Oh Bubba, Where Art Thou? (Bubba the Monster Hunter Book 26) Page 5

  I stepped into your standard hospital/nursing home room that hasn’t been redecorated since the nineties. There was one window with a hospital bed a few feet from it. A pitiful little cactus sat on the windowsill soaking up the meager sunlight coming through, and there were two chairs, armless things that made my ass hurt just looking at them. A TV blared the new Let’s Make a Deal at a volume loud enough to wake the dead, reminding me quickly just how stupid that show has always been.

  In the bed was the shell of what had once been a big man. He was still tall, but his skin hung loose, like he was sunk in on himself. His skin had a little yellow tinge to it, like he was permanently jaundiced, and his nose was covered in the spider web of broken blood vessels that told of a life spent with a bottle nearby.

  The old man’s eyes were vacant, staring at the TV but not registering what was happening on the screen. It was a good thing, too, because Wayne Brady was talking to some skinny Asian woman dressed like a banana, and there was a lot of jumping up and down and shrieking. I shook my head and grunted, and the old man looked right at me.

  “I ain’t ready yet,” he rasped. I stared at him, my mouth falling open again.

  “You can see me?” I asked.

  “I’m prob’ly more dead than alive, son. I see you better than I see my granddaughter when she comes to visit. Now get on out of here, I told you I ain’t ready.”

  “I’m not here to take you anywhere, sir, I’m just here to…well, to be honest, I ain’t real sure why I’m here. But I know I ain’t here to take you off.”

  “Then why are you…I reckon you just said that, didn’t you?” The man’s mouth wasn’t moving in time with his words, and I looked over at Prince. He raised an eyebrow at me and shrugged. Chatty was not a word I’d be using to describe him anytime soon.

  “How are we talking?” I asked the man.

  “I reckon it’s my spirit talking to yours, or something like that. I don’t know, boy, I ain’t never done this before, either. But why don’t you sit down? You’re making me nervous just standing there like a giant moron.”

  I sat down in one of the chairs, trying to figure out how to sit on it without falling straight through to the floor, but it wasn’t a problem.

  “You won’t fall,” Prince said, once I figured that out on my own. I gave him a look that told him what I thought of his timing, and he laughed, a little mocking, lilting thing that made me regret, just a little, paying for the deluxe edition of the Purple Rain remaster when it came out a few years back. He looked back at me and kept talking. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude. You expect to be able to sit on the chair in this form, so you can. Just like you expect to be able to walk through walls, so you can.”

  “So you’re saying if I didn’t believe I could walk through walls, I woulda busted my face on the door?”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “And that would have been pretty funny, so I was going to win either way. You would be in the room, or I’d have a good laugh. So I let you go for it. And it worked out, didn’t it?”

  “I never thought I’d say this, but you’re a little bit of a dick, Prince.”

  He laughed, and this time there was no mocking to it, just an honest laugh. “I’ve been called worse, my friend. I’ve certainly been called worse.” He turned to the man in the bed. “It’s an honor to finally meet you.”

  “You coulda come by any time,” the old man said. “I liked your music.”

  “Thank you, that means a lot,” Prince replied. “I have enjoyed yours as well. You are a talent the likes of which the world may never see again.”

  The old man laughed. “I’m flattered. You’re wrong, but I’m flattered. There’ll be somebody else better than me. Probably already is, at least half a dozen of them. We just ain’t heard ‘em yet.”

  I held up a hand. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said with some deference to the old dude. “But who are you? I’m afraid I don’t recognize you.”

  He laughed again. “I wouldn’t expect you to, son. My name is Buford Scatlin. I used to pick a little.”

  I knew the name. Everybody knew the name. His given name might have been Buford, but the world new him as Professor. They called him that when he started picking solo back in the late 40s after coming back from the war in France. He used to be a trim man, with almost freakishly long fingers, but big, the kind of man that people step sideways when he comes down the sidewalk. Not like me, who makes people run for cover and hide behind cars when I walk towards them.

  They called him Professor Fiddle because he wore these little wire-rimmed glasses that always made him look like he was squinting or thinking hard about something, and because he revolutionized the way people thought about bluegrass fiddle. He taught people a whole new style of playing, with short strokes of the bow sounding almost like picking a guitar. I remembered listening to his albums with Grandpappy when I was real young, and Grandpappy telling me about seeing The Professor play the Opry with Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson.

  I stepped closer to the bed and held out my hand. “He’s right, sir. It is an honor. My Grandpappy used to tell me a story of seeing you play the Opry with Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson. He said he’d never seen more musical talent on the stage at the same time in his life.”

  The old man looked in my general direction and gave me a smile. “Well, son, you tell your Grandpap thank you for me. I reckon I’m the only one of that trio still drawing breath, and I’m getting a lot closer to seeing Arthel and Earl again that I reckon I want to, even if I do miss their company something fierce.”

  “I would love to tell him, sir, but he passed some years back.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, son. Was he sick?”

  “No sir,” I replied, remembering the night Grandpappy died, and the wolves that killed him. I swallowed hard. “It was…a work accident.”

  “Well, shit, boy, I sure am sorry to hear that. Well, I reckon I’ll probably see him before you will, then. I’ll tell him you said hey.” He smiled up at me, and I saw the resignation in his eyes. He was dying, and he knew it.

  “What do you have, if you don’t mind me asking,” I said.

  “What I have, son, is a terminal case of ninety-five years old. I have lived the kind of life most men dream of. I have played in front of thousands of people, made gold records, traveled on tour buses with the legends of music, and now it’s getting close to time to move on. As the man said, I have wined and dined with kings and queens, and I have slept in alleys and dined on pork and beans. But those days are gone, and it’s about time for me to take my last curtain call, I reckon.”

  I stood in the middle of a nameless nursing home in Nowhere, USA, with a music legend quoting Dusty Rhodes at me while Prince’s ghost stood in the corner in a purple fuzzy fedora smiling at the scene. In all the weird shit I have lived through, this one might take the cake.

  “Why are you here, though?’ I asked. “I mean, no offense, sir, but this place is kind of a…”

  “Dump?” The Professor said with a smile. “No, it’s fine. I ran out of money a few years ago. Doc and Earl had better people running their finances than I did, and Doc, in particular, always lived a modest life. He always said there wasn’t any place he’d rather live or die than the mountains of Carolina, so that’s what he did. Me, I liked the shiny cars and the big houses and the pretty girls, and them things don’t come cheap. I never figured I’d live this damn long, so I didn’t make nothing in the way of plans for my old age.” He smiled again, and again it was like a ghost smile overlaid on his face. His body didn’t really move, but somehow his essence was able to talk to me like he was already a ghost.

  “So you’re here? Damn, that don’t seem right.”

  “Boy, let me tell you something about dying. When it comes down to it, there ain’t but two ways to go—fast or slow. I reckon if you go fast, you pretty much just wake up dead one morning or something like that.” I looked over at Prince, who didn’t give any indication that he was listening. He just sat there like a
stone, but the tightness in his jaw and the little hint of moisture in one eye told me he heard every word and was thinking about his own passing, much too soon and much too sudden.

  “But when you go out slow, every day is like laying ties to the railroad tracks. The train’s coming for you, but it only moves a couple feet every day, and it started a mile off. So you do everything you can do to slow down that ol’ locomotive, but you know no matter what you do, before too long, it’s gonna be right up on you. And when it gets there, it don’t much matter if you’re in a penthouse or a shithouse, you want to be anywhere but in front of that damn train. So yeah, this place ain’t much. But ain’t no place going to be any better, so you might as well just lay there and hope the nurse who comes in to wipe your ass is pretty.”

  I stood there for a minute, just looking at this legend of music, lying in his dingy hospital bed alone, wishing I could do something for him. “Is there anything I can do?” I finally asked.

  “I don’t know why His Royal Purpleness over there brought you to see me, son. So I don’t know what he, or whoever he works for, wants you to do. But I reckon if there’s anything I would want you to do, I’d just say keep the music alive, boy. There’s so much out there nowadays to interfere, but if you want to do anything for me, because I’ve done something good for you sometime, work hard to keep the music alive.”

  I stepped forward and reached out a hand. He clasped it, not with his physical hand, but with that ghostly overlay of his spirit. I looked down at this legend in his last days and said, “I will, sir. I promise.”

  “Thank you, son. I’ll look for your Grandpappy when I cross over. I’ll tell him you said hey.”

  “If you don’t mind, sir?” I looked in his eyes, surprised to find him blurry.

  “What is it, boy?”

  “Tell my brother and my dad that I’m sorry. They’ll know what for.” One big fat tear rolled down my cheek, and I knocked it away with the back of my hand.

  “I will, son. I will. Now I reckon your buddy has somewhere else he wants you to go.” He nodded, and I turned around.

  Prince stood by another one of those glowing purple circles. I let go of the old man’s hand and stepped through the doorway of lavender light, glad this time that my guide didn’t have much to say.

  8

  I stepped out of the circle into a half-empty dive bar advertising PBR specials and “mystery shots” for $2. The beer taps were all domestic, and the liquor quality topped out at Maker’s Mark. No Gentleman Jack or Johnny Walker Blue Label here; this was a joint where people went to get drunk as shit and maybe hear a little bit of music.

  And a little bit of music was all anybody could hear in this dump, too. The acoustics were for absolute shit, and the sound system was a pair of plastic JBL speakers with built-in amplifiers stuck on folding stands at the corners of the “stage.” The band was on a couple of little risers that were basically sheets of plywood nailed to some two-by-fours laid on end. There might have been six inches of elevation, but not more.

  The decor was a mix between Roadhouse and T.G.I.Friday’s, with a bunch of old movie posters, a couple of pool tables with beer lights over them, and a couple dozen stools arranged around the long bar. Most of them wobbled because one or more of the legs had been broken at some point, probably over some dipshit’s head, but it didn’t matter much since most people were doing that whole “sit with one butt cheek on the stool and one foot on the ground” thing that folks do in a bar where they might have to fight or duck with not much notice.

  On the “stage” was a man with a guitar. He was a big man, in his fifties, with close-cropped hair and the build of a man who’s known some days of hard work in his life. His guitar had the look of one that had been banged around in the back of a van on the way to more than one gig, with a strap fraying at the edges and the finish wearing off the edges of the sound hole from getting slapped with a pick for years. I could tell he was a player because I could see his callouses from a dozen feet away, and he tuned by ear, not using any kind of electronic tuner. I was never good enough to hear it. I always had to use a little electronic tuner my mama gave me.

  He finished tuning and stepped up to the battered mic on a straight stand. He adjusted the stand to his height, and it slipped back down. He twisted it again, and it slipped again. Rather than try again, he just reached down to one of the barstools and pulled it up to him. He sat down, lowered the mic, and leaned into it.

  “Hey y’all, welcome to the Dawg. My name is Dave Abbott, and I appreciate all y’all coming out here to see me tonight. And if you ain’t here to see me, then I hope I don’t run you off before you finish your beer.” He chuckled a little, then played a little riff on the guitar, and the second his fingers touched the strings, I could tell that this man wasn’t just a player, he was a damn master.

  Those big ol’ fingers that looked like battered link sausages moved up and down the neck of that guitar like crickets jumping in a bait tube. He noodled the strings, just messing around, picking out the opening to the Green Acres theme song, then jumping into “Dueling Banjos,” then hopping into “Steam-Powered Aeroplane.” I turned to Prince to see what he thought of this dude, but the Purple One just reached up with two fingers and pushed my lower jaw up to close my mouth for me.

  “Damn, dude, that boy can play!” I said. Prince just nodded.

  “I mean, he’s better than most of the people I see on TV or hear on the radio.” Prince just nodded again.

  I watched a little while longer as he covered some bluegrass classic, then ripped into some old blues tunes, like “Red House” and “One Way Out,” then played some original tunes, and damned if the songs he wrote weren’t as killer as his playing. Every once in a while, I would look over at Prince, and every time, he just met my eye and nodded.

  After about forty-five minutes, the singer/songwriter/musical genius leaned into his mic and said, “Y’all go ahead and get another beer. I gotta go pee, and I’ll be back in a few after I wet my own whistle.”

  The half a dozen people who were paying attention clapped, but the other ten people in the bar were seriously dedicated to their mission of getting as absolutely shithoused as they could. He stepped down off the stage, set his guitar on a stand, and walked through the sparse crowd to the bathroom at the back of the building. He was in there for a couple of minutes, then came out drying his hands on his jeans and walked back up to the bar.

  He leaned on the smooth dark oak and motioned the bartender over. I stepped in closer to be able to hear their conversation, figuring if I couldn’t be seen or communicate with anybody, I might as well have a better idea what’s going on around me at least.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get more people in here, Johnny,” the man said as the bartender passed him a Jack Daniels on the rocks and set a Rolling Rock in the bottle beside it.

  “Don’t worry about, Dave. It’s hard to get anybody out on a Tuesday.”

  “I know,” the singer replied. “But sometimes it just feels like people don’t want to come out any night anymore. It’s always been hard, but it seems like it’s been harder and harder the past couple years.”

  “You ain’t wrong, old son,” the man slinging beers agreed. “We used to be able to put three dozen people in here every night, no matter what else was going on in town. Now it’s all we can do to get twenty people for a decent touring act. And that really hurts the locals like you, who might not have as big a name.”

  “I know that’s right, brother. I quit the touring thing a few years ago because I couldn’t afford to keep taking all that time off from my day job. Now I reckon I only play out two or three times a month when I used to do four nights a week, about every week.”

  “And ain’t none of us getting any younger, either,” the bartender said, holding up his own green glass bottle. The two men clinked their Rolling Rocks together, then the bartender’s head whipped to one side.

  “Hey, cut that shit out!” he yelled, and I turned. My Sp
idey-senses went on full alert, but it was nothing supernatural. That was good because it meant that nobody was likely to get eviscerated and eaten in the middle of the bar, but it was also bad because it meant that I probably couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  A skinny man in his mid-twenties was holding up his hands with a classic “Who Me?” look on his face. Next to him was a brown-haired girl with a furious look on her face.

  “Touch me again, you son of a bitch!” she hollered up at the man.

  “Oh, come on, honey, he was just showing his appreciation,” a dark-haired guy with a baseball hat turned around backwards, khaki shorts, flip-flops, and a polo shirt said to the girl.

  “Yeah, baby, that’s all,” the guy she yelled at lowered his hands and moved closer to the girl. He had a little piece of a beard, but only on his chin, with enough crap in his hair to make it onto Project Runway. He also wore the uniform or the Southern Twenty-Something Douchebro—khaki shorts, dress shirt untucked, baseball cap, and flip-flops. I’ve stared down vampires and fought trolls, but there ain’t no way in the world I’d walk around a dive bar in flip-flops. Some of the shit running around on those floors will straight up kill your ass.

  “Showing appreciation does not include putting your hands on my ass, you dick,” the girl said. She was dressed to go out, in a little spaghetti strap top with shorts and sandals. Nothing about her outfit screamed “grab my ass,” and she was letting Douchebro know it in no uncertain terms.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dave move toward the back of the bar where the pool tables, and the altercation, were. He still clutched his Rolling Rock bottle, but I noticed that it was empty, and he had the neck in his clenched fist like he knew how to use it as a weapon in addition to refreshment.

  “Is there a problem here, son?” Dave asked, and his voice was low, but serious. I recognized the voice. I used it myself to calm shit down when I didn’t feel like beating some dumb bastard’s ass but needed him to understand that I not only could, but I would at the slightest provocation.