Nobody Bats a Thousand (21 page)

As Jimmy squatted, inserting his coins, he was startled, a flash of white above and to the side.

“You got I.D.?”

Jimmy rose to face the bartender.
“No, ah, not with me.”

“You got to be twenty-one to be in here.”

“But, ah, ah, Del Craven is my uncle.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true. My name is Jimmy Craven. I’m Carl’s son,” he said to Del, who stopped chalking his stick while he squinted and stared at Jimmy.

The bartender gave up his smirk, and turned to Del Craven, “Is that true?”

Del’s puzzled look slowly grew into a full smile
. “Little Jimmy? Is that you?” h
e laid his stick down on the table as he rounded it.
“You skinny little red-headed sucker.
It sure is
. You look just like your daddy.” H
e grabbed Jimmy’s hand, shook it, and then pulled him in for a hug. “Man, the last time I saw yo
u, you were about two foot tall.” H
e released all but Jimmy’s hand. “You shouldn’t spring that kind of time warp on an old dude like me. You could give me a stroke or something.”

“You’re younger than my dad, and he’s not old, well not real old.”

“Well, thank ya, I think.
” Del stood, smiling and shaking his head. “What are you doing here? 
You alone?”

“I live here. I’m going to State College. I read you were going to be in town, so…”

“I’m sorry Mr. Craven, but if he’s underage he can’t hang around. The sheriff’s a real mother.
Him
and Charlie don’t get along, so he’s always looking for a reason to stick it to us.”

“Did you hear that, Mr. Craven?” Del asked his brother’s youngest son.
“You
done got us thrown out. You got a car?”

“My truck’s outside.”

“What say we go for a ride?”

“Sure.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Craven.
” The bartender held up his hands.

“Oh, don’t sweat
it, bud, this works out great.
” Del looked toward a small table of people near the stage.  “Larry, come here.”

Immediately a short, thin man wearing
a white cowboy hat started a rickety walk across the room until he was close enough
that Jimmy could tell the small
man’
s whole wardrobe was brand-new;
the hat, the boots, the jeans, and the shiny blue-p
laid western shirt with white pearl
buttons up the center of his chest and the start of each sleeve.

“Hoss, I’m
gon
na
go for a ride with my nephew.
” Del lifted the straw hat from his manager’s head and set it onto his own. “Let me borrow this and break it in for you. I don’t want to screw up my tour-bus tan.”

“What about the sound check?” Larry brushed his hair down with his hand.

“They don’t need me to sound check. You get up there and yodel through the mike. That’s all they need. We’ll be back shortly.”

Jimmy and Del walked outside where Del guarded his eyes from the light.  “So, what have you got planned, nephew?”

“Not a thing.”

“You sure?
  ‘Cause if you don’t mind you could taxi me over to something close by I’d like to see.”

“Sure.”

They got into the pickup. Del looked around and batted the bench seat with his palm. “This isn’t the truck your daddy bought new when he was a kid, is it?”

“I inherited it.
” Jimmy smiled and started the truck.

“Shoot, i
t sure sounds good.
” Del leaned toward the steering wheel.
“And a full tank of gas.
I bet you never let it run down past half–full, right?”

“Dad always said
‘Why
wait ‘til it’s empty to fill it’.”

“Yeah, he got that from your grandpa,” Del said. “So why don’t ya pull around back to our bus. I want to grab my shades.”

Once they were behind the building, Del got out of the truck. “I’ll be right back.” He climbed aboard a forty-five foot bus with blacked-out side windows and reappeared less than a minute later, wearing wrap-around sunglasses and carrying a book.

He jumped into the truck and slammed the door. “This is an old tour book done for the Federal Writer’s Project, part of the old WPA program they had going in the 1930’s.  This whole book is just about Montana, county by county. It
talks about a lot of neat stuff.” H
e began flicking through the pages. “I was reading
.
” H
e stopp
ed and focused on a single page.
“
H
ere, this tells about some Indian ruins, some caves just north of Ludlow here. You wouldn’t know about anything like that, would ya?”

“Caves?
 
Indian ruins?  I don’t think so.
” Jimmy tried to picture the area northeast of town.
“Unless it’s the haunted Caves.
That’s where a lot of the kids from high school go to party.”

“Let’s give it a try. You know how to get there?”

“I was there once, after I first came to town, but it was dark, and I was a little drunk, and I wasn’t driving, so I’m not sure. I remember it was kinda tricky to find the right road after you left the highway, but
it’s got to be somewhere
near
the mesa.”

Jimmy left Charlie’s parking lot and backtracked toward town.
Working the column stick down into third gear, lending the gas, moving along, until he again downshifted to turn left on Miles road, which very gradually curved to the northeast with the outskirts of Ludlow to their right, and the short bluffs building toward a small mesa straight ahead.
         

“So, how is everybody back in Nebraska?”

“Everybody’s doing
good
. Bob stayed on the farm, Linda’s in Omaha at the university. Mom, Dad and Grandma
are doing fine,
” Jimmy seemed to have finished talking but had merely paused. He was searching for the courage to ask a specific question when he was interrupted.

“What are you studying?”

“Forestry, that’s why I came
here
. I was thinking about majoring in music, maybe go to a school just for that, but I didn’t think mom and the old man would ever go for it.”

“So you’re a musician?” Del was slowly turning, scrutinizing the scope of the horizon. 
“You any good?”

“I guess I’m all right. I seem to pick up things easier than most, at least where music’s concerned.”

“You got that from your daddy. He was one of the quickest I’ve ever seen.”

Jimmy turned with surprise.
“Dad?
”
H
e shook his head. “Uncle Del,
I don’t think so.”

“Oh, he didn’t care for it much, always acted bored with it and kinda put out when people would pester him to play, but he was sort of amazing with that old accordion of his.  Even when he was a young kid all you had to do was hum a song, or play him a record or a song on the radio, and he could play it straight through, dead-letter perfect, first time every time.”

“Uncle Del, are you pulling my leg?” Jimmy turned for an answer, then back to the road.  “I mean, we used to pull that dusty old accordion out of the attic and fool around with it when we were little
, but I’ve never seen my dad
play it.”

“Oh it’s no joke.
” Del straightened his sunglasses and looked at his nephew.  “I’ve been around a lot of talented musicians. The guys in my band are all great players. Most of them have played with some big time folks.  But in all my years I have never come across anybody who was more natural a player than your daddy.”

Jimmy was stunned into silence.

“What instrument do you play?” Del asked.

“Guitar mostly, keyboards some, we had a little band back home, played li
ke dances and parties and stuff.
” Jimmy glanced at his uncle then back at the road. “But I haven’t picked up a guitar since I’ve been here, been too busy with school and work, don’t know why, but I feel kind of guilty about that.”

“Guilt about anything isn’t good. You’ll get to it if you need to get to it.”

“But I started playing the harmonica, same as you. I don’t mean I can blow like you, but I’m getting better. At least it’s easy to c
arry around to mess around with.
” Jimmy lifted open the lid of a black box sitting next to him on the seat. “I’ve got all your stuff that you can get on CD. Want to hear one?”

“Not really. I think we’re doing all right with what you’ve got on the radio.  What’s
this
an
all jazz station?”

“It’s the college station. They’ve got jazz from one to four on Saturday then they go to either hard-core alternative or Rap.”

“Good, hang on there, we’ll give that new stuff a try too.”

A soothing Miles Davis song
ended. The announcer started,
“ That was Miles, before that it was…. oh, man I lost my list, but it was all good stuff…and, oh yeah I’ve still got those two free passes to
Charlie’s
for tonight to see Bill Craven, oh no here it is… Del Craven, I’m not really sure if it’s blues or country or what,
but hey the tickets are free, and I’m no longer waiting for the third caller. I’ll take the first caller. They’re yours, bu
t you got to be over twenty-one,
” he spoke just a bit longer then the music stared again.

“Whoa, they can’t give those tickets away.
That sure don’t
make your old uncle look too good.”

“It’s just the college station. We might be the only ones listening.”

They had gone close to another mile when Jimmy slowed and took the truck off the pavemen
t. “I think this is the turnoff.” H
e followed a wavy, rocky, dirt road, traveling slowly in first gear up a small hill. The road forked. He stopped the truck.

“I’m not really sure which road to take.”

Del looked down at his book, ahead at each perspective path,
and then
again at his book, which he snapped shut. “The logical thing would be to keep going up. But the logical thing isn’t always right. Let’s swing with the road t
o the left and see what happens.” H
e smiled at his nephew.
“If you don’t mind.”

Jimmy released the clutch, and the truck drifted slowly, rocking laterally over the rutted road; a curve to the left, one to the right; the road became smoother and began to climb. Suddenly they were in a narrow steep pass between two bluffs. After another half-mile and another tu
rn, they came to the road’s end a
small flat
s
pot
separated from the mesa, over one
hundred yards away, by a small, shallow canyon.

“I think we just about tracked it down, nephew. I think the right
side of that mesa is the place.
” Del got out of the truck, stretched,
and then
stood smiling as he looked at the wide open vista.

“Beautiful country.
You’re lucky to live here.”

Jimmy pulled a plastic canteen from behind his seat and took a drink. “I’m supposed to go home for the summer after this sem
ester, but I sure don’t want to.” H
e handed the jug across the bed of the truck to his uncle. “To tell the truth, I really hate living on the farm.”

Del took a drink and wiped his mouth. “I know exactly what you mean, nephew. I didn’t like it much neither. That’s a good part of the reason I lit out of Nebraska like a cat with his ass on fire when I was just a kid.”

“I know. You were with Eddie Adams and the Rockers. They’re famous. You’re famous.”

Del smiled a bit. “Yeah, it was a wild ride. A lot
of crazy times, that’s for sure.” H
e handed the jug back to Jimmy.

“I read somewhere that you knew the Beatles.”

“Sure, they opened for us as part of a three-ring package that toured all over Scotland and the north of England. I remember clean as yesterday celebrating my eighteenth birthday in a pub in Scotland with a few of the Rockers and a couple of the Beatles. They were just getting known in England. I can’t remember if they had a record out yet or not.”

“But you knew ‘em? You talked to ‘em?”

Del laughed. “Well, I didn’t talk much. I mostly listened. I was just a kid. That was so long ago most of it doesn’t seem real but some things, like my eighteenth birthday, that was a gas.”

“You actually talked to John Lennon?”

“John especially, he liked to hang around the band. Old Eddie and the guys had been touring forever. Believe me they’d been around, and a life of doing one-niters ain’t for sissies. A couple of ‘em knew Elvis. John liked that. He seemed to look up to the guys.  You hear all that stuff about him being a jackass and a bully back then, but I always got along with him fine.”