The Gutbucket Quest

  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.”

  “But even if we get the Gutbucket back,” Slim said, “won’t Pickens just keep on trying to get us?”

  “Not if we do it right,” Nadine said. “Why do you think he’s trying to get us? If we can get the Gutbucket, then we can destroy him, we can kill him. It won’t solve the whole problem with the businesses, but it will eliminate the worst part of it.”

  “I don’t want to kill people, Nadine. I don’t like the idea of that.” Slim fingered the gris-gris pouch around his neck. “I just don’t have it in me.”

  “You think Daddy or I like it?” Nadine said angrily. “Sometimes you just don’t have any choice. This isn’t play. T-Bone’s going to try to nullify you or kill us. That’s the way it is. If you can’t deal with it, you’d better say so now.”

  “No,” Slim said. “I’ll do whatever I have to do. I don’t have to like it, though. I’m not even sure I buy it yet. What do you think about blues power?”

  Nadine seemed to shiver for a moment, even in the hot summer air from the open window of the van. “I’m not the person to ask,” she said quietly. “I’ve seen Daddy use it, and I’ve seen you use it—use it like no one else. And you played the pants off of anybody I’ve ever seen, by the way. But Daddy’s right, I am scared of the power.”

  “You use it, though.”

  “I guess. Daddy says what I do is called enchantivating. I don’t do it on purpose, it just happens.” She sighed deeply, and her smile was wan and wistful. “All I ever wanted to do was sing. The rest of it doesn’t have anything to do with me. It seems like cheating, somehow. I’ve seen you and Daddy do it, and it feels okay, but not for me. If I try to do it, it doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel fair. That scares me. I’m sort of afraid that if I use it, I’ll lose what I already have. I just want it to be me up there on that stage. Nothing else.”

  “But it is just you,” Slim protested.

  “That’s what Daddy keeps telling me. But it doesn’t feel like it. I want to know that it’s me the people like, not the power.”

  Slim couldn’t find an answer for that. It was a feeling he knew only too well.

  They pulled into Mitchell’s and, once inside, he noticed an insurance-agency calendar, an auto-parts-store calendar, two naked-women calendars, and four scenic-landscape calendars. Also on the walls were photos of the players and singers Slim assumed had eaten there, the Tejas Declaration of Independence, and a waterfall lithograph. Small, black and white hexagonal tiles covered the floor.

  He experienced a sensation of reassurance, and in a moment he placed it: he knew there would be no foul Glory Hand turning up here again. That made it safe in a special way.

  The only other people there were two old men, one black and one white, with faces which looked as if they had enjoyed long and satisfying usage. Carrying their
arms folded behind them, they greeted each other with a light feminine touching of fingertips which spoke of the duration of their friendship. It made Slim happy and he was still smiling when he sat at a table with Nadine.

  “You know,” he said. “I asked Progress what he believed in, but I haven’t asked you. How about it?”

  Nadine shrugged. “You met Mother Phillips,” she said. “That’s part of it. Mostly, what I believe is something my mama used to tell me. She said that in the beginning of the world, after the people had emerged from the underground world, Spider Grandmother gave them two rules only. She told them not to hurt each other, and to try to understand things. So that’s what I believe. I haven’t found anything yet that it didn’t cover.”

  “I like that,” Slim said. “I like that a lot. You miss your mom, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. She was my friend. She and Daddy taught me what love was supposed to be like. And they never said do this or do that. They encouraged me to make my own decisions, all the way back when I was a little girl. They let me find my own ways to think. And Mama taught me about nature, what was there and why, how to find it and how to treat it.”

  “What about what Heap of Bears said?” Slim asked.

  “That—that hurt at first. Like a betrayal. Now, well, it sounds like something Mama would do. I don’t think she would ever mean me harm. She just didn’t know I would fall so hard or get so carried away.”

  The waitress came and they ordered: cheeseburger, fries and a bowl of chili for Slim; ham, eggs and hash browns for Nadine.

  “You have hamburgers for breakfast often?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Slim said. “Whenever I can. I love hamburgers. I guess I’d eat ’em for every meal if I could. Or maybe not. I suppose I’d need a little variety now and then. Most people go crazy over steak or prime rib or whatever. But for me, a big meal is a chili-cheeseburger and a whole bunch of half-greasy fries and a big Coke. Man, that’s good eating.”

  “You’re crazy, Slim.”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re not the first person to notice. It’s just the way I am, I guess. I’m nearly forty and I haven’t changed yet. I don’t expect I will. Some people say it’s my best quality.”

  The waitress brought their food and Slim spooned some chili onto his cheeseburger, then commenced dipping his fries into what was left in the bowl. He looked up between bites and saw Nadine watching him.

  “What?” he said.

  “You haven’t been very happy, have you?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied. “It’s hard to explain. I don’t think I’ve ever been happy until now. My life seemed somehow to move from crisis to crisis, broken heart to broken heart. I think maybe I hold on to the crises as all I had. Maybe they gave me significance or something. It’s like, after so many broken hearts, I lost belief in the world. So without the tragedy I had nothing. The thing that’s sad, or that I find sad, is that all I ever wanted was to find someone who loved me no matter what.”

  Nadine’s beautiful caramel skin turned a shade darker, and Slim thought she might be blushing. Then she looked him in the eye.

  “I love you,” she said.

  Slim was speechless. She’d said it. Finally. He thought that it must have taken some courage and thought for her to say it to him. He was so affected by the simple declaration, he could hardly look at her.

  “Thanks, Nadine,” he said. “That means a lot.”

  “Why are you so scared, Slim?”

  As always, she seemed to go right to the weakness in him. “I’ve been hurt too much,” he said. “I’ve loved too hard and been let down too many times. And I’m terrified that this whole thing might just be a dream. I mean, let’s face it, people just don’t get blown into other worlds, especially when that other world is so close to what they’d like it to be. In my world, people used to say, ‘Watch what you wish for, you might get it.’ Well, I got it, and now I’m waiting for the catch in it.”

  “What if there isn’t any catch?” Nadine asked.

  “There has to be. Everything has a catch. Everything’s got a hook. It’s like a song. It’s no good without the hook. So I know it has to be here, waiting to get me.”

  “Look,” Nadine said. “I love you. That’s not an easy thing for me, but I do. And Daddy loves you, too, in his own way. There’s no hook in that. Maybe it’s in you. You’re having to go through an awful lot of hard changes. You’re having to grow and adapt. Maybe that’s the catch, for you to let go of your hurt and anger and grow up, get rid of your stupidity and clumsiness. You’re a nice guy. Maybe the catch is that you just have to admit it to yourself and go on from there.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Slim said, now uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I’m just going along with everything, trying to do my best. I don’t know yet if I can believe in all of it. It’s too good to be true. It’s almost as if I need that Glory Hand, to threaten me and scare me, to prove that this world has some bad things too. Otherwise it would be impossible to believe in it.”

  Nadine took his hand across the table. “Look, Slim,” she said. “Believe in me, in you and me. That’s real. If you can’t get beyond that, it’s okay, but believe in that.”

  There was no answer but for Slim to nod his head and smile.

  15

  Among all the forces capable of bewitching spirit, forces which it must both submit to and revolt against—poetry, painting, spectacles, war, misery, debauchery, revolution, life and its inseparable companion, death—is it possible to refuse music a place among them, perhaps a very important place?

  —Paul Nouge, Music Is Dangerous

  Breakfast was done before Slim was ready. The night, and the morning with Nadine had been the best times of his life, and he was greedy for more. It had been a long time since he had talked so much to anyone, so honestly. Nadine seemed to draw the honesty out of him, made him want, need to tell her all those things that he would normally have kept hidden inside. It was lucky he wasn’t a spy, he thought, because the simple torture of her sweet touch would compel him to tell all.

  And it had been a long time since he had slept with anyone. Nadine somehow knew the exactly perfect way he needed to sleep, cupped belly to back, dick to butt, and hand stretched over, holding her breast. That position made him feel secure and peaceful, and it was only those times he had slept with someone, in that position, that he’d gotten a full night’s refreshing sleep. Otherwise, he slept and woke intermittently throughout the night, always insecure and anxious, depressed or manic or just exhausted.

  His feelings for Nadine went far beyond anything he had any experience of. He could feel that there was an essential truth in his feelings, in their feelings for one another. He wondered how it was possible for two people to fall so far in love, so fast. Was it just their hunger and readiness that had caused it? Or were there hidden forces that had been connecting and intertwining their lives? Slim wondered if he cared. Both of them had been looking for a way out of loneliness, a way out of the walls they’d built around themselves.

  Trying to stretch time he asked Nadine, “What are we gonna do today, baby?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Spend the day in bed?”

  “Okay,” Nadine said. “Let’s go, then.”

  They stood and, after paying the tab, walked outside. It was, for summer, a beautiful day. The sun was hot, but not excessively so, and there was a slight breeze from the northwest. If Slim hadn’t been so consumed by his thoughts and enjoyment of Nadine, he might have paid more attention to the several black cars parked variously in the street and parking lot surrounding Mitchell’s. He might have noticed the black-suited men that were rapidly approaching them from all around. As it was, he wasn’t aware there was anything wrong until the first of the suited men grabbed Nadine and jerked her away from him.

  He turned and reached for her, but someone grabbed his arms. He twisted and turned but his captor’s grasp was as tight as steel. He saw Nadine kick and punch the man w
ho held her down to the pavement. But even as he went down in pain, four more men in black replaced him and, though Nadine fought viciously, valiantly, accounting for at least three of the men being injured, there were just too many of them for her.

  Slim tried to slip the hold he was in, and had almost succeeded, when something very swift and very hard slammed into the back of his head. Though he tried to retain his consciousness, everything quickly went dark, matching the pavement he was soon lying on.

  When he woke, he stumble-ran to the van and got in. He fumbled with the keys, started the motor, and was ready to haul ass chasing Nadine. Then he realized he had no idea where to go, where the men would have taken her. He wanted very badly to cry, but instead, he forced himself to be reasonably calm and to begin driving to Progress’ house. He dreaded telling the gold-toothed old man that he’d lost Nadine, that the men in black had kidnapped her. If he just hadn’t been so fascinated by her, so wrapped up in the love that was growing between them. If he’d just paid more attention, if he hadn’t been stupid enough to relax, to think they had it made once everything was set up. If only he’d fought harder, had more courage. If only, if only. There were a thousand if-only’s he could think about, but it all came down to one simple fact in Slim’s mind. It was, he was sure, his fault.

  There was a desperate, empty feeling inside him. And, for the first time, he realized that he could kill, happily and without conscience. He’d never considered it before. He’d spent some years studying martial arts in his youth, and his instructor had told him he would have to consider killing in self-defense. But Slim had always been the one in any crowd to advocate peaceful solutions to any problem. He’d been the one to walk away from arguments, to leave any bar where violence was brewing, to back down at his own cost rather than allow himself to be drawn into fighting.