Gutbucket Quest (27 page)

Slim opened his eyes and the Gutbucket was silent in his hands. He had drawn it out of its cavity during his vision, and now was holding it in both hands. There had been no real sense of surrender, no combat, but he felt older, and he knew the Gutbucket had accepted him. He didn’t feel diminished, or that he had lost control, but he had
lost something. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he didn’t miss it. He was left with his own mind and a knowledge of the blues, a feeling for the music he’d never dared imagine he could have.

“Slim,” Nadine said, shaking him. Her voice seemed frightened, tentative. “Oh Slim.”

He looked around himself, dazedly. The Vipers were beginning to shake and tremble, trying to break the spell the gris-gris had put on them.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Run like hell.”

They turned and began running down the trail they hadn’t gone up, swerving and jumping around bushes and rocks in their way. Slim held tightly to the Gutbucket. He could hear the Vipers beginning to run clumsily after them. Nadine was in front, weaving her way through the rocks and trees that grew at the bottom of the hill. They had a long way to go back to the festival, through the crowd and onto the stage.

There was a heavy bass and drum line coming from the stage. Slim could feel it pounding in his gut as he ran. The Gutbucket felt almost alive, as if it were squirming in his hand. Not to get loose, but to cut loose, to play. How long had it been since Rosie’s death, Progress had told him? Thirty years? Forty? Slim suddenly realized that the hunger to play he carried in his own soul could never match the hunger that he could feel emanating from the Gutbucket, wanting to take him over. And so, he thought, it began.

They approached the edge of the crowd. Nadine was still running ahead of Slim. The people saw them running, saw the Vipers chasing them and, as if it had been arranged, a path opened up for them. The three Vipers were close behind, but as Slim and Nadine got to the inside of the crowd, people closed the path behind them, so that the Vipers had to push and shove to squeeze their way through a crowd that was more than willing to push and shove back.

Slim estimated the distance to the stage at just less than a quarter
of a mile. That was a long way to run and a lot of people to go through. He was already winded from the run they had just made. For a second, he thought he would fall. But he felt a burst of energy from the Gutbucket and the guitar itself seemed to pull him along.

A Viper stepped into the path ahead of them. Nadine didn’t pause. She just ran straight over him. People in the crowd grabbed the Viper and pulled him back in. Another stepped out after Nadine had passed. Almost without volition, the Gutbucket came up and the headstock slashed the man in the throat. The Viper dropped and Slim spun around to catch his balance and then kept running.

Time seemed to slow. Running was a painful dream, the distance left to cover looked like miles. Slim struggled against the oppressive sense of exhaustion and futility that was trying to overcome him. He also fought against the attempts of the Gutbucket to enter his mind and thoughts. Lose or win, he swore, he would remain himself. He didn’t notice when the band on stage stopped playing and Progress and the boys stood out. He didn’t see the Vipers in the crowd ahead of them draw back. What he did see, what stopped his running, what pulled him up short, next to Nadine, was the short fat man all in white, standing in the path ahead of them, holding what looked like a very big gun. T-Bone Pickens had shown himself at last.

23

The blues is just a feeling, but in musical terms, it’s much more than that. The history of Rock ‘n’ Roll as we know it today makes a bee-line through the Mississippi Delta and the Texas Panhandle to Memphis and Chicago and all points in between. Elvis heard B. B. King in his Memphis youth and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Van Morrison and Eric Clapton heard John Lee Hooker and Albert King over the ether and across the Atlantic and Angus Young heard it all the way to Australia. And Ed Van Halen heard it from Eric Clapton and Steve Stevens heard it from Curtis Mayfield. From heavy metal to hard rock, from Led Zep to the Beatles, the influence of the blues is seminal. Lo and behold, the blues itself, in its original form and with a herd of true-to-the-roots believers, is alive and well and traveling all over the country and the world in the form of bent-note crusaders playing the clubs and colleges, the small halls and the outdoor festivals, carrying it on, true to the twelve bar.

—Noe the G,
Blues, the Anatomy of a Feeling

Y
’all might just as well stop right where you are,” Pickens said, handling the gun the same way he’d handled his money. “I admit I’m surprised you managed to get this far, but I never leave important matters to underlings. It’s all over, now.”

He stepped closer and pointed the gun at Slim. “Hand it over, boy. And keep in mind, I’ll blow your ass off if I have to.”

Slim stood, trying not to stare at the gun. All this, and T-Bone was going to win, just because he had a fucking gun? Slim decided, one way or another, that this slime wasn’t going to get the Gutbucket. He hoisted the guitar up to his chest and held it with both hands just under the headstock. He could see men in black pushing their way through the stubborn crowd, gathering in a circle around him, Nadine and Pickens. He looked up, and saw Progress and Belizaire on stage, but was unable to read the looks on their faces. A blackness came down around him, like tight steel bands round his chest, making it difficult to breathe, to think. Why should he fight, why should he struggle? He couldn’t beat a gun, Nadine might get hurt.
He
might get hurt. Why didn’t he just give the Gutbucket to Pickens? He’d never be able to play it . . .

Then something took him. He stood and screamed “
No”
Swinging the Gutbucket up onto his shoulder, he brought it down and around like an axe, an axe that, with all Slim’s weight of body and soul behind it, crashed into the side of Pickens’ head with a solid
thunk
that was almost painful to hear.

The gun exploded and Slim felt an immediate, hot-poker pain in the fleshy part of his upper left leg. He fell to the ground and the Gutbucket slipped from his hands. A Viper stood over Pickens, who was lying on the ground holding his head. Blood leaked from between the man’s fingers, and Slim was almost surprised to see it was as red as his own. The Viper reached for the Gutbucket, but Nadine stepped up to
him and kicked him viciously in the face. He went down and Nadine grabbed the guitar and shoved it back into Slim’s hands.

“Come on, baby,” she said urgently. “We still have to get to the stage and play. It’s not over.”

Slim looked up at her stupidly. “He
shot
me,” he said. “The son-
ofabitch shot
me.”

He held the palm of his hand up to her. “Look at that,” he said. “I’m bleeding.”

She grabbed the bloody hand he’d held out to her and pulled him to his feet. “I know,” she said. She put his free arm around her shoulders. “Lean on me, baby. Come on. We’ve got to get there and finish it.”

She started pulling at him. “Okay, okay,” he said, trying to go along with her. He couldn’t run, but he did manage a quick limp and drag. His leg hurt like hell, burned and throbbed, but they made it through the crowd. He had some rough moments climbing the steps to the stage, but when he reached the top, Progress and Belizaire were there to grab on to him and help carry him along. Elijigbo brought a chair out to stage center and the men sat Slim down on it.

Progress took the Gutbucket from him and quickly tuned it. As he handed it back he asked, “Can you play, son? You
gots
to.”

Slim couldn’t answer him, but he shook his head yes, anyway. Belizaire took out one of his multitude of pouches. He cut a slit in Slim’s pants over the bullet hole, and spread a greenish powder on the wound.

“Dis take de pain away,” he said. “I tink you do fine, me. You play now, eh?”

The hurting in Slim’s leg eased and he smiled up at the gris-gris man in gratitude. “Thanks,” he said. “Let’s play now. Let’s kick some Viper ass. Plug this fucker in.”

Progress handed him the business end of a guitar cord, the other
end of which was already plugged into his warmed-up amp. “Okay, son,” Progress said. “Hold up your part of the sky.”

Slim was unable to answer him. The sudden burst of power that resulted from the mating of Gutbucket to Amp nearly knocked him out of his chair. It was—magical, orgasmic, joyful and terrifying. It was the full potential of the blues, all their power, waiting for Slim to tap into it, as it tapped into him. It blew him away for a moment, then he let it seep into all the cells of his body and mind until it felt as if his muscles and stomach were laughing.
Is this surrender?
he thought. If it was, man, it felt good.

Belizaire patted him on the shoulder. “You do fine, now, eh? Bon?”

Slim nodded his head, grinning like a natural fool from the rush of the power through him.

“Good, then,” Belizaire said, sprinkling more powder around the stage. “
Laissez les bontemps rouler.”

Slim felt the power, could almost
see
it as a blue light, pouring into him, into the Gutbucket and into the Amp. He could feel and see it flowing into every member of the band on stage, into Nadine, who gasped and went weak in the knees. Even Progress, Belizaire and Elijigbo closed their eyes and shuddered as the pent-up blues power of all the wizards who had played before them rushed into their bodies and souls and electrified, blues-ified and motivated them. It was as if a giant generator had been switched on, releasing gigawatts of pure power.

Slim could no longer feel the pain in his leg. His dick was hard, his spine was stiff and his heart was pounding. Sweat was covering his body, and he was filled with a bright heat, nearly more than he could handle, but the reinforcement from the Gutbucket and the Amp, though contributing to the flow of power, also helped to control it.

He took three Dunlop blue Tortex picks from his pocket and slid two under the pickguard of the guitar, ready to speed grab in case he
lost the one he held in his fingers. He grabbed on to the maple fingerboard and began picking out the chords to “Standing at the Crossroads.”

“Let’s do it,” he yelled, turning up the volume.

Nadine smiled at him, though there was still concern in her eyes, and she began to sing the verses. Slim rocked back and forth in the chair, oblivious to everything but the Gutbucket and the power that was pouring through him. He could hear the band through the floor monitors, hear Nadine’s luscious voice as she belted out the song. The double drums shook the stage, the Earth pounded like a mad heart, and Belizaire’s bass hammering shook his belly. Progress’ rhythm guitar was smooth and sticky and deep like Tejas red mud after the rain. But, through it all, he heard the growling of the Gutbucket. It was a voice that spoke for him, with him and through him, helping him to say what he wanted to say, what he’d always wanted to say. He controlled it. Having surrendered to it, accepted it, he’d won.

But where was Shango? he wondered. Where was the God that was supposed to jump in? So far the cat hadn’t been much help. Except when he’d been about to throw it all away by grabbing the fake guitar.

The band slid into “Who Do You Love?,” one of Slim’s favorite songs. He let his fingers play with the A-flat scale, playing with a mind of their own as he looked around for the first time since taking the stage.

The people on the threshing floor were caught, enchanted. He could tell. They were swaying and dancing and joyful, entranced, enhanced, and hot at a glance. Slim could see Vipers moving through the crowd, directed by a bloody but unbowed T-Bone. The men in black seemed unaffected by the music. At least it seemed so until one of the Vipers tried to climb the stage. Slim let loose with a vicious riff and a fierce wind seemed to bounce the Viper backward from the stagefront.

Slim looked up at the sky, at the giant Tejas horizon. It was clotted in with dark clouds, and he could see flashes of lightning building deep inside them. Then he looked down at his fingers on the strings— and he played, flashes and sparks jumping between fingertips and strings as he changed notes. A storm was building, and he played as he’d never played before. He’d finally caught hold of the feeling. It was all his—and yet, it wasn’t. He could understand, now, Nadine’s fear of the power, the sense that it wasn’t
her.
He wondered if he’d be able to explain to her that, yes, there
was
something foreign in it, but it was still
him,
that there was a joy in it. A joy that came from the Gutbucket, partially, but which was definitely all his.

But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that the band played on, that Slim kept running on the strings and laying down the riffs and licks. He was playing riffs and runs he’d never learned, never even heard before. They were there, in him, a part of the life he’d absorbed, or a part of the Gutbucket, it didn’t matter. In the middle of “Come to Mama,” he started fingertapping a complex double-string lead line he would never have thought of or imagined for the song. Nadine turned and stared at him, her mouth open in awe. And he could feel a strange sense of surprise and astonishment coming from the Gutbucket itself.

He let the solo go, let it fall from his fingers like drops of rain as Nadine started singing again. Her voice was low and husky and, as he listened, he realized she was using the power. It was gentle, tentative, to be sure, but it was there, and growing. He looked closer and he could see it in the position of her legs, the looseness of her shoulders, the tight clenching and rocking of her ass and hips.

He poured all he had into his playing, trying to channel some of the immense power he felt into her, through her. He tried to touch her, to make love to her with his fingers on the strings and the sounds they were making. As he did, she seemed to grow taller, straighter. Her
voice began to match the Gutbucket, until the two were harmonized and working together as a unit.

He was deeply into the middle of the music when he heard a whizzing noise go by his ear. He kicked the trance and looked into the audience. Pickens and the Vipers were standing with guns drawn and aimed. Having failed in their attempts to get on stage, they were shooting at the band from the threshing floor. But, somehow, Slim could see the bullets as they flew through the air. He let his playing fall slightly behind the backbeat and time slowed.

He didn’t stop to consider Nadine’s singing, or where he was in the song. He started a lead riff, bending notes like crazy, whole tones at a time, hoping the strings wouldn’t break. It was a twisted, dissonant lead that he ordinarily wouldn’t have played, but as he bent the notes, the bullets were deflected from their path and disintegrated in small balls of sparks and flame.

The look on Pickens’ face was one of sheer, black rage. He’d been thwarted at every attempt and, perhaps, pushed beyond what little sanity he might have once laid claim to. Slim knew, without knowing how, that Pickens would soon turn on the crowd that surrounded him. He knew that Pickens and the Vipers would instigate a bloody massacre, a slaughter that though it would win no victory for them, would just as effectively destroy the blues.

Slim signaled to the band to stop the song they were playing, and called Progress over to his chair.

“It’s no good,” he told the old man. “Pickens is gonna bust out bad. I can feel it. Nadine and I should sing our song, and then we should go to the finish.”

“Up to you, son,” Progress said, adding, “what’s the gig?”

“Nadine’s song is just a twenty-four bar in A, like I told you before. The finale—the way I figure it, you remember what I played at Elijigbo’s. That’s what I think I want here, the boogie.”

Progress nodded and walked back to the band to explain the plan.
Slim adjusted the mike stand that stood in front of his chair. “Nadine,” he said, off mike. “It’s time for you and me to jam.”

Nadine looked down at the Vipers who were staring up at them hatefully, still holding the useless guns.

“I see what you mean,” she said. “All right, baby. Let’s
do it.”

Slim fingered the intro to the country blues he’d come up with for Nadine’s song. The band slipped in almost easily and they started to sing, their voices harmonizing as before.

“Tejas women

Walk on legs

That reach up to the sky.

They run on clouds

To touch the light

That shines within their eyes.