Gutbucket Quest (15 page)

Something worse than the Glory Hand? Elijigbo saw the scared look Slim flashed at Nadine, knew he was hopelessly in love with her.

“Nadine,” he said, “is this man your lover?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“You be careful with him, you hear me?”

Nadine was startled by the fierce look in Elijigbo’s eyes. There was only a puzzled look in her own, one reflected in Slim’s as she looked at him and took his hand. She could feel the instant rush of total love and relief that passed through Slim’s body as she touched him. But she and Slim were left with the impression that Elijigbo knew more than he was telling them.

“Go ahead,” she said, “Eli’s a friend. Speak your mind.” She paused. “I’d like to hear, too.”

Slim looked at Progress.

“Don’t be lookin’ at me, son,” Progress said. “There’s been entirely too much lookin’ around at this table as it is.”

“Come along,” Elijigbo said. “What do you think?”

Slim bowed his head. He felt, at that moment, that he had reached a point at which he had to fail or be brave. He had to prove himself to
Elijigbo, to Progress, and most of all to Nadine. If he didn’t do it now, he might never have the courage for it. He squeezed Nadine’s hand and looked up at her, trying to communicate all the love he felt through his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said to Elijigbo. “I guess, right now, I’d rather play than talk.”

Nadine started to say something, but Elijigbo stopped her with a look.

“Slim,” he said. “You aren’t nearly as stupid as you look. Stand on up and go over and pick out a guitar you like. I think we can arrange something for you. Just let me go get some of the boys and break out the jammin’ jar. I’ll be back in a few minutes. That’ll give you a chance to warm up.”

Elijigbo walked away from the table, back out the way he’d come. Slim stood up and his knees only shook a little as he walked over to the stage. He saw a maple-necked strat and he knew that was the guitar he’d use. Progress laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” Progress said. “I’ll be up there playin’ with you.”

Slim turned to him. “No, Progress. I want to do this on my own. You sit this one out.”

“Okay, son. If that’s what you feel, then that’s what’s right. I don’t think you got anythin’ to worry about, but I’d say Eli’s decision is gonna rest on is you any good.”

Slim smiled. “No pressure, right? I had a feeling it’d be this way. But I can handle it. I have to show Nadine I can play.”

Slim looked over at her. There was a strange look on her face, half scared, half admiring. Slim knew that he could blow it badly, but he felt good, all the same.

“I understand,” Progress said. “Just jump, son. You’ll do fine.”

Progress walked back over to the table and sat near Nadine. They whispered to each other, but Slim couldn’t pay attention as he plugged into an amplifier and began to warm his fingers up, scaling the neck to get used to the strange guitar. He had to play something that was
familiar to him, but something that was new, and would impress everybody else. He thought he had a trick or two up his sleeve. Maybe this world, this blues, hadn’t developed the boogie, yet. He hadn’t heard any of it. He’d show Elijigbo and his boys how to boogie, and he’d play his ass off to prove himself. He started running through the particular scales, reminding himself of some of the odd positions he could play in for the three-chord boogie. He was comfortable with the scales, and he knew a few good tricks he could pull out. Finger-tapping and such.

Elijigbo came back, followed by three other men. They reached the stage and Eli handed Slim a small jar filled with a clear liquid.

“Take a drink from the jammin’ jar, Slim. Relax yourself a little.”

Slim took a drink and passed the jar on. He was unprepared for the liquid fire that coursed down his throat, but it did immediately relax him, loosen him up. It made him feel good. The other men also took drinks, larger than Slim’s. Then Eli took up a bass guitar, and the other men sat behind the drums or picked up their own guitars.

“All right,” Elijigbo said. “Everything’s turned on and we’re ready. What are you going to do with it?”

“Something new,” Slim said. “I hope it’s new, anyway. Called the boogie. It’s a I-III-IV, A, C and D. Let me show you.”

Slim showed Eli the three-position repetitive bass line. He decided to put a twist in it by having him play it using alternating octave notes. That would add a sense of lightness and liveliness to it. He told the drummer to just follow the bass. If he was a good drummer, he already knew how to find the groove in it. To the rhythm players, he showed how to lay back on the A, and how to stand forward on the single hit, rolling C and D, to get the right emphasis.

The band started to have fun with a thing that was obviously new to them. The beat solidified and Slim jumped in, playing the single-string, double-octave lead line that intro’d the song. He moled for
thirty-six bars, and then he moved to the A scale and started playing his lead on the lower strings, slow at first. As he moved down to the higher strings, he sped his playing up and tried to grab the melody.

He was stiff at first, taking no risks, not going outside the standard box pattern riffs and following chords. But, soon, the music caught him up and he began playing wildly all over the neck. He didn’t think about what he was playing, he just let his fingers and his heart go free. The boogie had always been his favorite music, but he’d never thought of it as a love song. Somehow, though, it was working that way. Whether it was Nadine, or this world, or just the right time, he finally had a little of the feeling he’d been missing. There was no sense of wrongness, as there had been at Nadine’s gig. Everything was copacetic: completely satisfactory.

He looked at the other men on the stage. Their eyes were closed, as if they were in a trance. Maybe it was, in a way, he thought, continuing with his own playing. He started fingertapping wildly, hammering down on the frets, all over the neck. It seemed that no matter where he played, it fit. He went into a double-string fingertapped run from the twelfth fret down to the third that sounded like a classical guitar riff.

He was mad, he was crazy, he was in love. He was having more sheer fun playing than he’d ever had in his life. He went on jamming for what seemed like hours, but when the song finally ended on Eli-jigbo’s signal, it felt all too soon. He was drained, but exhilarated.

Elijigbo put his bass down. There was a serious, concerned look on his face. “Slim,” he said. “I have to go and think about what just happened. You tell Progress that my people and I will give any help that’s asked of us.” He laughed, and it was comforting, mischievous laugh. “I don’t think I’d want to miss what’s going to happen at that festival.” He and the men who’d come with him walked silently out of the building.

Slim reluctantly put the little guitar back on its stand and walked over to the table, waiting for the judgment. Nadine stood, walked over to him and kissed him, holding him tightly against her. If love-making could be contained in a kiss, Slim would have sworn it lived in that one. He had what he though of as an orgasm, taking place entirely in his mind and heart. Nadine broke the kiss, breathing heavily, and moved to stand by his side. He put his arm around her small shoulders and looked to Progress, waiting to hear what the old man would say.

Progress looked up at him curiously, then looked back down and shook his head.

“Son,” he said. “I can see, now, I’ve underestimated you. That was—I don’t know
what
that was. Never heard nothin’ like it. Do you realize you almost called up the deep power all by yourself?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Slim said. “I didn’t know I was doing anything. I was just playing for me and Nadine.”

“I know you was, son. That’s the way of the power. It just comes. But I gots to say, I didn’t have no idea you had
that
much in you.”

“
I
did,” Nadine said proudly, patting Slim’s head.

“Nadine, girl, this is the man you called a long-haired fool,” Progress said. “Now you say you knew? Girl, you
lyin’.
”

“I am not,” she said. “I could tell. I just didn’t think I liked him. I didn’t like him having so much when I can hardly use what little I have.”

“Girl,” Progress said, his eyes narrowing. “That’s your own fault. You scared of it, that’s all. You got to forget that. You’re a part of this, too. Separate what you do from who you is. You still gots to come home and eat spaghetti with your daddy, now and then. Get over it. You can’t keep buttin’ your head out on a stoopin’ post.”

“Listen, folks,” Slim interrupted, made uncomfortable by the direction the talk was taking. “Can we postpone this and get out of here?”

“Yes, Daddy. Would you mind driving us home to get the van? I’d
like to take Slim to my place and spend the night there. I bet he looks real good when he’s cleaned up. Is that okay?”

“It’s fine with me,” Progress said. “Long as you be careful. We gots the people we need, so there ain’t much doin’ till the festival’s set up. You two go on and enjoy yourselves. But watch out, you hear? We ain’t seen the last of the Vipers yet. Not by a long shot.”

14

Human freedom depends not only on the destruction and restructuring of the economic system, but on the restructuring of the mind. New modes of poetic action, new networks of analogy, new possibilities of expression all help formulate the nature of the super session of reality, the transformation of everyday life as it encumbers us today, the unfolding and eventual triumph of the marvelous.

—Paul Garon,
Blues and the Poetic Spirit

My baby gets unruly, thinks she can stop a train, Hold up her head, stop the lightning and the rain.

—Johnny Shines, “Black Panther”

(unreleased version)

N
adine’s apartment was a surprise to Slim. It was neat and clean and attractive, filled with books and plants and wonderfully odd things that caught the attention no matter where one looked. One entire wall was taken up with a fancy stereo cabinet and a large-screen TV. The rooms smelled healthy and alive as Nadine hurried around, watering the neglected plants. As she watered, Slim was happy to see several wolf spiders crawl out from their hiding places, as if in greeting. When one jumped on her, she reacted
only by inducing it to crawl onto her fingers and putting it back on the wall.

“This is where you live, huh?” What a lousy line for such a neat lady, Slim thought.

“Yes,” Nadine replied. “I’ve lived here since I was eighteen. In fact,” she said, “I own the building.”

“Really? That’s neat.”

“Sounds good, doesn’t it? Not so good, though, when you have to take care of it, too. But it is mine, free and clear. I only have to pay rent once a year when the taxes are due.”

“Are you a mean, vicious landlord?” Slim asked, smiling.

“You bet,” she said. “Why, if my tenants don’t pay their rent within six months or so, out they go.” She put the water pitcher she’d been using down, the job done. “Actually, I know all the people here. I only rent to musicians and their families. I’ve sung with most of them at one time or another. Good folks. They fall on hard times now and then, but we all help each other out, and they know I’ll carry them until they get back up.”

“What happens if we don’t get the Gutbucket back?”

“We’ll all be poor, then, I guess. And we’ll lose the music. I don’t want to talk about it, okay? You want to take a shower?”

“With you?” Slim asked.

She arched a brow. “You have a problem with that?”

“Let’s go.”

They undressed in the small bathroom, bumping butts and elbows, enjoying each moment of it. He didn’t think he would ever get over the wonder of her naked body. The champagne-glass-sized breasts, the large nipples that stood out so high and proud, the small bulge her belly made that was just right to lay his head on, the way her ribs and hips stood out, the protruding hipbones that were so much fun to hang on to and wrap his hand around, the fine, curly hair between her legs, her small, kissable ass. Though he knew nobody was
perfect, really perfect, for
him,
she was. And he truly hoped that, somehow, despite his fat and his age, she might feel a little of the same about him. He chided himself for being unable to accept her seeming love at face value, but that was the way he was, the way he had always been: unable to believe. She had given him her body, but he just wasn’t sure about her heart.

Nadine adjusted the water and stepped into the shower. Slim followed and tried to slide past her, but she made sure to rub everything she had against him. She positioned him under the water and, grabbing the soap, began to lather his body, paying special attention to all the vital parts. He returned the favor, and they spent the time exploring each other’s soapy bodies until the soap was washed away and the water turned cold.

They toweled each other off, then Nadine grabbed his dick and led him into the bedroom, into bed. “Time to stop teasing this thing,” she murmured, laughing, “before it swells up any bigger. I don’t like swelled heads.” There was no foreplay after the shower, just passionate grasping and loving, arms and legs and lips locked, barely moving, trying to blend two bodies into one heart.

While Nadine lay sleeping, nestled into the crook of his arm, head resting on his chest, Slim lay awake, thinking.

He’d looked for this all his life. Apart from the problems he’d had with women, he was blessed, or cursed, depending on one’s viewpoint, with an abnormally high sex drive, and tastes that some of his more prudish partners had described as kinky. It was difficult to find a woman that enjoyed all that he did, the way he did, but he had a feeling that Nadine would match him, and would also match the intense, almost obsessive way that he loved. And that scared him.

The family he’d grown up a part of didn’t teach love. It didn’t
even teach normality or reality. He’d starved for love all his life. Now, having found it, he believed, he didn’t know what to do. For a long time, he’d mistaken abuse for love, and so the meaner the women had been to him, the more loved he felt, even through the hurt and confusion. What little he
did
know about love, he’d learned from movies and television. Those weren’t good examples, he knew, but they were all he’d had, growing up. So, for him, love was intense, sexual, constant, faithful and forever. It was frightening for him to realize, now, that he didn’t actually know anything about love in the real world.

Nadine was so small and had hurt over Heap of Bears for so many years. He didn’t want to hurt her the way women over the years had said they’d been hurt by Slim. He didn’t know what he’d done but love them, but whatever it was he didn’t want to do it to Nadine.

He’d been different, though, since he’d come to this world. He hadn’t left his problems behind, but he’d somehow found ways to start overcoming them. Still, having Nadine believe in him, count on him, was pretty scary.

He remembered one woman, Nettie, when they were breaking up. “You’re nothing but a ghost,” she said. “There’s nothing inside you. I never knew a man to be so intelligent and so stupid at the same time.” And all the time she’d been betraying and abandoning him, he’d wanted to say, “But I
love
you! Doesn’t that mean
anything?
”
It hadn’t, and he didn’t understand when she’d thrown him out of his own home. Love was love, no matter what else went on. You didn’t just dump somebody because times got hard. You didn’t just give up. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair.

And sex. He’d never understand women’s attitudes about sex. He could remember each time a woman hadn’t wanted to make love to him because the house wasn’t clean, or they were having problems, or any of a dozen other reasons he considered equally lame. He’d wanted to scream at them, “What the fuck does that have to do with making
love?” But he knew they’d never answer. It was useless. All he could do was hope to find someone who loved the way he did. He thought it was Nadine.

He was surprised, as he lay there holding Nadine, to discover so much rage in himself. It was a rage that, while not directed toward any individual woman, was directed toward women in general, because of the cruel way they’d treated him. He remembered one woman saying, “A good man is hard to find.” He’d answered her, cynically, “That’s because women make it so hard to be good.” He’d wondered sometimes in the past, if women were even capable of loving anyone but themselves, caring about anyone’s feelings or survival but their own. Wondered why they all seemed so heartless, why they were always so needlessly cruel.

Now, though, he wasn’t sure anymore. Here was Nadine next to him. She hadn’t yet said she loved him, but he felt that she did. He felt loved by her, and she was only a little bit abusive, in a fun way. If someone as wonderful as she was could love him, how, then, could he keep holding on to that rage inside him? It could only get in the way of and hurt any good relationship he could build with Nadine. But how did he let go of it, let it out?

And what of the threat against him, as indicated by the pursuit of the black sedan and the several appearances of the horrible Glory Hand? There was an enemy who wanted to get rid of him somehow, either by killing him or by sending him back to his own world. At this point, the one was as bad as the other, because he’d as soon die as lose what he was finding here. It seemed they wanted to be rid of him because he had some key connection to the Gutbucket. He didn’t know what that connection could be, but people like Heap of Bears and Elijigbo had hinted at it. They evidently saw something in him. He hoped, for the sake of Progress and Nadine and all the wonderful folk of this world, that they were right. He hoped he could stay here and
survive and do whatever it was that needed to be done, justifying his presence here. He found so much here that he loved, he wanted to be worthy of it. To give something back.

As he slipped into sleep, he thought the only thing he could do, the only real choice he had, right now, was to hold on to Nadine, and hope his love for her, and hers for him, would help him work things out inside himself. So that whatever it was that he was here to do, would get done. So that he wouldn’t mess it up, this time.

When they woke up, the next morning, they made love and Nadine made coffee. She slapped Slim on the ass while he was bent over getting his pants from the floor and, to his surprise, he liked it. It made him feel loved and appreciated. So he tickled her in return, making sure to take little side trips to visit her nipples. It wasn’t long before the horseplay turned into loveplay, and they were both naked and in bed again.

“You want to get some breakfast?” Nadine said afterwards.

“I got my breakfast right here,” Slim said, using his hand to indicate the exact portion he had in mind.

Nadine moaned and pushed his hand away. “Quit it, monster,” she said with mock severity. “Come on, we’re going to kill ourselves.”

“Never heard of anybody dying from it yet,” Slim replied. “Besides, Nadine, this is the way I am. Not just now, not when it’s new. Always. I’m kind of abnormal.”

“You’re telling
me?
”
she said. Then she saw a hurt look on his face, so she kissed him tenderly. “Okay, I know you carry your heart in your pants. To tell you the honest truth, I guess I do, too. But we just can’t keep going. Save it up; let’s go get some breakfast.”

“Okay,” said Slim, getting out of bed and getting dressed again. “Where do you want to go?”

Nadine laughed and caught herself half-in, half-out of the tight blouse she was putting on. She looked at him through an armhole and said, “Where do you think?”

“
Mitchell’s
,”
they both said in unison.

They stopped the van only once on the way. Nadine said she wanted to give him head right there on the street and Slim, in deep appreciation, was damned if he was going to say no. Right in the middle of town and everything. It took a while, since Slim’s age and their previous activities were catching up with him, but it came to a satisfactory conclusion, just the same. And Nadine’s sly, contented smile was worth any price in the world.

“Why always Mitchell’s?” he asked. “Don’t you ever go anywhere else?”

“No,” Nadine replied. “Not if I can help it. Daddy raised me to like what he calls where-you-from-buddy restaurants. He says you can judge a restaurant by how many calendars it has hanging on the walls. It hasn’t led me wrong yet, no matter where I’ve gone. But there aren’t many more like that around. It’s all chains and big business.”

“Isn’t that sort of what this whole thing is about, with the Gut-bucket and all?” Slim asked.

“In a way. When Daddy grew up, restaurants and cafes and businesses were family, people you knew. If you asked him, he could take you to the town here in Tejas where the hamburger you like so much was invented. Or he could take you to the first Dairy Queen. Even when
I
was a kid, it was still pretty individual. But eventually, Pickens and people like him started moving in, sucking the heart out of things. There are still a few places around that are run by just folks. Daddy and I and people like us try to take our business there, but they still just get by while the chains make all the money. Really, all we have left is our music. We have to fight for that.”

“What about the record companies?” Slim asked. “Aren’t they chains, too?”

“Some are, some aren’t. There are chains there, too. But there are a few that stay free. Cobra, Alligator, a few others. That’s where Daddy and I do business. And Daddy isn’t totally against chain businesses. He has one real big weakness. Stuckey’s. He loves to go to Stuckey’s. He calls it a museum of bad taste souvenir knickknacks. He loves the bacon-in-a-box, the ham-on-a-rope, the made-in-Mexico Indian trash, every cheap, horrible piece of crap ever invented to convince tourists they’ve actually been somewhere. He says anyone who runs a place like that, chain or not, can’t be all bad. Ask him to show you his painted wooden plaque collection someday. I forbid him to ever hang any of them on his walls, or I wouldn’t go out there. But any time he goes anywhere, he goes to Stuckeys, and if they have a plaque he doesn’t already have, he brings it home. Other than that, we just don’t go to the big businesses. It’s the only way we’ve had to fight until now.”