The Gutbucket Quest

by Piers Anthony

  The gun exploded and Slim felt an immediate, hot-poker pain in the fleshy part of his upper left leg. He fell to the ground and the Gutbucket slipped from his hands. A Viper stood over Pickens, who was lying on the ground holding his head. Blood leaked from between the man’s fingers, and Slim was almost surprised to see it was as red as his own. The Viper reached for the Gutbucket, but Nadine stepped up to him and kicked him viciously in the face. He went down and Nadine grabbed the guitar and shoved it back into Slim’s hands.

  “Come on, baby,” she said urgently. “We still have to get to the stage and play. It’s not over.”

  Slim looked up at her stupidly. “He shot me,” he said. “The son-ofabitch shot me.”

  He held the palm of his hand up to her. “Look at that,” he said. “I’m bleeding.”

  She grabbed the bloody hand he’d held out to her and pulled him to his feet. “I know,” she said. She put his free arm around her shoulders. “Lean on me, baby. Come on. We’ve got to get there and finish it.”

  She started pulling at him. “Okay, okay,” he said, trying to go along with her. He couldn’t run, but he did manage a quick limp and drag. His leg hurt like hell, burned and throbbed, but they made it through the crowd. He had some rough moments climbing the steps to the stage, but when he reached the top, Progress and Belizaire were there to grab on to him and help carry him along. Elijigbo brought a chair out to stage center and the men sat Slim down on it.

  Progress took the Gutbucket from him and quickly tuned it. As he handed it back he asked, “Can you play, son? You gots to.”

  Slim couldn’t answer him, but he shook his head yes, anyway. Belizaire took out one of his multitude of pouches. He cut a slit in Slim’s pants over the bullet hole, and spread a greenish powder on the wound.

  “Dis take de pain away,” he said. “I tink you do fine, me. You play now, eh?”

  The hurting in Slim’s leg eased and he smiled up at the gris-gris man in gratitude. “Thanks,” he said. “Let’s play now. Let’s kick some Viper ass. Plug this fucker in.”

  Progress handed him the business end of a guitar cord, the other end of which was already plugged into his warmed-up amp. “Okay, son,” Progress said. “Hold up your part of the sky.”

  Slim was unable to answer him. The sudden burst of power that resulted from the mating of Gutbucket to Amp nearly knocked him out of his chair. It was—magical, orgasmic, joyful and terrifying. It was the full potential of the blues, all their power, waiting for Slim to tap into it, as it tapped into him. It blew him away for a moment, then he let it seep into all the cells of his body and mind until it felt as if his muscles and stomach were laughing. Is this surrender? he thought. If it was, man, it felt good.

  Belizaire patted him on the shoulder. “You do fine, now, eh? Bon?”

  Slim nodded his head, grinning like a natural fool from the rush of the power through him.

  “Good, then,” Belizaire said, sprinkling more powder around the stage. “Laissez les bontemps rouler.”

  Slim felt the power, could almost see it as a blue light, pouring into him, into the Gutbucket and into the Amp. He could feel and see it flowing into every member of the band on stage, into Nadine, who gasped and went weak in the knees. Even Progress, Belizaire and Elijigbo closed their eyes and shuddered as the pent-up blues power of all the wizards who had played before them rushed into their bodies and souls and electrified, blues-ified and motivated them. It was as if a giant generator had been switched on, releasing gigawatts of pure power.

  Slim could no longer feel the pain in his leg. His dick was hard, his spine was stiff and his heart was pounding. Sweat was covering his body, and he was filled with a bright heat, nearly more than he could handle, but the reinforcement from the Gutbucket and the Amp, though contributing to the flow of power, also helped to control it.

  He took three Dunlop blue Tortex picks from his pocket and slid two under the pickguard of the guitar, ready to speed grab in case he lost the one he held in his fingers. He grabbed on to the maple fingerboard and began picking out the chords to “Standing at the Crossroads.”

  “Let’s do it,” he yelled, turning up the volume.

  Nadine smiled at him, though there was still concern in her eyes, and she began to sing the verses. Slim rocked back and forth in the chair, oblivious to everything but the Gutbucket and the power that was pouring through him. He could hear the band through the floor monitors, hear Nadine’s luscious voice as she belted out the song. The double drums shook the stage, the Earth pounded like a mad heart, and Belizaire’s bass hammering shook his belly. Progress’ rhythm guitar was smooth and sticky and deep like Tejas red mud after the rain. But, through it all, he heard the growling of the Gutbucket. It was a voice that spoke for him, with him and through him, helping him to say what he wanted to say, what he’d always wanted to say. He controlled it. Having surrendered to it, accepted it, he’d won.

  But where was Shango? he wondered. Where was the God that was supposed to jump in? So far the cat hadn’t been much help. Except when he’d been about to throw it all away by grabbing the fake guitar.

  The band slid into “Who Do You Love?,” one of Slim’s favorite songs. He let his fingers play with the A-flat scale, playing with a mind of their own as he looked around for the first time since taking the stage.

  The people on the threshing floor were caught, enchanted. He could tell. They were swaying and dancing and joyful, entranced, enhanced, and hot at a glance. Slim could see Vipers moving through the crowd, directed by a bloody but unbowed T-Bone. The men in black seemed unaffected by the music. At least it seemed so until one of the Vipers tried to climb the stage. Slim let loose with a vicious riff and a fierce wind seemed to bounce the Viper backward from the stagefront.

  Slim looked up at the sky, at the giant Tejas horizon. It was clotted in with dark clouds, and he could see flashes of lightning building deep inside them. Then he looked down at his fingers on the strings— and he played, flashes and sparks jumping between fingertips and strings as he changed notes. A storm was building, and he played as he’d never played before. He’d finally caught hold of the feeling. It was all his—and yet, it wasn’t. He could understand, now, Nadine’s fear of the power, the sense that it wasn’t her. He wondered if he’d be able to explain to her that, yes, there was something foreign in it, but it was still him, that there was a joy in it. A joy that came from the Gutbucket, partially, but which was definitely all his.

  But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that the band played on, that Slim kept running on the strings and laying down the riffs and licks. He was playing riffs and runs he’d never learned, never even heard before. They were there, in him, a part of the life he’d absorbed, or a part of the Gutbucket, it didn’t matter. In the middle of “Come to Mama,” he started fingertapping a complex double-string lead line he would never have thought of or imagined for the song. Nadine turned and stared at him, her mouth open in awe. And he could feel a strange sense of surprise and astonishment coming from the Gutbucket itself.

  He let the solo go, let it fall from his fingers like drops of rain as Nadine started singing again. Her voice was low and husky and, as he listened, he realized she was using the power. It was gentle, tentative, to be sure, but it was there, and growing. He looked closer and he could see it in the position of her legs, the looseness of her shoulders, the tight clenching and rocking of her ass and hips.

  He poured all he had into his playing, trying to channel some of the immense power he felt into her, through her. He tried to touch her, to make love to her with his fingers on the strings and the sounds they were making. As he did, she seemed to grow taller, straighter. Her voice began to match the Gutbucket, until the two were harmonized and working together as a unit.

  He was deeply into the middle of the music when he heard a whizzing noise go by his ear. He kicked the trance and looked into the audience. Pickens and the Vipers were standing with guns drawn and aimed. Having failed in thei
r attempts to get on stage, they were shooting at the band from the threshing floor. But, somehow, Slim could see the bullets as they flew through the air. He let his playing fall slightly behind the backbeat and time slowed.

  He didn’t stop to consider Nadine’s singing, or where he was in the song. He started a lead riff, bending notes like crazy, whole tones at a time, hoping the strings wouldn’t break. It was a twisted, dissonant lead that he ordinarily wouldn’t have played, but as he bent the notes, the bullets were deflected from their path and disintegrated in small balls of sparks and flame.

  The look on Pickens’ face was one of sheer, black rage. He’d been thwarted at every attempt and, perhaps, pushed beyond what little sanity he might have once laid claim to. Slim knew, without knowing how, that Pickens would soon turn on the crowd that surrounded him. He knew that Pickens and the Vipers would instigate a bloody massacre, a slaughter that though it would win no victory for them, would just as effectively destroy the blues.

  Slim signaled to the band to stop the song they were playing, and called Progress over to his chair.

  “It’s no good,” he told the old man. “Pickens is gonna bust out bad. I can feel it. Nadine and I should sing our song, and then we should go to the finish.”

  “Up to you, son,” Progress said, adding, “what’s the gig?”

  “Nadine’s song is just a twenty-four bar in A, like I told you before. The finale—the way I figure it, you remember what I played at Elijigbo’s. That’s what I think I want here, the boogie.”

  Progress nodded and walked back to the band to explain the plan. Slim adjusted the mike stand that stood in front of his chair. “Nadine,” he said, off mike. “It’s time for you and me to jam.”

  Nadine looked down at the Vipers who were staring up at them hatefully, still holding the useless guns.

  “I see what you mean,” she said. “All right, baby. Let’s do it.”

  Slim fingered the intro to the country blues he’d come up with for Nadine’s song. The band slipped in almost easily and they started to sing, their voices harmonizing as before.

  “Tejas women

  Walk on legs

  That reach up to the sky.

  They run on clouds

  To touch the light

  That shines within their eyes.

  And when they stand in moonlight,

  Your heart flies to the stars,

  And just along about midnight,

  They’ll take you very far.

  Tejas women

  Know the way

  To keep you hangin’ ’round.

  Tejas women

  Don’t need your heart,

  What they want is further down.

  And when she stands before you,

  Your life is in her hands,

  And when you’ve tasted her sweet lips,

  Buddy you’ll understand.”

  It sounded good for a first time through. Slim could feel the power build to a nearly unbearable level. Then—he went black. His fingers still played and his voice still sang, but he wasn’t there with them. He was, abruptly, in world of thunder and lightning and wind.

  Shango had finally returned.

  There was a presence, or something much like one. Huge and old and powerful, Earth wide and ebony black. Images filled his mind and soul. The planet Earth, wreathed in a constantly moving, charging and discharging field of magnetism and electricity. But there was a sentience behind it, a sentience whose attention was now turned to Slim, sitting and playing on a small stage.

  He saw, for a moment, overlapping visions of both his world and the world where Tejas existed. Then his mind was sucked into a vortex and spun. He felt himself come apart, molecule by molecule; then he was brought back together in light and heat. He felt—gratitude?—love? Whatever it was, it was now inside him, a part of him. Perhaps it always had been. It moved with his rhythms, or he with it. He wasn’t sure which and it didn’t matter.

  He was once again shown the double image of the worlds, and he was offered a choice. But he knew, and communicated to the being, to Shango, that there was no longer a choice. He was a man of Tejas, a man of the blues, and would remain so.

  Then he once again felt the Gutbucket in his hands. The song was over and he had come back to consciousness, fully rooted in the world he loved, awake with the sound of thunder. Lightning crashed in the sky and he cried out into the microphone, “Boogie, chillen!"

  He started out slow and alone, building the grove till it was rock-hard boogie. Loose and free, at last, he slapped the strings carelessly, trusting to the power and to Shango. He played with it a little, hitting harmonics and octaves, wandering and finding the feel. When he had a hold on the groove that was solid and immutable, he started to sing:

  “Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey,

  Hey, hey, hey,

  Working the midnight job, yeah,

  Walkin’ down easy street,

  I hurt, hurt, hurt.

  Everybody been talkin’ ’bout,

  Talkin’ ’bout,

  A strange love,

  But I dropped in that night,

  I did the boogie, chillen,

  Did the boogie low,

  I did the boogie high,

  Did the boogie, chillen.”

  The lightning began popping and crackling as he sang and played. It rose and fell from the ground, surrounding the threshing floor. Pickens and the Vipers began to look afraid and Shango rode Slim’s soul.

  "Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey,

  Hey, hey, hey,

  It’s late right now,

  Ooooh, oh, oh, yeah,

  I went down one night,

  I hurt, hurt, hurt,

  I really hurt,

  I hurt, hurt, hurt,

  I hurt,

  I gotta tell ya,

  Hey-ey-ey-ey,

  Hadda boogie,

  Boogie, chillen.”

  Slim began to fly on the song. Shango held his soul, the Gutbucket held his mind, and the Amp brought it down to a right, tight focus that fed it all into the sky.

  “Do you wanna boogie,

  Yes, do you wanna boogie?

  Do the boogie, now,

  Hey,

  Hey, hey, hey,

  Hey, hey.

  Let me tell you something,

  I went down one night,

  Went down,

  Oh, I hurt,

  I hurt, hurt, hurt,

  I hurt,

  I hurt,

  Hey-ey-hey,

  Did the boogie,

  Feel good,

  Feel good, good, good,

  Feel good,

  Feel, feel feel,

  Feel good,

  Do the boogie,

  Boogie, chillen.”

  He slammed down on the strings when the solo struck him. A white-violet bolt of lightning flashed to the ground and struck a Viper. The man in black screamed and fell to the ground, burnt and smoking, his gun a twisted mass of metal fused to his hand. Slim fingertapped a quick pop riff and lightning walked along the ground, taking out five Vipers in succession. He moved down to the bottom strings and the thunder roared from his fingers, shattering glass in every car, van and pickup in the parking lot. He slid to the sixteenth fret and picked the glass up off the ground and fused it back in place, laughing.

  He could do anything, he thought. A mistake. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a shock coursed through the Gutbucket, stinging his fingers. A warning not to get carried away.

  He began playing an easy repeating riff, copying himself in octaves up and down the scale. Lightning played in the clouds, lighting up the sky in white and violet and pink. He wondered why people never realized that lightning came in different colors depending on intensity. As he wondered, the thought came—from Shango, he knew—that the colors were also emotions. He intensified his playing and consciously shifted into violet and blue.

  Nadine raised her arms and stood shaking and screaming to the music. As she did, a cold wind began to blow, and Slim k
new that Yansan was also present, and that Nadine had finally accepted the power. He started fingertapping again, playing faster and faster. Though the sun had set and the black clouds blocked the moon and stars, lightning was flashing so quickly that the threshing floor was lit as brightly as day, but with a strange light seldom seen by humans for more than a split second.

  He focused his attention on Pickens. Doubt showed on the fat man’s face, then fear. Pickens began to run.

  It was time to end the song.

  Slim waited until Pickens had reached the edge of the crowd, and then he motioned to the band and put all he had into the concluding chord.

  Strings slapped and whipped off the guitar. A huge, twined bolt of lightning exploded from the ground. It threw Pickens up into the air, then arced back down, striking him in the chest. For a moment, only a moment, he was a person-shaped glow of violet and blue light. Then he was gone.

  Slim unplugged the Gutbucket, laid it gently down beside his chair and collapsed.

  When he woke, his leg hurt like a sonofabitch. He was in the tent where he had watched the spider. Nadine, Progress, Belizaire, Mother Phillips and Elijigbo stood looking down at him.

  “Gee,” he said weakly. “I had this strange dream, and you were all there.”

  Nadine laughed. “I think he’s all right,” she said.

  He sat up painfully. “The Gutbucket” he cried.

  Progress smiled. “Right next to you, son.”

  Slim reached down and felt it, picked it up. It was warm in his hands and he could feel a pain of broken strings, but it remained silent. He held it out to Progress. “Here,” he said.

  Progress shook his head. “No, son,” the old man said, just a glint of gold showing in his half-smile. “It’s yours, now. You wouldn’t have been able to play it at all if it wasn’t meant for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Just treat it right and don’t misuse the power. That’s the heart of the blues you holdin’ there. Don’t you go forgettin’ that.”