The Adventures of Slim & Howdy (6 page)

13

THE FIRST THING HOWDY NOTICED WHEN HE WALKED INTO
the back room that night was a one-eyed pit bull with a black pirate patch hiding the empty socket. The dog was strapped into some sort of leather harness that, upon closer examination, turned out to be a homemade contraption for holding the leg of an old coffee table to where the dog’s left rear wheel used to be. Judging by the happy and vigorous sounds the dog was making as he licked himself, he didn’t seem bothered by his handicaps, but it was quite a sight to see him try to scratch his ear.

Howdy wondered if the creature had come to be in this condition as the result of a run-in with a machine of some sort or, worse, if it was the result of forced employment in a violent wagering situation, dog fighting being not entirely uncommon in this part of the world. But instead of asking a bunch of complete strangers what might be considered a rude or embarrassing question to which the answer might be a threat with a knife accompanied by a “None of your damn business,” Howdy figured he’d just wait to see if it came up in conversation, like, “Yeah, old Sparky here accidentally got tossed into the cotton gin,” the man might say. “Lucky to have any legs at all, let alone three.” Or, “That other dog just pinned him down and chewed his leg off like it was a jerky treat. Thank God I’d spread my bets around, still won a hundred bucks.”

In any event, the dog was lying on the floor between two men. One guy, wearing full hunting camos, leaning back in his chair, talking on his cell, was patiently trying to make his point without hurting somebody’s feelings. “Now, honey,” he said, “you know she and I ain’t been divorced two weeks yet. You gotta expect I’m gone call her name out in the heat of passion now and then. It’s just natural.”

Other side of the peg-legged pit bull was a sour-looking old coot named Dempsey Kimble, the new guy Skeets had mentioned. Cross between T. Boone Pickens and Ross Perot, with ample ears angling out from the side like fleshy little satellite dishes. Looking over the top of some funny reading glasses as he poured a shot of pure brown whiskey from a bottle he’d brought. He threw back the shot and poured another while the others talked sports, counted chips, shuffled cards, and drank their own.

Next to him was Charlie Pepper, a big, open-faced beer drinker with a look of friendly determination about him, looked like the sort who’d plow to the end of the row every time and not expect a pat on the back for it.

Across the table from Charlie was a fellow, early thirties, whose colorful outfit seemed geared to make a statement, though probably not the one he ended up making. His name was Ed, but everybody called him Gutterball. He was, hands down, the best bowler in the county and maybe the worst dresser, it was hard to say since there was no known way of keeping score on that. Right now he was wearing a pair of maroon parachute pants, circa 1982, red Converse All Stars, and a T-shirt featuring a Confederate flag tied on a skull like a gangsta’s do-rag. He wore a pair of wraparound gold-mirrored sunglasses and his hair was done in a classic Camaro crash helmet.

The overall impression was that of a mutant dragonfly with a mullet.

Howdy introduced himself to everybody and was told that the guy on the cell phone was Mack Osborne, owner of the local John Deere franchise and a man who was happily, and most likely temporarily, married to wife number four.

A waitress came in, took drink and food orders, and said she’d be back in a few.

Howdy set his guitar case against the wall and took a seat between Charlie Pepper and Gutterball. He looked around. The place hadn’t changed since the last time Howdy was there. It was a storeroom for everything but the liquor (Skeets being many things, but a fool not among them). Chairs were stacked up against one wall, crates of paper towels and toilet paper against another, cleaning supplies against a third. There was a cot in the back where Howdy, and a lot of other musicians before and since, had spent more than a few nights. The center of the room was cleared for the table where they played cards.

They used to play a lot of five-card draw, seven stud, and some Omaha now and then. But these days, owing to the popularity of the televised poker tournaments, they usually played no-limit Texas hold ’em all night long.

“First ace deals,” Gutterball said as he flipped the cards expertly around the table. “Six . . . deuce . . . ten . . . queen . . . five.” Charlie Pepper won the deck. He shuffled. Dempsey cut. And then Charlie dealt two down to everybody.

Conversation was lively and strayed like unfenced cattle from one subject to the next. It started with a thorough dissection of the upcoming college football season, by which most of them meant the games to be played by the Aggies and the Longhorns. But Mack Osborne, proud booster of the Horned Frogs of Texas Christian University, managed to get in a few words about their hot young redshirt quarterback.

Howdy looked at his hole cards. Ten and jack of diamonds. He checked to Gutterball, who opened for twenty. Mack, Dempsey, Charlie, and Howdy called the bet.

After the flop and the turn, the best Howdy could put together was an outside straight. But he needed a queen or a seven. Dempsey bet big. Charlie raised. Howdy called. Sure as hell, he got the queen on the river and won himself a nice pot. He won the next hand too, with a pair of eights, after he bluffed Gutterball into folding trip nines. Next hand, Howdy and Dempsey Kimble both had two pair—both queens and tens—but Howdy took the pot with an ace kicker against Dempsey’s jack high. “Easy come, easy go,” Howdy said as he raked in another pot.

Dempsey Kimble poured another shot of whiskey, killed it, then peered over the top of his glasses and said, “Yeah, we’ll see about that.” None too friendly.

After a while, from out in the club, they could hear Slim onstage, tuning up. Even with the sound muffled through the walls, Howdy could hear the guitar’s fine tone.

It was Gutterball’s deal. He tossed two down for everybody and said, “It’s up to you, Mack.”

Out in the main room, Skeets came over the sound system, told everybody to give a warm Piggin’ String welcome, which they did. It sounded like a pretty good crowd out there too.

Following the applause, Slim stepped to the microphone and said, “Thank you. Here’s one you prob’ly know.” A man of few words.

Howdy bet himself that Slim would open with the song that landed him the gig. “She’s Gone, Gone, Gone.” But he didn’t. Instead, he went with a sly, winking arrangement of “Act Naturally” that clicked with the crowd and had them singing along with the familiar chorus.

All the sudden, Mack Osborne said, “Hey, cowboy. It’s a hundred to you.”

Howdy looked at his hole cards. Three, nine, unsuited. He tossed them into the muck pile and said, “Fold.” As the rest of them played out the hand, Howdy listened to Slim do his thing. The guy was good, no doubt about it. He was eager to hear one of Slim’s original compositions.

Meanwhile, back at the table, the hand came to a showdown between Dempsey Kimble and Mack Osborne. Mack won it with a jack high flush.

Dempsey Kimble muttered something un-Christian under his breath. As he gathered the cards, his elbow hit his shot glass, spilling the whiskey on the muck pile. “Ahh, shit.” He pushed back from the table to keep his pants dry, then he gathered the wet cards and looked for a place to dump the ruined deck.

Charlie Pepper pointed at a cabinet and said there was probably a fresh deck in there. Dempsey dried his hands and looked in the cabinet. A second later he turned around and tossed a new deck—still in the cellophane—onto the table. Mack Osborne broke the seal, started shuffling, and said, “Okay, we’re back in bidness.”

They played a half-dozen hands, trading pots back and forth across the table.

Outside, Slim was still doing covers, a Haggard followed by a Jones, then a Buck Owens. Howdy was starting to wonder if the guy actually had anything original.

Charlie Pepper dealt the next hand. Two down around the table. Howdy had a good feeling about this one, even before he picked up the cards. He brought them close and slowly slid them apart. And there they were, gaudy as all Vegas—Siegfried and Roy, two big queens. Howdy did his best not to tell. He looked over at Dempsey, who was studying him through his reading glasses. When the bet came to Howdy, he threw in fifty, real casual, just to see what would happen.

The others checked their hole cards again, hoping they’d improved since the first time they’d looked. Whatever the strategies, one after the other, they all called the bet.

Out in the bar, Slim finished his set with “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass,” which he imbued with more sexual innuendo than Buck Owens tended to. After a hearty round of applause and a few “Thanks a lots,” the room got quiet.

While Slim took a moment to tune a string and find a new pick, some girl yelled out, “You can cut my grass any day!” The crowd laughed and hooted. High fives all around.

Howdy could hear Slim chuckling into the microphone, that little half smirk no doubt on his face like he’d seen once or twice that night at Lucky’s. Slim leaned into the mike, mothering it like some old FM rock deejay and said, “I trim hedges too.”

The girl yelled something about needing to get her stump ground, but the crowd was making too much noise for Howdy to hear the exact details.

After the audience settled down, Slim said, “Here’s one I wrote. Hope you like it.”

Howdy perked up at that. Finally going to hear an original tune. Based on the pacing of his set so far, Howdy expected a bust- ’em-up honky-tonker but instead he got a string of lonely notes in a minor key, enough to soften a hard heart. Slim repeated the line before moving into some bluesy changes that took advantage of his vocal range, singing about the hurt of a long-suffering woman who had talked till she was blue to a man who wouldn’t listen, a man who stood as living proof that some fools never learn.

By now, Charlie Pepper had dealt the flop. Ten, king, king.

Howdy stayed focused on Slim’s song. The chorus had a sweet hook and, as the tune progressed, Howdy tried to imagine how it would sound opening with notes from a piano instead of the picked guitar.

Charlie said the bet was to Howdy, which brought him back from his role as imaginary record producer. Howdy looked at the flop. It gave him two pairs: kings and queens with a ten high. Not bad, unless somebody had a king in the hole. He looked around the table to see if anybody had a tell, but nobody looked like they were holding three kings. Howdy went with a modest bet, trying to flush the bluffs.

Gutterball and Mack called him and it went around to Dempsey. Howdy couldn’t read Dempsey one bit. Just stared at you with those sour eyes, oddly distorted through the reading glasses. He couldn’t tell if the man was bluffing, but Howdy was feeling good about this one and thinking the higher the stakes, the bigger the rush, so he saw Dempsey’s bet and raised it to boot.

Gutterball folded like a pup tent. But Mack, Dempsey, and Charlie Pepper all called.

The turn was a beautiful thing if you were in Howdy’s seat. The queen of hearts made him think of the old Juice Newton song. And just like that Howdy was living in a full house. Queens over kings. It was all he could do to maintain his poker face. He hemmed and hawed for a minute, fingered his chips, feigning uncertainty, and finally threw in a hundred.

Mack shook his head and folded. “Too rich for me,” he said.

Dempsey took another shot of whiskey. Half the bottle was gone by now and it wasn’t as if the man was sharing with anybody. By this point, Howdy figured Dempsey was so drunk he couldn’t see through a ladder, but he didn’t act it. Odd.

Dempsey squinted at Howdy for a minute, acting unsure about the bet. Finally, he tossed in a stack of chips. “I’ll see your hundred,” he said. Then he tossed in a bigger stack. “And raise you two.” He smiled and said, “Easy come, easy go.”

Charlie Pepper folded, saying, “Easy go is right.”

There was something about how Dempsey had said it, rubbed Howdy the wrong way. Or maybe it was the half sneer that came with it. Whatever it was, Howdy called Dempsey’s raise, which just about cleaned him out.

The five of clubs was of no consequence on the river card. Now it was time for the last round of bets. Howdy was up first and it was all he could do not to shout, “All in!”

Out in the club, Slim had gotten to the final verse of his song and Howdy couldn’t stop listening, even if he should’ve. It turned out that things were past the point of no return for the fool who wouldn’t listen.

Howdy looked at Dempsey, then at his hand. Full house, queens over kings, was too damn good to fold. Like the man in Slim’s song, Howdy was past the point of no return too. He’d invested too much to walk away. He wasn’t sure if he was a fool or not, figured time would tell. He just put in the rest of his chips and hoped for the best.

Dempsey’s smile revealed yellow teeth and gum problems. He waited, just to make Howdy squirm. Then he said, “I’ll see that and raise you five hundred.”

Howdy was out of chips and low on cash. He looked at his cards and the infected gaze of his ornery opponent across the table. Dempsey Kimble said, “Guess it’s time to reach in your pocket.”

Slim was out there singing about the fool pushing his luck to breaking while Howdy pulled his wallet. Only two hundred bucks left.

Slim delivered another line about the fool coming around to consider the possibility that maybe he’d gone too far this time.

Howdy said, “Two hundred’s all the cash I got.”

Dempsey nodded slowly. “Leaves you about three hundred short,” he said, reaching for the pot.

“Well, hang on a second.” Howdy nodded toward the parking lot. “I got a Billy Cook High Country Rancher saddle out in my truck, worth about a thousand.”

Dempsey sat back and said, “You’d bet that?”

Howdy looked at his full house again and said, “Sure would.”

Dempsey got calculating eyes and said, “So that would be a raise to me of, what, seven hundred? Right? I mean, you don’t expect me to make change from a saddle, like giving you the stirrups and the girth.”

Howdy could see his point. All he could say was, “All right, raise you seven hundred.” Figured that would end things.