The Gutbucket Quest

by Piers Anthony

  Nadine then told him to go into the front of the shop and pick out an amp. Slim tried to argue about it, but he was learning that arguing with Nadine was like swimming upstream in a flood. It couldn’t be done, never, no how.

  Normally, he would just have looked for a duplicate of the Fender Super Reverb he was used to and preferred. But, to his dismay, Fender didn’t seem to exist in this world. And it seemed that, taking the power into account, he should be more than usually choosy about his amp. He started out deciding he would look only at tube-type amps, older models similar to the Super Reverb. He played through a few of them, checking them out, but none had the bite, the volume or the distortion he was used to. Then he noticed a dusty, ugly, orange crate of an amp sitting half-hidden in a corner. It was obvious that no one had looked at it or played with it in a long time. But it seemed to have a faint glow or shine about it, so he moved some other amps out of the way and rolled the orange monstrosity out to the center of the floor.

  It was a simple construction of tubes, sheet metal, a reverb chamber, and unmarked, unnumbered dials. In fact, the only writing on it at all was the maker’s name, wrought in blue chrome across the front of the speaker grille. A simple word; HILLS. But the sound that came from the speakers when Slim plugged in was the sweet dirty tone he was used to, the warm twisted sound he called his own. It was more, though, and as he played he could sense undertones and harmonics that seemed to vibrate deeply inside him, and when he played a thumb edge to get a pure high harmonic note, it screamed and rang with sustain, far longer than he’d ever been able to catch before. The amp, he knew, had its own power.

  “This is it,” he said, smiling, excited.

  The blond kid, Wanger was his name, Slim remembered, looked slightly disturbed. “You sure you want that one?” he asked.

  “Yeah, why? There something wrong with it?”

  “Uhm, no. Not exactly. It’s about twenty years old, but we reconditioned it, so it’s in good shape.”

  “What, then,” Slim said. The kid was fidgeting, and Slim wanted to know why.

  Wanger looked over at Nadine. She only shrugged. Did she know something about it?

  “Well, see,” the boy mumbled. “We’ve sold that thing and had it returned ten or fifteen times so far. It sounds good and it works good, but people get freaked out by it or something. It’s never anything they can explain, it just makes them uncomfortable to play it. A few of them—well, almost all of them, really—said it felt like the amp was fighting them.”

  “Feels okay to me,” Slim said, ripping off a quick riff in B-flat. “Feels real good. Who knows, maybe it was just waiting for the right player.”

  “Maybe,” Wanger said dubiously. “I won’t be surprised to see you bring it back, though.”

  “Hah! No chance. This is exactly what I want. Throw in a thirty-foot cord and I’ll take this sucker. If you can clean it up a little and have Orville tweak and match it, we’ll pick it up when we come back for the guitar.”

  “Okay,” Wanger said, shaking his head. “You got it, for what it’s worth.”

  The next order of business was the trip to the Canadian River to see how Elijigbo’s crew was doing setting up the festival site.

  The site was crawling with activity. Crews were clearing brush and rocks from the audience area, smoothing it down and setting out trash cans. The stage had been constructed backing up to a hill, with the river behind it. The major activity centered around three cranes which were lifting a steel grid above the stage. Men and women were crawling on the grid, bolting it to columns which would support it, and attaching heavy cables to anchor and stabilize it.

  Once the grid was secure, crews would attack electric winches to hoist up the lights and sound equipment which would be bolted to the grid. Then the whole construction would be roofed with heavy canvas so that, eventually, around thirty-two tons of steel, lights, speakers and wiring would be suspended above the stage.

  Slim had always had a great respect for the road crews he’d worked with. It was hard work with few rewards. The men and women, the “roadies,” who built the stage, hauled the instruments, went for food, strings, mikes and any other piece of “equipment” a player might want, loved the music and the work and the travel. Slim knew of more than a few who had been seriously injured or killed putting larger shows together. But roadies were quite often musicians themselves, working their way into the business, and those who weren’t, were artists in their own right. A lousy sound or lighting man on the control boards could totally fuck up a show. And a good one could make a band look and sound better than it really was.

  Slim and Nadine climbed up onto the stage. Slim jumped up and down on it and found it solid and acoustically sound. This crew knew what it was doing, that was clear. The stage wouldn’t rumble or echo. Slim had played venues where the stage acted like a giant speaker box, muddying the sound with out-of-phase echo and bass. That was no problem here.

  He walked to center stage and stared out. Slim had a habit of checking out empty stages and arenas. He was infinitely more comfortable with an audience in front of him. Empty platforms were uncomfortable and a little scary. They always made him wonder if he could pull the crowd, if he could grab hold of them and make them move to the groove. Non-players didn’t understand. They couldn’t comprehend how a person could be shy and nervous in real life, but at home onstage, totally comfortable. They couldn’t imagine feeling that the sound coming his fingers, his guitar, was like an invisible tentacle that reached out to touch people in their hearts and gut. A non-player could never feel the joy of hitting that one right note that rang sweet and rich and lingered forever, or jumping to the rhythms of a jam that fell together naturally and only once, in a moment when everything was copacetic.

  People always thought that when a player stood on stage, under the lights, with the beautiful darkness spread before him, that he couldn’t see the audience. But that was a myth. He saw, selectively. Individuals would stand out; a beautiful woman with a certain look on her face; a man standing alone, rocking and dancing to the music, the kind of man who would never stand out in his own life, but whom, for a moment, the music had grabbed and lifted up. Yes, you saw the audience. And if you were any kind of player, you loved it.

  When Slim played the blues, played it right and touched people, he often felt like an old-timer, playing for a roadhouse crowd of drinking, sweating, dancing people out to have a good time in the midst of misery. Blues had always been the joyful noise that had lifted people out of their troubles for a time. You could be poor, you could be sick, you could have lost your lover, but you could still have the blues and know you weren’t alone. You could draw together in the sounds of the guitar with all the other people around you, and you could dance and sing, sweat and be happy. It was music from the heart, a music for the people.

  Slim could play the blues and hear the deep heart lifting the sweet water to the top, founding and surrounding all the music he could think of. He could listen to a ten-year-old kid trying to find the blue notes, the flatted fifths, on a rough guitar with unskilled fingers, and he’d hear the heart and soul behind the attempt. And, here in this world, this Tejas, he thought he’d finally found his own heart.

  Slim had never had many friends. He’d traveled through life alone, trusting that the women he loved would be his best friends. Which didn’t help when he needed solace for a broken heart. He’d wondered many times if it was just because people didn’t understand him, or because he made it impossible himself, unable to commit to any kind of friendship.

  He looked over at Nadine, sitting in the passenger seat of the van as they drove back to town. It was as if she knew that he was deeply into his own mind. He wondered about Nadine, wondered if they’d be able to be good friends. Right now, they weren’t beyond the first love and sex; they could see no further than the heart and flesh. Slim knew that that part of it didn’t have to end, but it had to be built upon to last, and he wanted very much for part of that building to be
their friendship.

  Friendship had become nearly as important to Slim as love. Sex was sex, and as vital to him as breathing, but he needed someone to talk to as well. Nadine had said she wanted him to talk to her. And he had. Somehow, he’d told her a few things he’d never talked to anyone about. That felt like friendship, like trust. But how could all of this have happened so fast? Slim was in the nasty habit of falling in love too quickly, but trust was a thing he’d stopped a long time ago. Until now.

  Maybe this world was affecting him more than he realized. He had been feeling changes in his body. Although he was known for the frequency of his lovemaking, his bouts with Nadine had gone far beyond his usual abilities. And he thought that some of his fat was being burnt off. He felt better, healthier, stronger. He knew the power had something to do with it, but could the power, could this world, be affecting his thoughts, his emotions? Progress had said it would, and the changes had all been positive ones. But Slim was the kind of man who liked to understand the whys and hows. He wanted and appreciated the changes, but he wasn’t sure he like being fucked with and not knowing why.

  His mind, though, kept holding to a single thought. Nadine. Everything else, the blues, the Gutbucket, the Glory Hand, was subsidiary to that. But what did he do when the fighting was over? Would things still stay the same between him and Nadine? Between him and Progress? How did he hold on with a whole new world to learn?

  “Nadine,” he said. “What happens when all this is over?”

  She looked at him expectantly. “If we live?”

  “Yeah.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I guess, if I have to admit it, I didn’t take it seriously until Daddy got hurt. I mean, I did take it seriously, but not in terms of dying. If we win, I guess we just go ahead and live.”

  “You and me?”

  She slapped him hard on the shoulder. “Of course, you and me,” she said. “You idiot, what did you think?”

  Slim could feel the heat of a blush. “I just wondered.”

  “Well, don’t. You’re not going to get away from me that easy. We’ll just live. Start a new band and play with each other. We’ll do whatever we do.”

  “Talking about doing,” he said. “What do we do, now?”

  “I don’t know. Wait. Why? You worried?”

  Slim nodded his head. “Yeah,” he said. “It seems like it’s been too easy.”

  “Easy?” Nadine snorted. “How do you figure that?”

  “Well, it’s just that—that when you read about stuff like this in books, adventures and stuff, other worlds, people are always going from one fight to another. There’s always action going on, and danger. The bad guys are always attacking. And if they’re not fighting, they’re stealing something or planning something, talking about something or doing magic.”

  “And we haven’t encountered that?” she asked derisively. “The black sedan, the theft of the Gutbucket, the Glory Hand, my abduction—these don’t count?”

  Slim had long been a fan of fantasy novels and, like many readers, considered himself something of an amateur authority on how quests and adventures should be run. “Of course they count! I guess we could call what we’ve been going through, what I’ve gone through, an adventure. Or maybe a quest, after the Gutbucket. But it’s not happening the way it should. It’s too easy and there’s an awful lot of talking and thinking.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nadine said sternly. “Daddy’s laid up at Belizaire’s, hurt. I was kidnapped and they’ve tried to kill us all a couple of times. And there’s not nearly enough talking and thinking for my satisfaction. You call that easy?”

  “I dunno. I’ve just got this foreboding that the other side is letting up, and I don’t trust that. We haven’t beaten them, we’ve just foiled them, so far. Something’s missing.”

  “Well, then,” Nadine said. “If you don’t know, then what are you worried about? This is real life, baby. It doesn’t go on as you read in books. We have been fighting and planning and we have been in danger. What more do you want?”

  “I don’t know that either, Nadine. I feel like I’m all in pieces. There’s things coming out of me that I’ve never let out before. I’m more together and in better shape than I’ve ever been, but I still feel all in pieces. I need something to grab on to and center around. Something—I mean, I came here from another world on a lightning bolt. I don’t even fucking know if this is all real. What happens when it’s over? Do I have to go back there? Am I dead in that world, or just gone? I need something to hang on to.”

  “Stop the van,” Nadine said.

  Slim pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. Nadine got out of her seat and knelt on the floor beside Slim. She looked up at him with almost-tears in her eyes, grabbed his hand and put it under her T-shirt, on her breast.

  Like many men who had lived lonely, insecure lives, holding a lover’s breast made him feel secure, safe and loved. Nadine seemed to understand that. Many women didn’t, or couldn’t. Of course, holding on to a breast usually led to further sexual activities. But there was always that first, all-important contact, that holding on, that search for home and safety and peace.

  “Hold on to me,” Nadine said. “I won’t let you go back. This is your world, now. Our world, and you and I are in it together. This is your life, and this is me,” she said, squeezing his hand against her breast. “I understand more about you than you think I do, so just hold on to me, okay?”

  Slim nodded and pulled her close. “I have been,” he said. “I’m just a worrier. I can’t help it. Most of the women in my life have said I wouldn’t be happy if I wasn’t worrying about something.”

  “Were you?” Nadine asked.

  “Were I what?”

  “Happy?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I haven’t been happy very much. Making love and playing a good gig is about all that does it for me. Or used to, anyway. I know that when I’m involved with someone, I should be happy, but I can’t be. In my head, I’m always wondering and waiting. How long will it last? How much of my life will I lose when she dumps me? How badly will I have to hurt? Damn it, I know it’s not the right attitude. But, see, I’ve never known anything different. The only way I know how to survive the hurt is to expect it.”

  “Oh, Slim,” she said. “That’s no good. That’s rotten.” Nadine’s shoulders slumped. “I’m no better, I guess. The first man I loved hurt me so bad I haven’t loved anyone since. Here I am thirty-one years old and you’re the first genuine lover I’ve ever had. Outside my imagination, anyway. You, at least you kept trying to find love.”

  “I had to,” he said. “I’m not like you. Maybe I’m not like anyone. You can get by on your own, by yourself. Me, I can’t live without a woman. I can’t survive. My life just goes all to hell and I walk around like a fuckin’ zombie. I get to the point where my whole life is aimed at finding a woman, any woman, who’ll put up with me for a while. I fall in love with the first woman who attracts me and shows me any attention. And right from the first I know she’s not gonna stay there the rest of my life, that she’s gonna hurt the hell out of me. But there’s no life for me without a woman to share it with. So I keep on throwing myself into the fire.

  “The worst mistakes in my life were with women,” he continued. “I’ve ended up penniless and homeless more than once after they’ve gotten rid of me. One time I damn near starved to death, didn’t eat for a month or more. And I remember every woman I’ve ever loved, every tit I’ve ever seen or held or kissed, every time I’ve made love and every hand I’ve ever held.”

  Nadine leaned her head against his shoulder and rubbed his belly. “What about me, Slim? How do you feel about you and me?” She could feel him trembling with her touch.

  “I love you,” he said. “I love you so much. You know that. And I’m scared shitless. If I lose you, I don’t think I could survive it. I don’t think I’d want to survive it.”

  “You wouldn’t, u
mm, do anything to yourself, would you?”

  “Suicide?” He laughed bitterly and held up his left wrist. “No. See these scars on my wrist?” There were faint scars following the veins, whiter than his skin and chelated. “Those were from a particularly horrible hurt. But I lived, even though I tried hard not to. Since then, I just don’t have it in me to do anything like that. But see, after you’ve been hurt again and again, you reach a point where you can’t take any more. The hurt gets so bad and so deep that you don’t care if you live or die. I had a friend in my world, called himself Uncle River. He was actually a trained psychiatrist or psychologist or whatever one of those he was. He said that what it is is spiritual, mental, physical and emotional exhaustion. Just using up all your resources until you’re empty except for the hurt, and then it’s the hurt that keeps you going for some reason. Well, I’ve been on the edge of that for a long time.

  “The last woman I was in love with was everything I thought I wanted. She was smart and strong and sexy. Man, she was sexy. Not what she looked like, but what she did and how she did it. She wasn’t what you’d call pretty, I guess, but she had an interesting and a cute face. Sometimes, in the right light she could be real pretty. But she got all tangled up in bullshit and a bad situation. She lied to herself, broke her promises to me, and she was cruel. I mean, she was the most heartless woman I’ve ever met. No compassion at all. Cold as ice and twice as hard to get to pay attention. It damn near killed me.

  “And now here I am with you, and you’re the sweetest love of my whole life. I’ve never been able to trust anyone like I do you, or talk to anyone like this. You’re opening me up and it scares me to death.”