The Gutbucket Quest Read online

  “Friend of mine gave me this,” he said. “You like smokin’ herb?”

  “What?” Slim said, suddenly panicked. “I mean, yeah, I do. But right, here, in the open?”

  “What you mean,” Progress said, puzzled. “Smoke it if you like. No big deal.”

  “Progress,” Slim said. “In my world, this stuff is illegal.”

  For the first time, the old man looked surprised. “This?” he said. “This a weed. Grows all over around here. They make weeds against the law where you come from?”

  “Yeah, they do. Major bad news.”

  “Son, that’s downright ignorant.”

  “I always thought so. Hey, wait—you mean it’s okay to smoke it here?”

  “Sure thing. Light it up and relax. Fall into the groove.”

  “Progress,” Slim said, “I’m liking this world more and more all the time. What about you? You want some?”

  “Nope.” Progress shook his head. “Don’t mistake me, now. I’ve smoked up more than my share, startin’ with Rosie and movin’ right along. But nowadays I only smoke if I can’t sleep. Puts me right away. So you go on, now, enjoy yourself. Here comes Nadine on stage.”

  As Slim lit the joint, he could smell the sticky sweetness of it from all around the club. But his attention was quickly captured and held by the small figure that was walking around the stage as the band set up.

  She was short, perhaps 5'2”, wearing a black leather miniskirt and a purple blouse so sheer that Slim was sure he could see her small breasts through it. When she smiled, hard white teeth met the fullest, softest-looking, most inviting lips he’d ever wanted to kiss. She had thin, to-die-for legs and a small ass that Slim would have sworn was the most perfect, kissable ass that could be found. She was the most perfect woman he’d ever seen, as if someone had taken every feminine quality he’d ever loved and lusted after and put them all in one compact package.

  He was oddly surprised, as well. He had never before been attracted to a black woman. Not the way he was to Nadine. But he could almost imagine what her caramel skin would feel like against his hands, how she would smell and taste and move. The desires and unfamiliar emotions that were blasting through him came close to making him holler. He knew he should repress it all, should forget it, or try to. Why would such a beautiful woman be interested in a fat, forty, burnt-out bluesman like him? But he’d always been a fool for women. They broke his heart every damn time, but he could never seem to find the strength to just say fuck it and leave them all alone.

  Nadine was going to be the worst yet, he could already tell that. He felt as if he’d never been in love before. Maybe, he hadn’t, not really. And maybe Nadine would be different. As he finished the joint, he decided that, this time, he would be very careful to try to do the right thing so maybe it could work. After all, if this was a new world, maybe he had a fresh new chance.

  Nadine stepped up to the microphone, stood straddle-legged, in control. Slim would have sworn he could hear the crackling of electricity in her movements. Her eyes were closed and she didn’t speak. The normal audience noises of talking and laughing and clinking glasses and bottles were absent. Nadine stood ready in a small sea of silence and expectation. Slim was impressed by the control she seemed to hold on the audience waiting for her to perform.

  The band jumped straight into “Come to Mama,” and it was the absolute hottest version of the song Slim had ever heard. Nadine’s voice was low and smooth like the brown flow of Texas sugarcane syrup. It drew him in, reached into his gut and made him want. When the band kicked down on the whole-step grace note from B-flat, Slim felt his heart skip a beat.

  The experience of the music was unlike anything he’d ever felt. He’d played music, seen it, listened to music stoned, drunk, straight, and while he made love. But nothing had touched him like this. The club, Progress, everything else in the world had vanished into a haze of rhythm and sound. Only Nadine and the song existed at that moment.

  Then, the song ended.

  Progress, the club, the rest of the world came back to Slim’s sight and consciousness. “Damn” he nearly shouted.

  Progress chuckled. His eyes crinkled in amusement.

  “Got you, did it?” he said. “That’s what I was tryin’ to tell you, about the power. And that’s just a small taste, a spoonful. Nadine’s good, you see, but she don’t let it out much. Myself, I think she’s about as afraid of it as you are.”

  The band started up with “Roadhouse Blues,” but Slim’s attention was on Progress, so this time the power didn’t capture him, even though he could feel its pull.

  “You mean I could do that?” he said.

  “Son, I gots me a feelin’ you could go way beyond that. Maybe further than me. Don’t get lost here, though. What Nadine’s doin’ seems big to you, now, because you ain’t never seen it and knowed what it was you were seein’. And I s’pect it caught hold of you real bad because of what you think you’re feelin’ about Nadine. There’s more to it than just catchin’ a person up in the music, though. Way far more.”

  “But I can learn it, right?”

  Progress shook his head and took a drink of his beer. “Nope,” he said. “ ‘Tain’t somethin’ you can learn.”

  “But—"”

  “Hold on, son. I told you before, it’s somethin’ you either got or you don’t. You cain’t learn it, it’s there. Everybody has it, some more and some less. Some peoples can use it, some can’t. Most folks don’t really want to. It’s all filled with risks and chances and responsibilities, you see. You, you got a whole big soul full of it. And you believe me, son. When the time’s right, it’s gonna all come bustin’ right out of you.” Progress’ shoulders slumped and he sighed. “That’s what I would have said,” he continued. “Now that the Gutbucket’s missin’, though, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. You might not get your chance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, all the power, it was just sorta runnin’ loose before Rosie was made into the Gutbucket. The Gutbucket focused all of it, seems like, gave it a center to work around. You listen to Nadine, now. Get yourself past the power, get to the heart of what she’s doin’, what the band’s doin’, and then you tell me what you feel.”

  Slim listened again. But instead of listening with his heart, he listened with his own musical skills, with his fingers, as if he were the one performing. Nadine was singing a slow, jazzy blues, a train song. Slim let himself get caught by the power once more, let himself fall further and further into the song, reading each change, each note, until he came out the other side and realized Progress was right. The song was wrong, chaotic. It wasn’t as simple as a mistimed beat, sour notes or getting behind on the groove. It was a sense of being out of place, being lost or confused. Somehow, the joy, the intrinsic lifting quality of the music had gone out of the song. It made him sad, not least because it was happening to Nadine. He could see it on her face as she sang, see that she, too, knew it was wrong.

  “You can feel it, can’t you?” Progress asked.

  “Yeah,” Slim said. “It, uh, it hurts. Somehow. It doesn’t feel good, anyway, like it’s supposed to.”

  “That’s why we gotta get the Gutbucket back. Would you want to play if you knowed it was gonna hurt like that?”

  “I see what you mean. No, I wouldn’t be able to stand it. It’d take away all the reasons I want to play in the first place. It’d take away one of the only two joys I know anything about.”

  “That’s it, right there, son. And I know Nadine’s feelin’ the same thing. I s’pect she’ll be callin’ me up on stage to play any minute now. Maybe I can part fix it.”

  Indeed, when the song was finished, Nadine did step up to the microphone.

  “Come on up here and play, Daddy,” she said. Progress walked strongly up to the stage and took the guitar the lead player handed him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Nadine said. “What do you call the force exerted on pure nickel-wound strings by one hundred and
seventy pounds of muscle, heart and ornery will?”

  The audience, having heard the introduction before, answered with a yell, “Blues power!"

  “I call him my daddy—Mister Progress T. Hornsby.”

  The audience applauded as Progress stepped up to the mike, noodling on the guitar, getting the feel.

  “Muscle, heart and ornery will, huh?” Progress smiled. “People, it’s just six strings, three notes, two fingers and one asshole.”

  The audience laughed and applauded even more loudly.

  “I wanna thank my fambly before I start on this here song. Thank ‘em for savin’ me a place at the table. Okay peoples, work the body, drive for real, eat ethnic and play them blues.”

  Progress started out slow, picking loose, rhythmic notes up and down the neck, almost like a snake hypnotizing a bird. Then he settled into A-flat and started a single-string swing that the bass player and the drummer quickly picked up on. Once the groove was established, the rhythm guitarist jumped in on the backbeat to give the thing some quick slide and jump.

  In Slim’s world, he would have said it was funk meeting ZZ Top, but the way Progress did it made it something wholly different, hot, blue and righteous.

  After playing with the groove for a while, settling in, Progress made a slight shift to a twelve-bar form and started to sing.

  “Hey, hey, hey, hey,

  Bullfrog blues is on my mind

  They’re all in my bedroom,

  Drinkin’ up all my wine.

  Hey pretty mama, hey pretty mama,

  Can’t stand these bullfrog blues no more,

  They’re all in my cabinets,

  Hoppin’ over my best clothes.

  Have you ever woke up,

  With those bullfrogs on your mind . . .”

  As Slim listened and watched Progress perform, he was drawn deeply into the music, further than he’d ever been before. Progress’ age had dropped away and he stood there wide-legged, humping in the air, filling his soul, shaking in the cast-off rags of his eighty-some years, screaming through the guitar. And it was right, it was so right. It felt healthy, and there were images of young girls, playing in the cane breaks, lifting up into the light of a nice summer’s day and a young girl’s freckled skin pressed against his own.

  He looked longingly at Nadine, dancing gracefully near the edge of the stage, looked around at the rapturous faces of the audience, all lost in private dreams and visions, caught up in the power that Progress was weaving with the strings. And there was no sense of wrongness about it, as there had been before. The power was sharp and clean and bright. It cut through everything.

  Slim was half-stunned by it, but he was able to get past it. The power affected him, but he was able to keep a part of himself clear and free, able to observe. Then, the song was over and Progress handed the guitar back, walked over to Slim’s table and patted him on the back.

  “Come on, son,” Progress said. “Let’s go.”

  “Go?” Slim asked. “Now? Isn’t Nadine gonna sing any more?”

  Progress looked sharply at him. “Would you?” he asked quietly.

  Slim shrugged. “I guess not.”

  “Nadine knew once I played, that’d be about it for the night. I think she wanted to cut it short’s why she called me up so soon. I don’t think too many of the good ones gonna be playin’ till we gets the Gutbucket back. If it hurts to listen, how do you think it feels to play?”

  They left the coolness of the club and went out into the warm summer night, headed for the pickup. Slim saw other people heading for cars and trucks. They walked slowly and had expressions of confusion on their faces. They weren’t talking.

  “Why didn’t it affect you?” Slim asked.

  “I was around before the Gutbucket came to be,” Progress said. “I already knew the power, how to use it. And, to tell the truth, the Gutbucket’s just got too damn much power in it for me. So it bein’ gone don’t touch me none, leastways, not in any important way. Ain’t many like me, though.”

  Slim thought to himself that that last might be the truest thing he’d ever heard. “Where do we go, now?” he asked.

  Progress started the pickup and backed it out of the parking lot. “Back to Mitchell’s,” he said. “Nadine’ll meet us there.”

  6

  Appreciation of this accursed tradition . . . can only enhance the contemporary appreciation of the blues. For the blues singers belong to the same heroic company. Their work . . . is emblazoned with all the colors of the future. Held in check by the repressive forces of the past, they are reborn today in the fever of our wildest dreams. They are anticipations of that which will be.

  —Paul Garon, Blues and the Poetic Spirit

  Boogie and Yowl (A)

  Just got a bellyful of boogie and yowl,

  Now I’m flyin’ like an ole night owl.

  That hot blue rhythm got ahold of me,

  I gotta live, I gotta be free,

  Nothin’ takes it to you and lays it down,

  Like gettin’ you a bellyful of boogie and yowl.

  Boogie and yowl, boogie and yowl,

  The land of Tejas is on the prowl,

  Kick it in and kick it out,

  Boogie is a thing you can’t do without,

  So if you wanna take it with you when you go,

  Boogie and yowl is the thing to know.

  I knew a woman, a real good pal,

  She had a bellyful of boogie and yowl,

  A real good woman, she drank with the men,

  And when she loved you would come again,

  She put it all together in the strangest way,

  Talkin’ boogie and yowl till her dyin’ day.

  Boogie and yowl, boogie and yowl,

  The women of Tejas are on the prowl,

  Slide it in and slide it out,

  Boogie is a thing you can’t do without,

  So if you wanna take it with you when you go,

  Boogie and yowl is the thing to know.

  So if you wanna get it all right now,

  Get yourself a bellyful of boogie and yowl,

  Break it up and shake it up and let it all go,

  There ain’t a thing about lovin’you won’t know,

  Everybody’s lookin’ for a real good ride,

  Boogie and yowl gets you deep inside.

  Boogie and yowl, boogie and . . .

  Mitchell’s was more crowded in the darkness of the night, tables filled with black and white faces in deep conversations, the sound of soft guitars jamming in the corners and back rooms, dishes and odors of cooking seasoning the air. But Slim and Progress were left alone at their table. Progress was eating his way through a spicy, green bullet, snake and harp, South of the Border concoction, smacking his lips and liberally pouring an even greener sauce over his plate. Slim worked on a meal he thought of as more normal, a cheeseburger. They weren’t talking, just eating and waiting for Nadine who, at that moment, walked in, hair and breasts bouncing and causing Slim to miss the bite he was ready to take from his cheeseburger.

  She kissed Progress on the cheek. “Hi, Daddy.” She pointed at Slim. “Who’s this fool?”

  “Hey, girl,” Progress replied, “you ain’t so big I cain’t whoop your butt, so you put a hold on that mouth. This is Slim, my new apprentice.”

  Slim was, frankly, staring at her wide-eyed. She arched one eyebrow, then the other as she checked him over. Wow, Slim thought, a woman who can make an M with her face.

  “Him?” she said. “Why him?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Slim asked softly. “Why is it every time Progress tells people I’m his apprentice, everybody says, ‘Him?’"

  “It’s that long hair and that look on your face,” Nadine said. “You look like you died a year ago and haven’t had the guts to lie down.”

  Slim hurt. But, at the same time, he wanted to smile. At least she’d noticed him.

  “Shut up, Nadine,” Progress said. “Wouldn’t hurt you none to be a litt
le more like him.”

  Nadine laughed. Slim thought it was lovely. “You want me to be more like him?” she said. “Fine, schedule the lobotomy.”

  Progress sighed. “Nadine,” he said, “I’m not gonna bust your ass, but you and me, we’re gonna have us a little talk later on. The boy’s had a hard time, so you let him be.”

  Slim knew Progress was serious, but he wondered how much, seeing the old man’s cantankerous, mischievous laughing face. It seemed to make a difference to Nadine, however.

  “Okay, Daddy. What do you need? What’s the prob?”

  Progress told her about the Gutbucket.

  “Man,” she said. “I knew something was wrong when we tried to do the gig and it soured. I didn’t think it was that bad, though. I just thought it was me. What are you going to do?”

  “It ain’t a matter of what am I gonna do. It’s what we’re gonna do. I s’pect you and me and Slim better stick together.”

  “Why him?”

  “Look here, girl. He’s a part of it. You just accept that. I’ll explain it to you later on at home. My home, if you can manage to be free to stay out there with us.”

  “Sure, Daddy,” Nadine said. “That’s no problem. But what then?”

  “I guess we’ll all three go to see T-Bone. Not that I s’pect it to do much good.”

  “Who’s T-Bone?” Slim asked.

  Nadine was about to say something snappish, but Progress laid his hand on her arm and she remained silent while Progress continued speaking.

  “T-Bone Pickens. The man. I s’pect he’s the bad guy in all this. The newspapers call him an industrialist. I got other names for what he is. He started out wantin’ to be a player. But the boy just never could get no handle on it, so he started makin’ money other ways—buyin’ up property, startin’ businesses. Now he owns the helium mines, the beef processing plant, the power company. I swear, sometimes I think the man owns about everything in Armadillo. Maybe half of Tejas if you believe the stories people tell.”