But you had to be paying attention.
Like the next time the door opened. A few more folks came in. Howdy said, “Hey, how y’all doin’?” One guy wearing a John Deere cap. Howdy’d seen a thousand of those in his life. The guy with him was wearing a No Fear T-shirt. Howdy didn’t think anything of it at the time. But a minute later, one of the TV announcers said something about a guy in the stands giving a Bronx cheer over a dropped pass. And a second after that, Howdy heard some guy call out for a cold beer, and boom, just like that, Howdy had the idea for another song.
Might start with a low swampy guitar rhythm, grow from there. Howdy was thinking of J. J. Cale and John Fogerty and then the sly groove of Commander Cody’s version of “Hot Rod Lincoln.” After eight or sixteen bars, the band might kick in, or maybe the instruments came in one at a time. Work that out later.
Cold beer, John Deere, no fear, Bronx cheer. He wrote it down.
Yeah, like that. A series of rhymes within the lines, each line about the variety of . . . what? People, places, and things Americana. Cold beer, John Deere, no fear, Bronx cheer. Covers a lot of ground fast, includes a lot of folks, coast to coast, border to border. How about Beale Street, Times Square, juke joint, state fair, homecoming, prom night, touchdown, title fight. He wrote it all down. It needed work—they all did—and something in between, a bridge to change it up and explain it, but it was a good start.
The door opened again. Two couples. Howdy looked up from his pad, said, “Hey, howyadoin’?”
27
EARLY MONDAY AFTERNOON, BOONE TATE SLIPPED HIS bowie knife and his .32 into his waistband and covered the grips with his shirttail. Then he walked to a nearby shopping center, stole a Ford Taurus, and headed for Fort Worth.
Foresight and preparation not being his strong suits, Brushfire still hadn’t a clue what he would do when he got there. In fact, if all Slim and Howdy had done was to take the guitar and shoot his fridge, he might not even have bothered to go after them. But causing his arrest and the trouble that was flowing from that warranted retribution of a serious nature. But what, exactly? Gun ’em down in cold blood? If he thought he could get away with it, maybe. But if things went wrong, he knew that was the sort of trouble out of which it was hard to wiggle. The sort of trouble that might not be worth it. Maybe there was some other way to get their goats, maybe even some way that was profitable. Wouldn’t that be nice?
As he drove out of Beaumont on I-10, Brushfire figured he had six hours in front of him to figure that out.
He got to Fort Worth around eight Monday night, found the Piggin’ String in the phone book, and pulled into the parking lot just before nine. According to the sign by the door, Junior Hicks and his band were playing for the next week or so. No mention of Slim and Howdy. Still, this was his best lead, so he went in and took a seat at the bar.
As always, people stared when they saw him. His scarred face was one of those things people found it hard not to look at, like a car accident or Paris Hilton. Boone had two standard ways of dealing with this. Normally he’d get up in people’s faces and cow them into an apology and a free drink. He’d raise his voice. “You want to see this? Huh? Here, take a closer look!” But not tonight. Couldn’t afford to alienate anybody.
So he used his 9/11 story instead. Said he’d been with the New York Fire Department. Was at the Twin Towers. Saved a dozen people. Went back for more and got caught in a collapse. Had to be dragged out. Alive but scarred. People like to buy drinks for heroes, and they’ll talk to ’em, too, tell them anything they want to know.
Skeets Duvall, among others, took Boone at his word. No reason not to. Had the bartender set him up, said, “Take care of him.”
“That’s all right,” Boone said, waving a proud hand. “I got money.”
Skeets shook his head. “It’s no good here, friend.”
“Mighty kind of you.” He looked up at the tube. The Giants were thrashing the Redskins. He pointed at the replay of a touchdown, said, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Like they were his hometown favorites.
An hour or so later, Skeets looked Boone in the eye and said, “Well, when that bull saw that monkey, he busted out of the shoot with me hanging on like dirty laundry. And you should’ve seen that monkey’s face when he saw us comin’.”
Boone faked a good laugh. Skeets’s impression of that capuchin monkey was about the dumbest thing he’d ever seen. But he slapped the bar and shook his head and encouraged Skeets to do it just one more time. Brushfire knew people tended to like you even more if you laughed at their jokes.
A little later Junior Hicks and his band got up and started a lively set that got the house jumping. After the second or third song, Boone leaned over to Skeets and said, “These guys’re all right. Singer kind of reminds me of my friend Slim who plays around these parts, or at least used to.” He left it at that.
Skeets broke into a wide grin. “You mean Slim . . . out of Del Rio?” He pointed at his eyes. “Always wearin’ sunglasses?”
“Yeah,” Boone said. “Plays a real pretty Martin D-28.”
Skeets slapped the bar. “Damn, son, you just missed him,” he said. “Him and his buddy Howdy were playing here just a few days ago.”
“Get out!”
“I swear.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Yeah,” Skeets said. “They left here heading back to Del Rio, got a two-week gig at a place down there called the Lost and Found.”
28
THE LOST AND FOUND WAS ABOUT TWICE AS LONG AS IT WAS wide, a big shoe box of a room with the stage at the far end. The main bar was along the long wall on one side, a second, smaller, bar was on the opposite wall toward the back. It was a big, open room with a pitched ceiling and exposed beams. The floor was smooth cedar planks covered with sawdust, peanut shells, and cigarette ash. Good for dancing.
By the middle of the third quarter, everybody had lost interest in the game. The Giants were spanking the Redskins like a child misbehaving at the grocery store. Jodie killed the sound but left the picture on the TV over the bar. She looked at Slim and said, “I believe you’re up.”
Slim sauntered onto the stage, adjusted the microphone to his height, and said, “Ev’nin’ everybody. Welcome to the Lost and Found. My name’s Slim and I’ll be your entertainer this ev’nin’.” He slung the guitar strap over his head and grinned like he was a waiter fixin’ to tell them about the specials.
You’d never know by looking at him, but Slim was nervous as a frog on a busy road with a busted jumper. Always had been, couldn’t help it. He’d been onstage hundreds of times and was never comfortable with it. His nerves twitched and jangled while his stomach knotted and churned. But he could wall it off, keep it hidden, using the dark glasses to create his façade of cowboy cool. You do what you can.
Slim paused and smiled at a table full of girls sitting near the stage. They smiled back. That always helped. As he started to pick something slow on the Martin, Slim looked out over the crowd, just over their heads, like he was trying to find something that wasn’t in the notes he was playing. It was a simple melody and maybe not even that, just a vague melancholy pattern that repeated after so many bars while he talked over the top of it. A bittersweet vamp.
“It’s good to be back in Del Rio,” Slim said, prompting applause from the home crowd. “I’m not from here exactly but, back when I was a kid, I lived here for a few years. My dad, he worked down at Laughlin Air Force Base.” He paused here to let the air force crowd give a hoot of recognition. He aimed the head of his guitar at them and said, “I’m sure a few of you will know what I’m talking about. I was about five or six, I guess, when we moved here. And one day I asked my dad what he did down there at the air force base, and he told me he was a jet pilot, one of the fastest in the world. And of course I believed him.” Slim shook his head and smiled fondly as he continued playing the quiet acoustic bed that his words were laying on.
“He’d come home from work and tell me wild
stories about being in dogfights at Mach three and all sorts of crazy stuff that I just loved to hear. I was wide-eyed and hangin’ on every word outta his mouth. My mama, who had a thing about tellin’ the truth, she’d fold her arms real tight, squintin’ at him hard enough to crack walnuts, givin’ him a look like he shouldn’t be telling me stories like he was, but he didn’t see the harm and Lord knows I didn’t.”
Slim did a little chord change and kept vamping, still quiet and sweet underneath it all. “Anyway it wasn’t till years later that I found out some things about my dad. Among other things, it turned out he was a mechanic, not a pilot. But even when I found that out, I didn’t care. Hell, I’ve seen a jet engine, and tell you the truth I think it’s probably harder to fix one than it is to fly one.”
Some of the air force guys gave a big shout of approval that made everybody laugh. Probably grease monkeys.
Slim slowed down his picking and grew more serious as he said, “Everything my dad got, he got by the sweat of his brow. Always showed up on time, never shirked a task. I can remember him saying sometimes that he felt like he was workin’ overtime on a runaway train.”
Slim stopped playing the guitar and let the last note fade. Nobody in the room made a sound. He stood tall and said, “He was a blue-collar guy, and he was my hero. Here’s one I wrote for him. I hope you like it.”
He gave it a second or two before he counted it down, “One-two-three!” And Slim ripped a rocking riff on those strings that sounded straight out of Bakersfield. He leaned into it and the crowd couldn’t help but feel the goose bumps as Slim started singing, “He was a hardworkin’ man . . . wore a steel hard hat . . .”
The words struck a chord with everybody in the room, and his voice was an honest messenger. The riff was relentless and rollicking and it drew a dozen dancers to the floor like they believed the only way to live was burnin’ the candle at both ends. Slim fed off their energy and they fed off his and every line in the song seemed like it was the true story of somebody in the place. Anybody who’d ever struggled to make ends meet and everybody who’d gotten real good at barely gettin’ by.
Slim got ’em worked up and then he let ’em work it out on the dance floor, stomping a boot to keep the beat. Those not dancing were tapping their toes and drumming on the table tops. Slim repeated the chorus one more time before bringing it to a close. After the last chord, the crowd gave it up for him, big time. Cheers rattled the rafters. “Thank you! Appreciate that,” he said, with a nod. They were still yelling when he continued, “Long as we’re on the subject, let’s do one from brother Merle. Here’s ‘Workin’ Man Blues.’” And off he went.
For all the nerves and acid and knots in his stomach, Slim pulled it off one set after another, all night long, the way he’d done all his life. He mixed originals with covers of everybody from Buck Owens to Leon Russell to Hank Thompson. And, as usual, he had girls waiting on him every time he walked off the stage.
29
END OF THE NIGHT, AFTER SLIM FINISHED HIS SETS AND Jodie had given last call and turned the lights up to chase the stragglers out, Howdy put the cash box on the bar and started stacking chairs upside down on the tabletops. Slim was in a booth in the back having a beer with the blonde cutie in the Arizona Cardinals T-shirt when the door opened and a man walked in.
He headed straight for the bar, as if he expected to be served this time of night with the bright lights on and Howdy stacking the chairs. The guy’s face was harder than getting the truth out of a senator, but he was dressed fine, not like some thug. He wore a tailored leather jacket, a tan wide-brim hat, and fancy ostrich boots. Boots to kill for. He had broad shoulders and not much room in the sleeves due to all the muscle. Except for his determined strut, he didn’t seem like any trouble, though he looked capable of it.
“Sorry friend,” Howdy said. “We’re closing up.”
“No problem.” The guy waved him off like Howdy was new in town or mistaken and kept heading for the bar where the cash box sat. That’s when Howdy saw the gun under the guy’s jacket. Nine millimeter from the looks of it. Howdy stayed cool, put another chair on a table, and tried to catch Slim’s eye to get a little help. He snapped his fingers and waved a hand in the air, but Slim was busy reading the girl’s palm at the moment, no doubt explaining how that little branch off her lifeline meant that her future involved the horizontal two-step with a tall musical stranger wearing sunglasses.
Since it wasn’t Howdy’s style to interfere with another man’s love life unless absolutely necessary, he figured he’d deal with this himself. He maneuvered around to a blind spot and started walking up behind the man, who was standing at the bar now, right by the cash box, real casual, like he was waiting for something he was entitled to.
Jodie was nowhere to be seen. She’d stepped to the back room for a minute. If she came out now, she’d be faced with this guy out of the blue. Howdy figured she had her gun with her, but the guy with the 9 mm would have the element of surprise.
Jodie walked through the door a second later. The moment the guy shifted his attention to her, Howdy took two quick steps, jerked the guy’s jacket open, and snatched his gun. When the guy turned around, more than a little surprised, Howdy had Jodie’s .22 and the 9 mm aimed where it counted. “I guess you didn’t hear me,” Howdy repeated. “We’re closed.”
At the precise moment Howdy made his heroic move, Slim and the girl reached the front door and were fixin’ to slip out. But the action caught Slim’s attention and he paused long enough to say, “Howdy, you got this one?”
“Yeah,” Howdy said. “I got it.”
“Good man,” Slim said as he pushed the door open and ushered the blonde Cardinals fan toward the parking lot.
The guy smiled at Howdy, real friendly, not threatened in the least. His hands went up to disarm the situation. “Like I said, friend, no problem.”
Jodie said, “Howdy, it’s okay.”
The guy’s expression didn’t change. Didn’t get smug all the sudden now that Jodie was vouching for him. Just waited for the air to clear.
“You sure?” Howdy said.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Jodie insisted. “I should’ve told you he was coming. This is Duke. He works for my uncle.”
“Okay,” Howdy said. “My mistake.” He spun the 9 mm around and held it out, grip first. “No hard feelings.”
“We’re good,” Duke said, taking his gun. “I’m sure Roy’ll be glad to know somebody’s got Jodie’s back.” He slipped the gun into its holster and turned to Jodie with a certain amount of expectation.
She reached under the bar, retrieved an envelope, and handed it to Duke. “Tell him I said hey.”
“Will do,” Duke said as he slipped the envelope inside his coat.
“And I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “This is Howdy’s first night in town.”
Duke turned to Howdy and held out his hand. “Welcome to Del Rio.” He nodded toward Jodie. “Take good care of her.”
“Thanks,” Howdy said, shaking Duke’s hand. “I will.”
Duke tipped his hat and left in the same businesslike manner as he had arrived.
30
HOWDY WAS ABOUT TO STACK THE LAST FEW CHAIRS ON THE last table in the place when Jodie said, “Whoa, cowboy, leave those down.” She slid half a bottle of good tequila onto the bar. “That is, if you got time for a drink.”
Howdy glanced over at the bottle and said, “Twist my arm.”
Jodie hopped up on the bar, butt first, all that turquoise and silver jewelry jangling. She spun on her seat pockets, swinging her legs around, then dropped her boots onto the plank floor, her hands aloft like a gymnast coming off the balance beam.
“Nice dismount,” Howdy said, admiring her . . . everything.
And don’t think she didn’t notice as she grabbed the bottle, a lime, and two shot glasses before joining Howdy at the table where he was holding a chair for her. “Thank you, sir.” She pulled a pocketknife from her jeans and sat down. “How yo
u like the Lost and Found so far?” She popped a blade from the knife and started slicing wedges of lime.
Howdy sat down and said, “Great place.” He licked his hand and sprinkled some salt on the wet spot. “Ya done good.”
“Thanks. I’m glad you like it.” Jodie poured a couple of shots, salted her hand, and held her glass up. “Your health.”
“Back atcha,” Howdy said, clinking his glass to hers.
They licked the salt, shot the tequila, and bit the lime like a couple of pros. “Whew!” Jodie made a face as she set her glass on the table. “Mmm that’s good,” she said.
Howdy was licking tequila from his mustache when Slim came sauntering back in. He stopped just inside the door and held his arms out wide, saying, “Well, I’m livin’ proof you can take the girl out of the honky-tonk but you can’t make her take you home and get nekkid.”
Jodie laughed as Howdy started to sing, “You can’t . . . always get . . . what you want.”
Jodie pointed at the door and said, “Throw the deadbolt on that.” She aimed another finger at the bar. “Then grab a glass and join us.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” As Slim crossed the room in his long, loping strides, he said, “Girl swore she had to get up early and go to work tomorrow. You believe that?”
“It is Tuesday,” Jodie pointed out.
Slim acted like that didn’t count for much. He said, “Well what’s wrong with callin’ in sick? Or just being a couple hours late?” He picked up an extra lime, long as he was at the bar, then he crossed to the table. “It’s not like I was asking her to quit her job.”
“Hey.” Jodie leaned back in her chair with her hand on top of her hat and said, “What happened to all that reverence you had for the workin’ man?” She jerked her thumb in Slim’s direction before she realized he was already standing next to her and she was pointing south of his big belt buckle. “That don’t extend to workin’ women?”
The Adventures of Slim & Howdy Page 11