The Gutbucket Quest Read online

  “My people would be happy to do the festival work,” Elijigbo said. “Is that all you need?”

  Progress looked almost scared. “No,” he said. “I was hopin’ you’d be willin’ to play with us, you and your drummers.”

  “Why me?”

  “Eli,” Progress said. “I need you. I need your power behind us. I need it for this boy here, Slim, and I need it for the Gutbucket.”

  Something in what Progress had said, in what other people had said and done, made Slim begin to believe that he was intended to play a larger part in this business than he had first thought. It seemed, ridiculous as it sounded to him, that he was a pivot, around which the whole resolution of the problem revolved. But how could that be? He was just himself, nobody important.

  Elijigbo looked at him, as if sensing his thought. Slim could feel the man’s eyes piercing his soul and mind.

  “What about you, Slim? You got anything to say for yourself?”

  “Eli” Nadine protested.

  “Now, Nadine,” Elijigbo said. “You hush. This man has a right to speak for himself. That hand is only the beginning of what he has to face, and not the worst.”

  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 buildin
g.

  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)

  Nadine’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 foun
d 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?