desperately, that he had never said a cruel word, never struck a blow, was absolutely terrified to even argue.

Arguing, even expressing his feelings, wasn’t something he could do very well. His father had been an alcoholic, a cruel, manipulative man who couldn’t stand to be contradicted. And Slim never knew what would be seen as argument. In his home, emotions were stifled, repressed. The failure to do anything but hide and remain emotionless resulted in getting beaten, punished, put down and put out.

So he swallowed his rage, repressed his hurt and anger. Inside, though, was a gentle man who wanted to ask why, why wasn’t he worth loving forever? Why did they all hurt and betray him? Why
were they always so heartless and compassionless? Why, why, why? He’d never found any answers because, in his soul-deep need to love and be loved, he’d never even think to broach the questions, except inside himself. He just wanted everything to be nice.

But Nadine was different. Slim could tell that she knew who she was, that she didn’t need to wake up to anything at all. If he could just do right, maybe he could find a way she could love him. He’d never believed in love at first sight. It had happened to him a thousand times with a thousand women, but he’d always put it down to lust. But here was Nadine, knocking his heart for a loop. He would find a way, he determined. He would find a way if it killed him. Maybe this search for the Gutbucket was the perfect way to prove himself to her.

He sighed when they pulled up to the house. Nadine took her hand off his leg and got out of the truck. He felt a distinct loss as they all went inside.

“You mind sleepin’ on the couch?” Progress asked. “Gonna be a little crowded with Nadine here. Only got the two bedrooms.”

“Nah,” Slim said. “No problem.” It looked like a big, comfortable couch, and Slim had slept on worse.

“Nadine,” Progress said, “go get some sheets and all for Slim, would you, please?”

To Slim’s surprise, she went off into the other room, bringing back sheets and a thin cover, and even put them on the couch without a word. Then she and Progress went into the bedrooms and Slim was left alone.

It had been one hell of a long, strange day. His body and brain were both tired out, so not many minutes went by after he undressed and lay down before he was fast asleep, dreaming of a caramel-skinned woman running beside him in the cane breaks . . .

It wasn’t quite light outside as Progress and Nadine whispered in the bedroom.

“Daddy, why do you want that long-haired fool around here? What good is he going to do you?”

“Don’t rightly know as yet. But deep down, he’s a good man. You can see it in him, see the boy’s been hurt, and hurt bad. But he don’t be pushin’ it off on nobody else. Just as nice as he can be. There’s somethin’ shinin’ inside him, fightin’ to get out.”

“But you don’t even know if he can play.”

“No, now, I do know. I ain’t heard him yet, that’s true, but I knows. You gots to understand that he came here from a completely different place, holdin’ on to that guitar of his like it was more important than livin’. That there tells me somethin’. Besides, the boy’s heavy in love with you.”

“Oh, that’s great! That’s just what I need, some long-haired beat-up old fool sniffing after me like a stupid puppy.”

“Give the boy a chance, Nadine. I know right now he don’t seem like he’s much at all. But he’s growin’ more than you or he knows. Don’t go breakin’ him down till you see what it is he can build up to. I know he acts kinda stupid sometimes, but he ain’t. He just never learned how to act. And you know he so scairt about bein’ in love with you that it’s gonna make him that much more stupid.”

“I know it. And you know I can’t stand it when men act like that.”

“Nadine, don’t torment the boy. I ain’t sayin’ you got to put up with nothin’, but don’t torment him. Be fair. His heart’s real breakable. Don’t you be the one does it to him. It’s a good heart.”

“Daddy? Are you
wanting
me to love him back?”

“I’m hopin’ you will. I don’t wanna force nothin’. Just hopin’ you’ll find somethin’ in him worth lovin’. I think he’s the right man for you.”

“You know I can get along just fine without a man.”

“Didn’t nobody say no different, girl. But Slim’s the right man for your life. I feels it.”

“So what is it you want me to do?”

“Just try to be nice to him. I know that’s a hard thing for you to do. I know how you is. But be fair to the boy. He’s carryin’ a heavy load he don’t yet know even the half of. Don’t you pile on more weight. Give the boy a chance.”

“Okay, Daddy. I’ll try. But he’d better find a way to get better, or I’m not going to be able to stand it.”

“He’ll find a way. I got faith in him.”

She looked at him sharply. “Daddy, what are you keeping from me?”

Progress did not pretend to mistake her meaning. “I’d rather not tell you.”

“Well, you’d better, if it made you so urgent to put me on to this man. I can just about see that dark cloud looming behind your head.”

Progress sighed. “You always could, Nadine. It’s the Glory Hand.”

“The Glory Hand” she exclaimed, shocked. “You don’t have anything to do with that evil magic”

“Not by choice, for sure! I found this one in the bathroom. Must’ve been tossed through the open window in the night. Wasn’t there yesterday.”

“Who would put one of those filthy fetishes in our house?” she demanded indignantly. “The whole region knows you have no truck with those things.”

“That’s what bothers me. I don’t think it was for me or you. I think it was for Slim. He’s from elsewhere; he may not know about such things.”

“So he’s a nonbeliever, so it shouldn’t affect him. So what’s the point?”

“That’s it: I don’t know the point. I don’t trust it. Somethin’s
goin’ on here, Nadine, and it concerns this man. But I be not ready to tell him about it yet—not till I know what he knows about hostile magic.”

“Point taken,” she said thoughtfully. “If it’s for him, and he doesn’t know it, something strange is going on, and we’d better keep it quiet for now. What did you do with it?”

“I hooked it with a wire and carried it out and threw it in the river. I don’t care if it sinks or swims; it’s gone.”

She nodded soberly. “Who do you think sent it?”

“I don’t know, but I think maybe it’s another reason it’s time we saw T-Bone. Just to let him know we’s on to him, or make him think we is.”

“And you want me to find out what Slim Chance knows, without him knowing I’m prying?”

“Maybe. But that don’t change what else I said. So maybe he has a bad enemy; that don’t speak bad for him.”

“If T-Bone doesn’t like him, I’m getting interested,” she said, smiling grimly.

“Don’t go lookin’ for no wrong reasons, girl, when there’s good ones to be had.”

“I was fooling,” she said.

“Not entirely.”

She didn’t argue.

Progress went to take a shower while Nadine went into the kitchen to start breakfast. When she passed through the living room, she looked down at Slim, still asleep on the couch. He’d thrown the sheets off and lay there uncovered. She took the time to glance at his body, his erect morning dick, then looked back up at his peaceful face. He was kind of cute, she thought.

7

While the history of the blues is the history of the individuals who perform it, the danger lies in these performers becoming isolated from their richest traditions, and from the people as a whole, resulting in a total fragmentation of the blues.

This, of course, is the tendency of an advanced industrial society, wherein any attempt at creative activity on a mass level is inevitably short circuited and smashed.

—Paul Garon,
Blues and the Poetic Spirit

S
lim woke to the smell of frying ham. He sat up and looked sleepily over the back of the couch into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He could see Nadine working at the woodstove, felt the heat of it in the room. She was wearing cutoff jeans and a white T-shirt and she was so pretty that Slim wanted to lie back down and moan.

She turned and saw him looking at her. “Morning,” she said.

“Mornin. What time is it?”

“About eight.”

“You always get up so early?”

“Yes, I guess we do. Daddy and I got into the habit a long time ago. It doesn’t seem to matter how late we stay up, come six or seven,
our eyes open up on their own and after that, it’s no use to stay in bed. You hungry?”

“I probably shouldn’t be, but I am. Sure does smell good. Where’s Progress?”

“He’s outside, messing around with the garden and feeding the birds. Get your clothes on. Breakfast will be ready pretty quick, now.” She moved back to the stove and dumped a big pan of biscuits onto a plate. She shook flour into the ham grease to make gravy, and her hands were white with it as she poured in the milk and began to stir with a fork.

Slim watched her ass jiggle in the shorts as she stirred the gravy. He was embarrassed. He slept naked, so it was a trick to get his pants on without Nadine seeing him. He managed, looking over his shoulder frequently to see if she was watching him. He got up to go to the bathroom, and when he came back, Progress was inside and three plates of ham, biscuits and gravy were sitting on the big table.

“You want some coffee?” Nadine asked him as he sat down.

“Yeah, thanks.”

She brought him a cup and they all sat down and started eating. The ham was sweet and hot, the biscuits and redeye gravy as good as he’d ever had. Slim ate with real relish. It was far better than his own cooking, though he considered himself an excellent cook. There was no talk until the food was gone and the coffee drunk. Only the crunch of chewed food and the slurp of coffee and the scrape of biscuits soaking up the last dregs of gravy off the plates. When they were finished, Progress leaned back in his chair and patted his belly.

“Well, chillen,” he said. “We got a busy day, today. I think, firstest, we should go and get Slim some clothes.”

“But Progress—” Slim started to say.

Progress waved his hand lazily. “No, son,” he said. “All you got’s what you got on. Man needs more than that to get by. Now, you go on in and take yourself a good shower. When you’re ready we’ll go on
into town, get some pants and shirts and socks and such. Then we’ll go to see T-Bone, see what can we do.”

“What do you expect, Daddy?” Nadine asked.

“Truth?”

Slim and Nadine nodded.

“I ain’t expectin’ no thin’ from him. I just want him to know that I know.”

“You think he’ll do anything to us?” Slim asked. He was scared, but not badly. He’d always been able to take care of himself, martial-arts training had insured that, though he’d never been in an actual fight.

“Not while we’re on his property,” Progress replied cynically. “Once we leave, though, and while we’re on the road gettin’ to the people we need, I s’pect he might put a few folks on us.”

“How?” Slim asked.

“Don’t think he’d try to kill us, though I ain’t at all sure of it. That’s too easy for him, and it ain’t what he wants. He might beat on us, or try to. But you a big healthy boy, and Nadine, she can take care of herself if she got to. I thinks we can stand on our own there. What I’m worried about is how he’ll try to use the power against us.”

Nadine got up to clear the dishes, as if she didn’t want to hear or be part of the discussion.

“I thought,” Slim said, “that he didn’t have any power.”

“Yes,” Nadine said from the kitchen. “Just like Daddy doesn’t go to the sno-cone stand three times a week to get his horrible frozen pickles on a stick.”

“Nadine, now. I likes those. I don’t tell you what kind of junk food to eat, do I?” He turned to Slim, a serious look on his face. “He’s got power. It ain’t blues power, but it’s power just the same. He’s got the Gutbucket, and he’s got all his machines. I don’t know how, but he draws power from them machines. And we’re at a disadvantage. The magic of the blues is more powerful, more natural, but it’s a slow
power, like wind and water. His power is quick, like fire. We got to build up, he destroys. Always easier to tear somethin’ down than it is to put it up. We gonna have to draw on the deep power, the lightning and the rain, the trees and the land. That ain’t nothin’ easy. It’s why we got to have the right people at the river.”

Slim nodded. “I’m gonna take that shower,” he said, getting up from the table and going into the bathroom. All the talk of magic and power disturbed him. He’d wished for a chance to play, to be on the inside of something. There’d been a saying in the fantasy novels he’d read, something about not wishing because you might get what you wished for. Well, now it looked as if he’d gotten it. This—it was too far inside to be comfortable. He’d lost his home, his world, everything he owned except his guitar and the clothes on his back. He wondered too, if his kitties were still okay without him.

But there was Nadine, and there was Progress, both as a friend and a teacher, teaching him the true blues. And it looked like, scary as it might be, there was going to be some fun and adventure, as well. Maybe it was a fair trade, after all, he thought, stepping into the shower.

Yet there was something weird and awful too, as if he’d just caught a whiff of a ripening corpse. Something close but faint. He couldn’t pin it down, but he felt it right here in the bathroom. Probably his imagination, but—

He was going to ask the others if they smelled anything here, but since he couldn’t actually smell anything himself, he let it go. They had enough to do without concerning themselves about spooks he tried to dream up. But whatever it was had sent an ugly chill of horror through him.

Later, driving into town, with Slim sitting by the window this time, he said, “Progress, talk to me about the blues.” Maybe that would take his mind off the phantom in the bathroom.

Nadine snorted and elbowed him in the ribs. Progress just asked, “What you want to know, son?”

“Everything. I dunno. What’s it like to be a star?”

“
Star?
Son, I’m just another Tejas guitar player. Oh, I got somethin’ different to say with my music, I guess. But I have to keep it in its place. It’s a gift. It’s all a gift, and I have to keep givin’ it back all the time or it goes away. If I start believin’ it’s all my doin’, it’ll be my un-doin’. So I commit myself to doin’ the most I can with the gifts I have, so’s they can do as much good for as many people as they can.

“Comes right down to the bone,” he said, sighing, “I likes to fish. I veg out. Sit there with the line in the water, thinkin’ of riffs. It’s the most relaxin’ thing. I go into my own world and think of lots of riffs. Yessir, pretty soon now, when we get the Gutbucket back and I see you and Nadine gettin’ along, I’m gonna pack it up and head down on the Brazos. Do me some
real
fishin’.

“I’ll just get in my old pickup, throw some clothes in the back, drive cross country. Get me two good poles and lay down on the fishin’ bank. Might could drive my bus, could I ever get the time to fix it. Put a cookstove in it, cook right on the river, catch ‘em and cook ‘em. That be the life. Course, I’ll keep a guitar or two around, practice a bit, write some songs, maybe play a gig now and then.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Nadine said. “You know you’ll never retire. You can’t give it up.”

“That’s what
you
say, girl. Might be I have me some different ideas.”

“How’d you come up?” Slim asked.

“Whoo, son! You wantin’ to know ancient history. Lessee. I growed up with the blues. Never knew nobody that didn’t when I was a kid. It was just the natural thing, porch players sittin’ around doin’ it all the time. Back then, us kids made guitars out of cigar boxes and saplings. We’d use strands from wire whisk brooms for strings. We couldn’t play much of nothin’, but we’d get a sound, you know. Later
on, my mama and daddy got me an ole guitar from the pawn and I started learnin’ to play it.”

“You just had to ask, didn’t you,” Nadine said, poking Slim once again.

“Hush up,” Progress said. “The boy ain’t heard it before, even if you has. Anyway, son, when I was, oh, ‘bout twelve, I guess it was, McPhail’s Medicine Show come through town, sellin’ medicine for rheumatism, arthritis and everything that ailed you. He liked to have him a little show, and he liked to have a home boy for that, so I played and sang a little song and he paid me five cents and all the medicine I could use. I swear, my mama had bottles of that medicine till her dyin’ day. Made me take it when I was poorly, too, which made me get
right
back up on my feets.

“Later on, me and my buddies put a little band together. Wasn’t but three of us, and when we started out we didn’t know but three songs. But we played ‘em fast, medium and slow and we got over, somehow. After a few years of that, I met Rosie, like I told you, and everything else just growed out of that. He taught me how to play, to really play, without sayin’ anything or tellin’ me what to do. He’d just look at you and play a little thing, and you’d know how he was feelin’.”

“Do you sound like him?” Slim asked.

Progress laughed. His laugh and those shining gold teeth still made Slim feel good. Maybe because it never sounded as if Progress was laughing at him.

“Nope,” Progress answered. “Or only a little. It’s both, or leastwise it’s mostly not. Them were crazy days. We used to have us a Nash Rambler to drive to the gigs. Zero to sixty in twenty-eight seconds. Fake whitewalls that would fly off like flat donuts anytime you got over forty. But while we’d drive, Rosie’d talk about women and the blues. And he spent a lot of time tryin’ to show me how to find my own groove and not be jumpin’ into his.

“You do take somethin’,” he continued. “You get an idea or a groove from somebody. You don’t necessarily got to hear them play, right there. You knows what they play like and just bein’ with that person give you a little thing, so that when you pick up your own guitar again, you might could come up with somethin’ different. That’s ‘cause you got a different feelin’ in your body about bein’ with someone. You catch a vibe from someone and you goes back to the shed to find out what it is.

“Oh, I knows there’s some people who try to take on another player’s groove, steal his riffs and all. But the music ain’t
real
that way and you can’t take someone else’s power. The music got to be an expression of your state of bein’, not just somethin’ you done took on.”

“Well,” Slim said. “I feel like I got my own thing going. I always thought that was important. See,” he continued, blushing a little, “I was kind of famous once, myself—a long, long time ago. I didn’t know what I was doing. Still don’t, I guess. But at least I have an idea of when to stand forward and when not to.”

“You’ve got some attitude,” Nadine said.

“Nah. I gave up attitude a long time ago. See, what I’d do was practice in my bathroom with the door closed. I’d turn it up and when my balls would vibrate I’d know I had it right. The hair on my arms would stand up and I’d hear that air movin’ and I’d just scream. But when I played, and I played good, I’d feel like
somebody,
I’d feel all together.”

“That’s the power,” Progress said.

“Yeah, I suppose. It’s nothin’ like it is here, though. I was doing good just getting up on stage and making sure whatever I was wearing was funnier than my body, and going out after the gig for fifty-two ribs and left-handed cigarettes. But, see, I always felt I was missing something. That’s why I moved here—er, where I was before I came here. Trying to find it.”

“How did
you
start out?” Nadine asked him. She seemed more
than routinely curious, but Slim wasn’t sure that her interest was really in him. It was almost as if she was trying to ascertain something else, something to which he was only peripheral.

“Huh? I started out with nothing. Still got most of it left, too. No, okay, okay. I grew up in this dinky little farm town called Ducor. It was real close to another little no-horse town called Pixley. There was this minister’s son, named Roy Buchanan, used to come around my house. His dad didn’t like the school in Pixley or something, so he went to the school in Ducor. I was younger than he was, so I don’t know why he let me hang around, except my dad had horses. He’d been playing guitar for a while, and he started teaching me. The blues.

“He moved away a few years later, to Canada. He started playing with a top band, making his name, but he’d gotten me started and it was something I loved. I kept on playing, started a band in high school and we made it big, real big. But what with the women and the drugs and the money, I got all fucked up, so I put down the music entirely for along time.”