The Gutbucket Quest

by Piers Anthony

  “What does he have to do with the Gutbucket?” Slim asked.

  Nadine couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Daddy” she said. “This fool’s about smart enough to get out from under a falling tree. Why are you telling him all this stuff everybody already knows?”

  Slim blushed and felt about as incompetent as he’d ever felt in his life. He knew that, maybe, he wasn’t all that likable, but Nadine made him feel incredibly stupid and he knew he’d do about anything if she’d just be nice to him.

  “Hush up, girl,” Progress said. “Slim ain’t from around here. He don’t know anythin’ at all about all this except what I already told him.”

  Nadine looked at Slim with what seemed to be interest. “Sorry,” she said. Slim could see it had been a struggle for her to say it, but it made him happy just the same.

  “T-Bone’s head of the Vipers,” Progress explained. “Or maybe that’s not quite it. The Vipers are his, they’re his boys, do all his dirty work. You see, T-Bone lusted after the power. He didn’t want it for the blues, he wanted it for what he could do with it. Some people are like that with the power, wantin’ it for its own sake.” He shook his head sadly. “That’s real wrong,” he said. “That kind of wanting twists people. It did T-Bone. He couldn’t get his power from the blues, so he’s gettin’ it with money and machines and fear. Truth is, like I done said, the sumbitch owns about everything around. And if he don’t own it, people just like him do. They ain’t so bad, though. They’re greedy, but T-Bone’s the only one trying to get the power. The thing is, no matter how much money and machinery and property he gets, he ain’t never happy with it. He wants everything. He’s still bitter, you see, about not havin’ the blues. So he can’t be happy if people are free just to play and enjoy the blues, he wants to control it. Wants it to be done his way. It ain’t exactly that he’s a bad man . . .”

  Nadine laughed and said, “Shit”

  “No,” Progress continued. “Truly. He thinks what he’s doin’ is good and right. But he cain’t see that it ain’t the good and the right that anybody but him wants. That never seems to matter to him, anyway. He wants all the blues folks to make it into some big business, industrialize it. He don’t know that goes against everything the blues is about, that it would kill it. And we all know that he’s the only one would make any money on it, and if there was someone he didn’t like, well, they just wouldn’t find no place to play, ‘cept on their back porch, if he didn’t own that, too.”

  “Could he do that?” Slim asked.

  “I s’pect he could—with the Gutbucket. That there ain’t a thing to be messin’ with. It’s like a bomb, waitin’ to blow if it’s handled wrong. I don’t have no idea atall just how much power that thing’s got inside it. It could destroy him, I guess, but it could back up and destroy us at the same time. That’s why we got to go see him, try to reason things out with him.”

  “Daddy,” Nadine said. “You know you can’t reason with that man. He hates you more than anything.”

  “Why’s that?” Slim asked.

  Progress looked a little abashed. “Years ago, when he was just gettin’ started, I thought I saw something in him. Took him in as my apprentice and tried to teach him. When I finally had to tell him he wouldn’t never be no good, he took it real hard. Other folks tried to tell him the same thing, but it’s me he blames and hates for it. The boy never was too awful big on carryin’ his own load.”

  “So what do we do if he won’t listen to you?” Slim asked. Nadine pleased him by agreeing with his question and nodding her head.

  “I don’t think he will listen,” Progress replied. “But I got to try. What I think will be, is that we’ll set us up a big blues festival out at the Canadian River.”

  “What good’s that going to do?” Nadine asked.

  “Think about it. That man’s wantin’ to spoil the heart of the blues. Now, you just know if a bunch of us gets together for a festival, he’s gonna be out there with the Gutbucket tryin’ to make it turn bad. That’s when we’ll go after it. We just got to get the right folks to set it up and the right people to play. Remember, it’s the early worm what gets eaten by the bird. We gots to trick him.”

  “Won’t he try to stop us?” Slim asked. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would let it go down that easy.”

  Nadine reached over to Slim’s plate and grabbed a handful of french fries. The unconscious familiarity pleased him immensely. And when she looked at him and smiled, he almost wished for a tail to wag to show his pleasure.

  “I didn’t say it wouldn’t be dangerous,” Progress replied. “But we gotta do it. We got to go after the people we need, personal like. He’s liable to go after them, too.”

  “Who are you thinking of?” Nadine asked.

  “Elijigbo and his bunch. Belizaire, Mother Phillips, Sonny Early, folks like that.”

  Nadine whistled. Slim thought it was a beautiful noise.

  “The big guns,” she said. “You aren’t fooling around, are you?”

  “Cain’t afford no foolin’. We needs the power, need people he cain’t touch with the Gutbucket.”

  “Are all these people old timers?” Slim asked.

  “Nope,” Progress said. “Some are, but, see, there’s some folks got their own way of power. Had it all their lives, before they came to the blues. So the Gutbucket don’t touch ‘em much one way or the other. That’s what we need.”

  “Any rock and roll people?”

  Progress and Nadine looked at him in puzzlement, saying, nearly in unison, “Rock and roll?”

  “Yeah,” Slim said. “Come on. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard? You know.”

  “No, I don’t know, son. Never heard of ‘em, or of, what is it—rock and roll? I seem to remember a skinny kid named Chuck Berry or somesuch, ‘bout twenty years ago. But he couldn’t play worth a nickel and he wrote weird songs about cars, so he didn’t last long at all. What’s rock and roll?”

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime,” Slim said. Damn! Every time he started to get comfortable in this world, something got knocked loose or turned up missing, different. He enjoyed rock and roll, sort of, sometimes. How did the blues keep from evolving into rock and roll in this world? Was it the racial equality? Had it prevented ghettos and doo-wop singers? He didn’t know enough to even think about the causes. On the other hand, if it wasn’t here, maybe he could “invent” it right. That would be something, for sure.

  Progress stood up. “You finished eatin’ Slim’s food, Nadine? About time to head home, I’d say.”

  Nadine blushed and threw a couple of uneaten fries back on the plate. Then she stood. So did Slim, following after her as she followed Progress out the door to the pickup.

  “You sit in the middle,” she said to Slim. He did, and she got in after him and hung her arm out the open window.

  As they drove the dark road to the house, Slim didn’t know if he was in paradise or being tortured. If so, it was a sweet torture. On one side of him sat a man who was becoming a hero, a teacher, a father figure he’d never had, with his smells of honest sweat, beer and blues. On his other side sat the woman he was now sure he was irretrievably in love with. Her leg was pressed tightly against his, and he could smell a slight perfume, the odor of her hair, a sweat and woman smell that reached right into him. When she reached into the center glove-box, her breast brushed his bare arm. He could feel the summer night sweat and the large, erect nipple like a shock. Forty-year-old men were not supposed to get instant erections, but Slim had never been quite normal and he realized he had. It made sitting unadjusted rather uncomfortable, but Nadine didn’t seem to notice.

  She lit up a joint and passed it to him as they rode in silence. It was passed back and forth until it was done. Nadine then leaned her head back against the seat and let her left hand rest on Slim’s thigh. He didn’t know whether to scream or cry, but he did know he wasn’t going to move and risk her taking it away. He knew that it didn’t mean anything, that
Nadine simply expressed an unconscious comfortableness, but it had been a long, long time since anyone had touched him with anything nearing affection, and he wanted to enjoy it for the small pleasure it was.

  It wasn’t that Slim was a bad man, he was just a lousy husband. Any one of the women from his past would freely admit that he was a hell of a nice guy, a great lover. Just about anything but a decent moneymaker. He was a dreamer and he had a weakness for women in pain and need, women who had problems, who hadn’t found themselves yet. Sad women. He fell in love with them, and in return, he tried to wake them up, teach them to be strong and independent and sure of themselves. Tried to teach them to be free. Unfortunately, once they’d learned all that, they discovered, as well, that he was a weak man with problems of his own. A man who didn’t know how to do much of anything but love, desperately. And knowing how to love didn’t support any relationship. So they ended up abandoning him, going on to better, more successful things, leaving Slim with a badly broken heart and a total lack of understanding.

  His biggest problem, his secret problem, was the hurt and rage he felt for women. He couldn’t understand why they all left him, why they all broke his heart. And, not understanding, he was hurt that much more, and the hurt turned to rage and bitterness. Yet, it all stayed inside him. He loved women so intensely, needed them so desperately, that he had never said a cruel word, never struck a blow, was absolutely terrified to even argue.

  Arguing, even expressing his feelings, wasn’t something he could do very well. His father had been an alcoholic, a cruel, manipulative man who couldn’t stand to be contradicted. And Slim never knew what would be seen as argument. In his home, emotions were stifled, repressed. The failure to do anything but hide and remain emotionless resulted in getting beaten, punished, put down and put out.

  So he swallowed his rage, repressed his hurt and anger. Inside, though, was a gentle man who wanted to ask why, why wasn’t he worth loving forever? Why did they all hurt and betray him? Why were they always so heartless and compassionless? Why, why, why? He’d never found any answers because, in his soul-deep need to love and be loved, he’d never even think to broach the questions, except inside himself. He just wanted everything to be nice.

  But Nadine was different. Slim could tell that she knew who she was, that she didn’t need to wake up to anything at all. If he could just do right, maybe he could find a way she could love him. He’d never believed in love at first sight. It had happened to him a thousand times with a thousand women, but he’d always put it down to lust. But here was Nadine, knocking his heart for a loop. He would find a way, he determined. He would find a way if it killed him. Maybe this search for the Gutbucket was the perfect way to prove himself to her.

  He sighed when they pulled up to the house. Nadine took her hand off his leg and got out of the truck. He felt a distinct loss as they all went inside.

  “You mind sleepin’ on the couch?” Progress asked. “Gonna be a little crowded with Nadine here. Only got the two bedrooms.”

  “Nah,” Slim said. “No problem.” It looked like a big, comfortable couch, and Slim had slept on worse.

  “Nadine,” Progress said, “go get some sheets and all for Slim, would you, please?”

  To Slim’s surprise, she went off into the other room, bringing back sheets and a thin cover, and even put them on the couch without a word. Then she and Progress went into the bedrooms and Slim was left alone.

  It had been one hell of a long, strange day. His body and brain were both tired out, so not many minutes went by after he undressed and lay down before he was fast asleep, dreaming of a caramel-skinned woman running beside him in the cane breaks . . .

  It wasn’t quite light outside as Progress and Nadine whispered in the bedroom.

  “Daddy, why do you want that long-haired fool around here? What good is he going to do you?”

  “Don’t rightly know as yet. But deep down, he’s a good man. You can see it in him, see the boy’s been hurt, and hurt bad. But he don’t be pushin’ it off on nobody else. Just as nice as he can be. There’s somethin’ shinin’ inside him, fightin’ to get out.”

  “But you don’t even know if he can play.”

  “No, now, I do know. I ain’t heard him yet, that’s true, but I knows. You gots to understand that he came here from a completely different place, holdin’ on to that guitar of his like it was more important than livin’. That there tells me somethin’. Besides, the boy’s heavy in love with you.”

  “Oh, that’s great! That’s just what I need, some long-haired beat-up old fool sniffing after me like a stupid puppy.”

  “Give the boy a chance, Nadine. I know right now he don’t seem like he’s much at all. But he’s growin’ more than you or he knows. Don’t go breakin’ him down till you see what it is he can build up to. I know he acts kinda stupid sometimes, but he ain’t. He just never learned how to act. And you know he so scairt about bein’ in love with you that it’s gonna make him that much more stupid.”

  “I know it. And you know I can’t stand it when men act like that.”

  “Nadine, don’t torment the boy. I ain’t sayin’ you got to put up with nothin’, but don’t torment him. Be fair. His heart’s real breakable. Don’t you be the one does it to him. It’s a good heart.”

  “Daddy? Are you wanting me to love him back?”

  “I’m hopin’ you will. I don’t wanna force nothin’. Just hopin’ you’ll find somethin’ in him worth lovin’. I think he’s the right man for you.”

  “You know I can get along just fine without a man.”

  “Didn’t nobody say no different, girl. But Slim’s the right man for your life. I feels it.”

  “So what is it you want me to do?”

  “Just try to be nice to him. I know that’s a hard thing for you to do. I know how you is. But be fair to the boy. He’s carryin’ a heavy load he don’t yet know even the half of. Don’t you pile on more weight. Give the boy a chance.”

  “Okay, Daddy. I’ll try. But he’d better find a way to get better, or I’m not going to be able to stand it.”

  “He’ll find a way. I got faith in him.”

  She looked at him sharply. “Daddy, what are you keeping from me?”

  Progress did not pretend to mistake her meaning. “I’d rather not tell you.”

  “Well, you’d better, if it made you so urgent to put me on to this man. I can just about see that dark cloud looming behind your head.”

  Progress sighed. “You always could, Nadine. It’s the Glory Hand.”

  “The Glory Hand” she exclaimed, shocked. “You don’t have anything to do with that evil magic”

  “Not by choice, for sure! I found this one in the bathroom. Must’ve been tossed through the open window in the night. Wasn’t there yesterday.”

  “Who would put one of those filthy fetishes in our house?” she demanded indignantly. “The whole region knows you have no truck with those things.”

  “That’s what bothers me. I don’t think it was for me or you. I think it was for Slim. He’s from elsewhere; he may not know about such things.”

  “So he’s a nonbeliever, so it shouldn’t affect him. So what’s the point?”

  “That’s it: I don’t know the point. I don’t trust it. Somethin’s goin’ on here, Nadine, and it concerns this man. But I be not ready to tell him about it yet—not till I know what he knows about hostile magic.”

  “Point taken,” she said thoughtfully. “If it’s for him, and he doesn’t know it, something strange is going on, and we’d better keep it quiet for now. What did you do with it?”

  “I hooked it with a wire and carried it out and threw it in the river. I don’t care if it sinks or swims; it’s gone.”

  She nodded soberly. “Who do you think sent it?”

  “I don’t know, but I think maybe it’s another reason it’s time we saw T-Bone. Just to let him know we’s on to him, or make him think we is.”

  “And you want me to find out what
Slim Chance knows, without him knowing I’m prying?”

  “Maybe. But that don’t change what else I said. So maybe he has a bad enemy; that don’t speak bad for him.”

  “If T-Bone doesn’t like him, I’m getting interested,” she said, smiling grimly.

  “Don’t go lookin’ for no wrong reasons, girl, when there’s good ones to be had.”

  “I was fooling,” she said.

  “Not entirely.”

  She didn’t argue.

  Progress went to take a shower while Nadine went into the kitchen to start breakfast. When she passed through the living room, she looked down at Slim, still asleep on the couch. He’d thrown the sheets off and lay there uncovered. She took the time to glance at his body, his erect morning dick, then looked back up at his peaceful face. He was kind of cute, she thought.

  7

  While the history of the blues is the history of the individuals who perform it, the danger lies in these performers becoming isolated from their richest traditions, and from the people as a whole, resulting in a total fragmentation of the blues.

  This, of course, is the tendency of an advanced industrial society, wherein any attempt at creative activity on a mass level is inevitably short circuited and smashed.

  —Paul Garon, Blues and the Poetic Spirit

  Slim woke to the smell of frying ham. He sat up and looked sleepily over the back of the couch into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He could see Nadine working at the woodstove, felt the heat of it in the room. She was wearing cutoff jeans and a white T-shirt and she was so pretty that Slim wanted to lie back down and moan.

  She turned and saw him looking at her. “Morning,” she said.

  “Mornin. What time is it?”

  “About eight.”

  “You always get up so early?”

  “Yes, I guess we do. Daddy and I got into the habit a long time ago. It doesn’t seem to matter how late we stay up, come six or seven, our eyes open up on their own and after that, it’s no use to stay in bed. You hungry?”