Oh Bubba, Where Art Thou? (Bubba the Monster Hunter Book 26)

by John G. Hartness

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Skeeter agreed. “Hey! Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I just found his phone number written on my hand!”

  “Good deal. Now get some sleep so you won’t be puking in a trashcan when you call him.”

  “That’s a good idea. Later.” Skeeter clicked off.

  I walked back over to the door and tried the knob again. Still locked. I reared back to start pounding again, then heard a little mechanical click that told me someone had unlocked the door remotely. I was used to that sound—the underground poker room where I played cards once in a while used the same kind of security. Of course, they also had reinforced steel doors, a high-tech video surveillance system, a door guy named “Beef” that made me feel skinny, and a cocktail waitress with a Colt 1911 on her hip. I had a sneaking suspicion I was not walking into quite the same environment here.

  I was right. I pushed open the door into a small office, all wood paneling and threadbare burnt orange carpet, with an unattended receptionist’s desk and three rickety chairs along one wall. A little balding dude in jeans and a polo shirt stood by the desk and stuck out his hand when I walked in.

  “Hey there, you must be Bubba,” he said, walking forward with his hand out. That shit always made me nervous for some reason. Like, why you gotta be coming at a dude with your hand out like you’re some kinda Robbie the Robot? Why can’t you just walk up to somebody, then put your hand out like a normal person? Whatever, I shook his hand.

  “Yeah, I’m Bubba. And you are…?”

  “I’m Billy Ricks, owner and proprietor of Celebrity Studios. We’re the home of the legends of music, making a big-city sound with small-town service.”

  “Nice sales pitch. But I thought y’all were closed.”

  He sagged a little bit and walked back to lean on the front of the desk. “We are. It’s just hard to break the habit, you know?”

  I didn’t know a damn thing about whatever he was talking about, but I nodded like I did. “Sure, dude. I get it. Now, what about these ghosts?”

  “Oh yeah. Um…we’re haunted. And I wanted to know if you can make them go away.” Sure, because that’s enough information to go on. I’ll just dance around naked in the hall yelling “Get out, spirits!” Shit, come to think of it, that had about as much hope of success as anything else I could think of.

  “Could you be a little more specific about what kind of things people are experiencing? Are there cold spots, hot spots, do people hear mysterious footsteps? What exactly makes you think there are ghosts in the building?”

  He looked up at me like I was a moron. I get that a lot. Sometimes it’s because I say stupid shit, but sometimes it’s just because people assume that giant ex-football players are stupid. I don’t mind so much about the stupid shit part, but I don’t like being profiled as a dumbass just because I’m too big for most doorways.

  “I think there are ghosts here because when I’m here alone at night, I see dead people walking through the halls.”

  “Like, glowing, ethereal-looking dead people?”

  “Yeah, dude. Ghosts. They walk through walls, appear randomly in the studio, and generally scare the shit out of me.”

  Yup, sounded like ghosts all right. “Okay, so what do you want me to do about it?”

  It was almost funny, the way he turned red all the way to the top of his bald spot. “Do about it? I want you to get them the hell out of here! I ain’t had a booking in eight months, and I can’t sell nobody a haunted recording studio. That’s why I called the Cardinal! That’s why I’ve given so much damn money to the Church all these years! So when I need something spiritual, they take care of it. Well, now I’ve got a spiritual problem, and you gotta deal with it!”

  “I think there’s a difference between a problem with spirits and a spiritual problem, dude. One of those the Church takes care of pretty well, and the other one needs a Venkman.” He looked confused. “You know, like Bill Murray in the movie? Oh, forget it. Look, man. I don’t really know what good I can do for you. I hunt monsters. Werewolves, vampires, chalupas, that sort of thing.”

  “You hunt down Mexican food?” Now he looked really confused.

  “Dammit, no. I meant chupacabra. I mean, I’ll hunt down some Mexican food, too. I love me some arroz con pollo, and a good mole sauce over shredded chicken is my jam, but that ain’t the point. The point is, I hunt down things that go bump in the night. Then I shoot them.” I drew Bertha for emphasis, and homeboy almost tripped over himself backing up. I reckon that’s a natural response when a man that’s six-and-a-half feet tall and over three-hundred pounds pulls a pistol that’s almost a damn foot long and waves it front of your face.

  “Calm down, jackass. I ain’t gonna shoot you. I was just trying to say that I might not be the man for this job. I’ll give it a shot, but I ain’t making no promises. I’ve fought a whole lot badass monsters in my day, but I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do about ghosts.” I put Bertha away, and my host started to look a lot less like he was about to piss himself.

  He took a real timid step forward. “But you’ll try?”

  “Yeah, I’ll try. Now why don’t you give me the nickel tour and tell me where all you’ve seen ghosts and what they’ve been doing. And did they ever get into any badass ghost jam sessions in here?”

  He laughed a little. “Nah, nothing like that, although more than one of them has looked over the rack of guitars in the studio like they wished they could pick one up and go to town.”

  “I bet they would, some of the pickers that have been through here,” I said, looking at the walls. The paneling was almost covered with signed photos of legendary artists, from the original Lynyrd Skynyrd boys to the Allman Brothers, from Mavis Staples to Clarence Carter, from Johnny Cash to the Cowboy Junkies. There were bluegrass giants like Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson, blues legends like B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker, and even some more recent folks like a very young Jason Isbell, a beardless Steve Earle, and Jack Black throwing the goat in a classic metal pose. If you were an incredible player, songwriter, or just wanted to be one, you recorded at Celebrity.

  “So why are y’all closed?” I asked. “I thought this place would still be rocking out.”

  “Technology, man. All our gear is old, and a lot of our best engineers are dying off. Our session musicians all moved to L.A. or Nashville where they could find more steady work, and with so many people putting studios in their houses now, there just ain’t the desire to come down and record stuff the old-fashioned way. So we’ve gotta shut things down. I’ve got an offer on the property, but it’s contingent on me getting rid of the ghosts.”

  This old boy looked like somebody shot his dog, just thinking about closing the doors to his place. I could see he still had a lot of love for the business, even with what it was turning into. I actually felt bad for him, and that shit just don’t happen to me.

  “Fine, I’ll do what I can. I ain’t making no promises, but if I can’t handle it, I know a dude up in Charlotte who’s better with the whole demons and ghost stuff than I am. I’ll call him in if it gets to be more than I can handle.”

  “Will you? That’s fantastic! Thank you so much, Mister…uh…Bubba. What’s our next move?”

  “Well, first you’re gonna give me the tour and show me where George Jones sat when he recorded here. Then we’re gonna go get some lunch, and then you’re gonna tell me some stories about my favorite musicians. Then tonight, I’ll spend the night here and see what I can see, and if I can, I’ll handle your ghost problem so you can sell this place and get on with your life.”

  “I appreciate it, Bubba. I don’t want to sell, but I don’t see a choice. And if I can’t get rid of the ghosts…well, I just don’t know what I’ll do.” Little dude looked like he was about to cry. I definitely needed to get the hell out of here before we started to get in touch with our feelings or some shit.

  “Don’t worry about it, bro. Now, you show me the
board you mixed B.B. King on and let me worry about the monsters.” We started down the hall toward the studio, and I coulda swore I saw something flicker ghostly blue out of the corner of my eye.

  3

  The tour was amazing, to say the least. Just walking around in that room where so many legends of music played was more holy than going to church for me. I sat on a piano bench where Dr. John’s butt once rested. I touched a mic that Johnny Cash sang into. I saw a cigarette burn in the carpet that came from Keith Richard’s cigarette. Well, at least “cigarette” was what Billy admitted to.

  And all through the tour he told me stories. Stories of late-night fried chicken runs for Gregg Allman, stories like finding one particularly loopy guitar player walking down the center line of the highway after eating a shitload of mushrooms and taking off all his clothes in the middle of a recording session and screaming about finding Jesus, stories about fistfights between Rock n’ Roll Hall of Famers, and marathon drinking and writing sessions with unknown lyricists and composers all trying to channel the magic of the room into their own hits.

  We finally walked back into the main control room and sat down behind the big mixing console. I ran my fingers across the knobs and faders, imagining for a second that I was a giant-sized Rick Rubin, or Mutt Lange, or even Jack White. I sat there for a minute, just drinking it all in, feeling the sanctity of the place just seeping into me.

  “Feels almost holy, don’t it?” Billy said from the chair beside me.

  “Man, you don’t even know. Growing up, we didn’t have cable TV. It wasn’t even a thing out where I lived, and the trees were too thick up on the mountain to get a satellite dish. This was back before they had them little ones that can strap onto the top of a big pine tree, this was back when they were six feet across and cost a shit-ton of money. Which we didn’t have. We weren’t ever hungry, but we were about the furthest thing from rich you can think of.”

  “Yeah, I grew up down here. You saw driving through town what kind of commerce we got,” Billy replied. “My daddy was a farmer, and I didn’t want no part of that life. I was a picker. Nothing great, just enough to get a gig now and again, but it was enough to get me hooked. And once the music gets its hooks in you, it don’t ever let go.”

  “You ain’t even wrong, man.” We sat in silence, and my mind went back to a summer night when I was about thirteen, long before shit went south with Jason, before I blew out my knee playing ball, before I went on my first hunt. I was sitting out back of the house on a stump with a beer in my hand and a grin on my face you couldn’t take off with steel wool and Comet cleanser.

  There was a fire burning in an old 55-gallon drum that had a rectangle cut out at the bottom for an ash scoopin’ port. Every so often, Pop or Grandpappy would get up, grab a shovel, and scoop some of the hot coals out of the bottom of that drum and sprinkle them underneath a half a pig we had skewered on a couple pieces of rebar spanning a fire pit made out of cinderblocks. The Brabham Fourth of July pig-pickin’ and pickin’ was the kind of event people came up the mountain from three counties to attend, and this was the first year I was old enough to stay up with the menfolk and tend the fire.

  For most of us, tending the fire consisted of drinking beer and throwing the empties into the fire. For Grandpappy, Uncle Tom, Uncle Luther, and a few other old men that I had no real idea how we were kin, it was mostly a pickin’ circle, where they passed around moonshine and various instruments and made music and told lies all night. There were cinderblocks, lawn chairs, tree stumps, and even one old tractor tire repurposed into seats for the weekend, and it was my favorite time of the year. It was better than Christmas, especially to a jaded preteen who found out that Santa Claus was bullshit years before and was disappointed to know that Krampus was very, very real.

  Grandpappy finished up a rendition of “Orange Blossom Special” and passed the fiddle to Uncle Luther, who held out his other hand for the jar. He laid the fiddle across his knees and twisted the lid off that Mason jar, taking a deep slash of the clear liquid inside.

  “Damn, Pete, that’s smooth. What you put in there?” He turned to a man I only ever saw once a year, a mountain man named Pete who showed up at the pickin’ with a peach crate full of quart jars and was always welcome to eat his fill. Men would pass by wherever Pete sat all weekend long, passing him folded banknotes and accepting a jar with a nod.

  “I put some wild cherries in it. Cuts the bite a little bit but don’t make it too sweet. And just a pinch of cinnamon in a gallon jug.” Pete’s voice had the gravel of a man who doesn’t talk to other people too much, but when you got him going on about his liquor, he had the soul of a poet.

  “Well, it sure is good, old son. Robbie, you want to play something with me?” Uncle Luther turned to me with a grin. “Or you too drunk off them two beers?”

  Even at thirteen I was over six-feet tall and pushing hard at two-hundred pounds, so a couple of beers wasn’t enough to make me drunk. It was enough to make me brave, so I grinned right back at Uncle Luther and said, “I’ll pick with you, but I just started learning. Mama ain’t taught me but one song, so if you can slow it down enough, I’m willing to try.”

  My whole life I’d only wanted two things—to hunt monsters like Pop and Grandpappy and to play with the men at the pig pickin’. This was my first chance to make one of those things come true, and I wasn’t letting that chance slip away.

  I got up to get my guitar, but Uncle Tom handed me his and said, “Just use this one, son. It’s older than dirt, but it’ll still ring.”

  I sat back down on the stump and settled the big old Alvarez across one knee. I had a pick in my pocket from my lesson earlier that afternoon with Mama, so I fished it out and got it positioned between my thumb and forefinger. I looked around at the circle of men and felt butterflies in my stomach all of a sudden.

  “I ain’t real good. Y’all might not want me—”

  “What’s the song, Robbie?” Luther said. His voice was gentle, but there was steel under it. I knew if I crossed him now, after he made the offer, there wouldn’t ever be another one.

  “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,” I said. I hit a C chord on the guitar and started right in on the lyrics, thinking as hard as I could about getting the words and the chords right.

  “Michael, row the boat ashore, hallelujah.” I stumbled a little on the transition from C to F then back to C, but when all the men in the circle joined in on the “hallelujah,” I felt something magic happen. Uncle Luther put his bow to the strings as I started in on the second line, and I could almost feel the salt spray on my face.

  Mr. Gerald, the man that ran the furniture store in town, came in with his banjo on the second chorus, and half the men held back on the “hallelujah,” giving it an echo that made it sound like there was thirty people singing together, instead of half a dozen men and one overgrown kid sitting out by a fire in the middle of the night.

  For a couple of minutes, I wasn’t Robbie, I wasn’t Bubba, I wasn’t Old Man Brabham’s grandson, I wasn’t anybody with any expectations, I was just a guy with a guitar and a song. And I belonged to something bigger than myself for the first time. I was part of the song, part of the music that tied the whole world together, and it was the best damn thing I ever felt. Then a couple years later, Mama left, and I leaned my guitar in a corner of my bedroom and picked up a gun. I never touched strings again and never knew how much I missed it until that moment in the control room.

  I looked over at Billy and was surprised to feel my cheeks moist. I wiped away the tears I didn’t even know I’d cried, and I just stared at him.

  “We get that a lot,” he said, a sad smile across his face. “I feel it, too. This place has made so much music, so many memories, touched so many lives. Hell, you probably grew up listening to records made in this very room.”

  “I’m sure I did,” I said. “There’s a lot faces on the walls that I’ve seen staring back at me from album covers my whole life.”

  “And now i
t’s about to be gone,” Billy said, running his hands across the mixer again. “I’m gonna miss it, but it’s either let this place go or lose my house at this point, and I can’t sleep at the studio forever.” He gave a little chuckle. “Even though that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do tonight.”

  “Well, let’s get out to the parking lot, so I can start getting all my shit ready,” I said, standing up. “I’ve got some gear in the car that oughta help me listen and look for ghosts and other supernatural shit.”

  “Like EMF detectors and infrared cameras and all that other stuff I see on the TV shows?” Billy asked, walking me to the front door.

  “That and a Ouija board, a few candles, a Bible, and a shitload of holy water.”

  “What’s all that stuff for?” he asked, his face turning a little pale and all the excitement rushing from him like water down a drain.

  “Billy, let me be as clear as I know how to be. There’s a lot of things out in the world that we don’t understand. There’s real ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves, and other shit that I ain’t even got words for. And a fair amount of those things don’t like people all that much. Or they do like them, but they prefer them in bite-sized chunks. That’s why there are people like me—‘cause when something nasty brushes up against our world, you need somebody just as nasty to send them back to where they came from. Now come with me to my truck and help me unload the beef jerky and beer.”

  “You hunt ghosts and monsters with beer?”

  “Son, if there’s anything I can’t do with a beer in my hand, it better involve a good-looking woman. Otherwise, I don’t know that it’s worth attempting in the first place.”

  It took us most of the afternoon to get all the equipment wired up to Skeeter’s satisfaction. The first thing he made us do was set up an iPad in the main control room so we could video chat while we set up. I think most of that was just so he could tell me about it every time I put the wrong damn wire in the wrong damn place. After three hours of screwing around with delicate technology, I was convinced that I hated ghosts more than any other supernatural creature, and this is coming from a man who once had to wrestle a naked Bigfoot and only survived by almost pulling Sasquatch’s wiener off with his bare hands.