The Gutbucket Quest

by Piers Anthony

  “I’ll do the best I can,” Slim said. “This world, Nadine and Progress, the music, the friends I’m making, those things have all become very important to me. I feel like this is where I belong, finally. It’s just, I’m scared if you let me be on my own, I’ll fuck up.”

  “Perhaps you will,” Elijigbo said. “I can see a deep fear of failure in you. I also see a fear of success which may be even deeper. It must be hard to live in fear of both winning and losing. So, perhaps you will fail. This battle is by no means sure. I do not even ask you to win, you see, I only ask that you do the best you can. If you will do that, then you will not have failed. Can you do that?”

  Slim didn’t even have to think. “Yeah,” he said. “That I can do. I always try to do my best. It just never seems good enough for anybody, but I’ve never been ashamed. So, yeah, I can do my best.”

  “Very well, then,” Elijigbo said, smiling. “I believe you will, and I believe that with Nadine helping you, you will be victorious.” He stood up and spread his arms. “Let us not speak of this further. Will you stay and feast with us this evening?”

  Slim stood up. So did Nadine. They put their arms around each other and stood hip to hip. “We’d be happy to stay,” Slim said.

  They followed Elijigbo out the door to the garden. Dark clouds filled the sky, and Slim thought he heard laughter in the sound of faraway thunder.

  19

  Musical contexts are motion contexts, kinetic contexts. Tones are elements of a musical context because and insofar as they are conveyers of a motion that goes through them and beyond them. When we hear music, what we hear is, above all, motions.

  —Victor Zuckerkandle, Sound and Symbol

  Did you ever do something in your life that changed you?” Slim asked. “Like drawing a line in the dirt and stepping over it. And when you do, you’re so different that you look back at it and it was one you on one side of the line, and someone else on the other, so that you don’t know which one is really you?

  “I mean, the festival’s tomorrow. It’s like something I’ve wanted to do all my life about, play the blues straight, my own way. Be important. Change things for the better. But I know, I know if I do it, I’ll never be the same again. I’ll be—I don’t know what I’ll be. Someone or something else. Damn it, it’s hard to say what I mean. We’ve been building up to this thing since I got to this world. And I’m excited, but I’m scared, too, I’ve been scared since I got here. Not of fighting or playing, or the bad stuff like that. But of what it’s gonna do to me, what happens to me, inside, where I live. What do I become?”

  Slim and Nadine were lying in bed enjoying each other, the morning sunlight before the heat, and hot coffee. As the event grew closer, Slim grew more and more nervous. Especially after what Elijigbo had told him the day before. He hadn’t slept much or well. They were due to pick up his amp and guitar today, and he wondered if he was even together enough to plug in and play. There was an excitement in him, a part that looked at a positive motion forward. But there was another part, a sensitive, afraid part, that was depressed and scared and wondering what to do.

  “It’s like being a hermit,” he said. “All the time I lived in the city, I thought I wanted to be in the country. So I moved to the country and decided to be a hermit until I could get my life together. Me and my bright ideas, right? What I didn’t count on, what I didn’t think about, was that being a hermit meant being alone. Man, I’d been lonely in my life, but I didn’t realize how totally devastating loneliness could be until I was out there all by myself, no friends, no relatives, nobody but me and my cats. You’d go outside at night and hear complete silence, not a sign that there was any other human being around. Desperate, oppressive loneliness. I mean, I got suicidal after a while, but I kept thinking, nah, I’d screw it up like I screwed up everything else in my life. The bullet would graze my head, probably wound me just enough so that I’d have to work in a convenience store.

  “This deal’s kinda like that. The loneliness almost killed me, but it came from a choice I made myself. Now, here’s this change coming. Most of the changes in my life have been for the better. Even the bad ones had some good in ’em. Then I get knocked into this world and things got real good, almost perfect. I’m scared of losing it all, losing you and losing me.”

  Nadine snuggled up closer to him and slipped her warm hand between his legs, held him. “Baby,” she said, “it’s still your choice.”

  “Don’t you get scared, Nadine?”

  “Yes—no—I don’t know. It scares me. When the Vipers grabbed me I just about peed my pants I was so scared. But to tell the truth, I’m more scared for you than I am with me. I look at you and you’re strong and smart and you can play. But I know that, inside, you’re really fragile. I know you could break easy, and I know how bad you’ve been hurt. I just don’t want anything to happen to you because of me, or because of what’s going on.”

  “But that’s not what I’m scared of,” Slim said. “Don’t you see? If I get hurt or something, I can deal with that. That heals. I’m afraid of the change, that I’ll change so much I’ll lose you and Progress and this whole crazy world. There’s the Gutbucket and there’s this Shango, this God or whatever he is. And I’m caught in the middle with everyone counting on me. And all I really want to do is love you and play the fucking blues.”

  Nadine caressed and held him closer. “You already have that,” she said. “You already have me. But you have to take care of business, too, you have to pay your dues for being here. This is your world now. You have to decide what kind of world you want it to be: our kind of world, or the kind T-Bone wants to make it. There’s nothing that says we’re going to win, you know. T-Bone’s gone a long way with his little empire, and people don’t want to live without the things he produces and controls. And listen, even if we get rid of him, there are always more just like him looking for a chance to take over. But he’s the worst. Get rid of him and maybe we can save what we have. Maybe we can save those five-calendar cafés and hamburger stands and dancing in the dark. Maybe we can keep the blues free, keep the people free.”

  “Not much of a revolution,” Slim said wryly. “Just hanging on to what we have.”

  “Better than losing it, isn’t it? If T-Bone wins, we’d lose all that. And we’d lose each other, I think. Daddy would die if he couldn’t play the blues. So would you, I suspect. Die inside, anyway. You have to figure out what’s worth fighting for. Not for me, not for Daddy, for you.”

  “Geez,” Slim said. “Isn’t that always the way! A lot of the relationships I’ve had, you tell a woman you live for her, that she’s your whole world, and she tells you, ‘No, live for yourself. Do what makes you happy.’ And they never understand that centering your world around them, loving them, that that’s what does make you happy. That’s what gives you the only happiness you know how to find But they always want you to think, want me to think. Everybody wants me to think. My brain fucking hurts from all the thinking people want me to do. I feel like I’d rather be Rusty the Barbarian or something. Just fight for the sake of fighting, do what has to be done without thinking it to death. I’ve had to struggle for my life, I’m used to that. But I’m damn sure not used to fighting and struggling for other people’s lives, for principles and mystic mysterious causes.” He sighed and, for a few short moments, enjoyed the feel of Nadine’s hand on his dick. But even her languid ministrations couldn’t take his mind off his worries.

  “Elijigbo says I have to surrender to Shango. Progress says I have to surrender to the power. And even though no one’s said it, I feel that I’m going to have to surrender to the Gutbucket, too, so all of ’em can fight it out inside me. And the only thing I want to surrender to is you. But I don’t know how to surrender, how to give up control. How do you surrender to lightning? To something inside you? To the power and to the ashes of a dead man? And what happens to me when all that’s inside me rolling around? Do I surrender to myself?”

  “Maybe so,” Na
dine said. “Maybe you do have to surrender to yourself. You’re not very good at accepting yourself. Do you know, when you talk about yourself, all you ever say is how bad you are at this or that, how you fail, what you’re afraid of? If someone didn’t know you and only heard you talk about yourself, they’d get the impression that all you’re good at is fucking and playing.”

  “That is all I’m good at,” Slim said.

  “Oh, bullshit, Slim. You could be good at anything you wanted to be. Okay, maybe there are things you don’t know about. I can get behind that and deal with it. There are thing we all don’t know about. Yours are just a little more important to life than not knowing how to tune a carburetor or build a house. You’re a nice guy, loving, generous, open. You try really hard to do right, and you’re brave and cute and sexy, too.”

  “How can a fat man be sexy?” Slim said satirically.

  Nadine laughed. “Baby,” she said, “what kind of woman do you like? Physically?”

  “Uhm, well, short, like five-three or so. Skinny, small tits and ass, muscular, distinctive, cute faces, I dunno. I know what I like when I see it”

  “But do you ever go for any other kind of girl?”

  “Well, no, not really. I mean, that’s what turns me on, why go for someone who doesn’t? I don’t need sex that bad.”

  “Yes, that’s my point. Believe it or not, Slim, there are women, usually just the kind of women you like by some amazing grace, who get turned on by big men. I’m one of them, so I know, and I fit your description about exactly, right.”

  Slim nodded his head. Nadine didn’t just fit the description of the woman that turned him on, she could have been the model from which it was written. “You sure do,” he said, his hands proving the truth of his words.

  “Okay,” Nadine continued. “Besides, being sexy, for a woman, isn’t in your body so much as it is the way you move, how you act, how you handle yourself. Your balance, I guess. You know what most women find the most sexy, the most irresistible? A man who can make them laugh.”

  “Oh, come on, Nadine.”

  She held her hand up. “I’m not lying, I swear. Baby, nine times out of ten, a guy can be hitting on a woman with all the sexiness he wants, and he won’t get anywhere. But another man comes up and makes that same women get down on some honest laughter, man, that woman is going to get all hot and wet and slippery. So you guess which man she’s going home with.”

  “Geez, Nadine, how do we get into these conversations?”

  Nadine moved on top of him. “Mostly,” she said, “because I’m all hot and wet and slippery, and you better do something about it. I’ve been getting that pistol down there ready to shoot, but I think you ought to polish the barrel real good, huh?”

  “Right. My pleasure, darlin’. Say something hot and mushy to me.”

  “Oh, shit, Slim.”

  They did laugh, long and hard.

  When they’d gotten out of bed, well and truly satisfied, they packed a change of clothes and headed into town, to Charlie’s. When they’d talked to Progress on the phone to check in the day before, he’d told them that most of the folks involved were spending the last day and night before the festival out at the river, just to be safe. Slim thought that sounded like a good idea.

  The guitar and amplifier were clean and shiny when they picked them up. Orville had fitted Slim’s strat to a slightly used but solid Anvil case. Slim appreciated that. He’d come to Tejas with nothing but his guitar and the clothes on his back, and that was no way to treat a guitar. Orville, to Slim’s surprise, was also going to be at the river, his pickup loaded with strings and tubes, mikes and spare parts and tools.

  “Yep,” he said. “Any kind of festival or gig like this, I works ’em. The roadies are good, but the folks likes to have me around in case of emergencies. I can take care of everything from broken strings to broken necks to blown amps and electrical failure.”

  “You make any money at it?” Slim asked.

  “Naw. I suppose I could, but I don’t charge nobody nothin’ but parts. I enjoys the music, so it don’t seem fair for me to take money for doin’ it. It works out pretty even all the same. All those folks brings me their guitars and amps to work on, and they buys their necessaries at Charlie’s, so we end up makin’ the money.”

  Slim laughed when they pulled in at the river. It looked as if a very small town had grown up behind and to the left of the stage. A huge, multicolored circus tent stood in the middle, predominating, surrounded by tents, RVs, trailers, semis and a parking lot of cars, vans and pickups. A huge, shining aluminum tipi, two stories, it looked like, stood out from the rest. Heap of Bears, Slim assumed. People were on the move from tent to tent, trailer to RV. Many of them were dressed in the white of the Torriero.

  Slim parked the van and, as he and Nadine walked hand in hand to the tent city, they were drawn into the bustling life of the temporary community. The first was the sound of voices intermingling, and the frenetic sounds of people rehearsing on stage. They smelled smoke and the mingled fragrances of foods and cooking. The strongest smell was that of chili, and they discovered why when they walked past a large catering truck with MITCHELL’S—A BLUES TRADITION painted on it, with a woman inside dishing out chili and corn bread to all comers. And there were smells of sweat and beer and the burnt leather smell of sex fully enjoyed and participated in. The sound and smell of the river surrounded and permeated everything.

  Vendors were hammering stalls together, preparing to sell everything from I SURVIVED THE CANADIAN RIVER BLUES FEST T-shirts to Indian crafts. One booth they stopped and browsed at, a Mother Phillips booth, according to Nadine, sold sexually oriented products and toys. Slim was constantly amazed at the sexual openness, the enjoyment of good clean lust here in Tejas. It was a good thing, he thought, wishing he had the money to buy a few of the toys that were on display, wondering what others even were.

  They walked on through the tents and trailers and booths. Everyone they passed had a smile and a wave and a howdy for them, but nobody stopped. They passed Heap of Bears and two other men, walking slowly, pacing and drumming and chanting, serious, solemn looks on their faces. Slim’s impression of the place was of movement, its intense business. The sense of community, of people cooperating and working together, was overwhelming.

  “This is wild,” he said, looking around rubbernecked.

  Nadine bumped him with her shoulders. “Hey,” she said. “When we have a big gig, we do it right. This isn’t just for us, you know, not just for the Gutbucket and all. This is for all the people who are coming to hear the blues. They’re looking for a show, and a show is more than just what’s on stage. They want to be able to get good food and T-shirts and records and anything else they can think of. They want to fuck in the grass and swim in the river. They want to see how they think we live, see us fucking in the grass and swimming in the river. We’ve got to give them all that. Without them there’s no reason to be here at all.”

  They walked to the stage, thinking that’s where they’d find Progress and their other friends. “You ever get freaked out by the audiences?” Slim asked absently.

  “No,” Nadine replied. “About the worst I ever get is drunks trying to get into my pants or wanting me to sing some horrible crying in your beer song. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Slim said uncertainly. “Just a feeling. I had some bad experiences in the old days. There’s always an endless supply of psychos and loonies and horny little girls that wanna go home with the guitar player. I used to take advantage of that, before I learned better. I’d take two or three home with me at a time. Fuck one and watch the other two love on each other, and then fuck them, too. Hey, I was young and stupid. It was fun and it make me feel good and they’d do anything just for the chance to get their hands on someone that stood up there in the lights playing. That can fuck your head up pretty good. It did mine, anyway, for a long while.

  “But along with those you get the loonies. The boyfriends and fathers who w
anted to kill you, or at least beat hell out of you because you dared to give their little girl what she wanted. And the people who didn’t like rock and roll or blues or whatever you were playing. Now and then, though, you’d get an honest to goodness crazy, a guy with a gun or a knife or a bomb, who didn’t think there was anything finer he could possibly do with his life than snuff some hardworking ‘star.’ No good reason, no logic, no sense to it. Just headlines. That worries me here. It worries me that Pickens might have loaded the crowd with crazies.” Who might try to get rid of Slim by messing up those he loved. He wished he could abolish that concern, but he couldn’t, quite.

  “I don’t think so,” Nadine said. “That’s not his way. Crazies are too independent. T-Bone wants his people to follow his orders and be good little slaves. Besides, he wants to humiliate us, break us, take the music away. I don’t think it would satisfy him for some crazy to just kill us. He wants to win, to get control. And we’re one of the things he wants to get control of. Then when he has us down, he wants to gloat. He’s a nasty man.”

  They walked up the steps to the stage. “I hate him,” Slim said. “I really do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he wants you,” Slim replied, blushing a little with the ardency of this feelings. “Ever since we went to his office and he made it clear he wanted you. I’ve hated him since that moment. I think you were what he wanted when he kidnapped you. I don’ think he wanted to kill anyone the way Progress says. I think he just didn’t plan it very well, or he underestimated us. But whatever it is, I think he wanted you.” And that was nudging closer to the truth. T-Bone might want to have Nadine, and make Slim watch. Then give him a chance to vacate this world.