Chapter 15

Well it's a one for the money
Two for the show
Three to get ready now go cat go
But don't you
Step on my blue suede shoes
You can do anything but stay offa my blue suede shoes...

I'm sure that the recent talk about Elvis had a little to do with the song selection, and even though "Rolling Stone" magazine puts Carl Perkins' version at number ninety-five on its list of the five hundred greatest hits and Elvis' version at number four-hundred and twenty-three I still stayed closer to Elvis' rendition. I didn't quite go with his faster tempo but it was up from Carl's pace. One part of the Elvis version I always avoided like the plague though was that ignorant ass guitar solo. It's always sounded so bad to me that I figure they might have actually let Elvis play it.

As I finished I intended to move right into another one but I couldn't for all the noise the others were making with their clapping. Hell, they didn't have to clap for me here in the house, that was just dumb to my way of thinking but they claimed later that they couldn't help it. It was going to be a long night if they kept that crap up.

Finally I got them to be quiet by just going to the next one. I'll admit I started a little louder than I normally would but it worked. I was trying to tone it down a little now and a good love song seemed right, even though I knew damned well there were no songs worth mentioning about one man loving five women.

At last.
My love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
At last.
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clover
The night I looked at you...

"At Last" was a song I loved myself, except for the heart wrapped up in clover phrase, but I'd tried dozens of times to think of a better line to switch in there and I couldn't get it done. I wasn't a bit ashamed to change a song I sang if I thought what I had to say was better, but I couldn't think of a damned thing to let me get clover out of the song. Of course I was doing my best to mock Etta James' version of "At last" - I don't balk at copying the best.

I noticed that the males in my small audience weren't that enthusiastic about this one but I didn't care. The women, all of them, ate it right up and damned if they didn't all have dreamy looks on their faces. I had to get 'em out of that mood or they'd haul the men, except Scotty, off right away. That would be enough of a hint for even Scotty and I'd be left alone with five women who would be ready to wear my poor ass right out.

I'd learned a long time ago that when you play and sing for small groups, if you're any good and you sing love songs, you're going to get some interest from the women. If there are some listening that are unattached at the moment, chances are you'll end up talking to them and maybe more. I'm sure it's one of the reasons guys like to sing. It has its drawbacks though.

For one thing, don't sing love songs to fat girls under any circumstances, unless they really trip your trigger. Any fool that can sing a note can get laid right away if he shows his stuff in a group that has an unattached chubby girl in it. One dose of "Love Me Tender" will have her panties wet and you'll have a fight on your hands later if you aren't willing.

I know it sounds mean of me to say it, and it's always seemed a little sad to me. Yes, fat girls need love too, but they don't do anything for me and I hated that I couldn't even sing many love songs around 'em because I knew it would end up making them feel worse.

That sounds pretty conceited of me for sure, but it was a lesson I'd learned the hard way more than once. Luckily for me there was little danger of anything like that happening on this world. With the way most people had been scratching and clawing for their next meal chances were slim I'd encounter a girl that was even what you might call pleasingly plump.

No doubt about it, the time was right for an instrumental and since I was the only one with an instrument I didn't have any trouble getting it off the ground. I gave them a good dose of "Apologies to Pearly."

I bought "Rio Grande Mud" by ZZ Top as soon as I could find it and took the album right home to pick out the song. I loved it, although I didn't do it exactly the way they did. Hell, I couldn't, especially tonight because there was only one of me and I didn't want to fuck with changing to an electric guitar right now. My impromptu audience loved it anyway and it broke that starry eyed mood I'd put the women in.

For my next trick I did "I've Got Friends In Low Places." I knew I couldn't go wrong with it, and a little of Garth Brooks' stuff never hurt anybody. I damned sure wasn't about to sing "Shameless" for 'em. The only thing worse I thought I could sing right now was "Yesterday" and I didn't intend to go there either.

I was nearly ready for my first little concert to be over by now and I nearly sang them Gary P. Nunn's classic "London Homesick Blues" but though I loved the song I always got sad myself when I sang it. Not because of the song but because it made me miss the Armadillo, Castle Creek, and half a dozen bars in Austin were a few years ago you could go get drunk and listen to some damned good live country music, but they were all gone now.

Damn, I wished I hadn't even thought of the fucking song because it made me realize that now I couldn't even go down for a night at The Broken Spoke any more. Those damned spacemen had cut me off from that too.

Pack up all the dishes
Make note of all good wishes
Say goodbye to the landlord for me
Sons-a-bitches always bore me.
Throw out those L A papers
Moldy box of vanilla wafers
Adios to all this concrete
Gonna get me some dirt road back street

If I can just get off of this L A freeway
Without gettin' killed or caught
Down the road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought...

I've always thought "L A Freeway" was one of the best songs Jerry Jeff Walker ever wrote. I know it was no "Mr Bojangles" but still, I really liked it. I don't know why it never caught on so big. Hell, I even liked to sing it, but damned if it didn't make me think of the time I saw him talking to Charlie Dunn in Capital Saddlery and that got me thinkin' of good times in Austin again which led me to think of Nancy, an exotically cute, big tittied, dishwater blonde waitress at the Spoke. The fucking spacemen had cured those ills for me too though, and then I got really sad when I realized I'd never even see Texas again.

I guess they could see that something I didn't care much for crossed my mind because when I put the Gibson in the case no one even asked any questions. They all told me they loved it and of course I promised I'd do it again soon, after I caught up on my practicing. Hell, it was as good an excuse as any, and I knew myself I'd get over this little shot of the blues the memories gave me. If I didn't I could sing some blues and that would fix me up sooner or later.

Then I remembered I'd be feeling a lot better as soon as everyone that didn't live in the bus with us went home. I'd be alone with five women and I was bound to get plenty of pussy, whether I needed it or not.

Soon enough it was me and my lovelies alone in the bus. They marched me right off to the bedroom and showed me that they appreciated my short show. They knew the best way to make sure I didn't have any trouble dropping off to sleep.

The next morning when I woke I had the strangest compulsion to go outside. It even nagged hell out of me while I was trying to take a piss then it worried me the whole time I was trying to get some clothes on so I could go outside.

The reason for it was easy to see when I did get the door open and walk out. There was some kind of obvious space travel type contraption sitting not fifty feet from my door. I could tell it was the cause of my compulsion.

The damned thing reminded me of Doctor Who's Tardis. It didn't have divided light glazing all around but it was the same general size and shape as a London phone booth.

Thankfully this thing couldn't or didn't do me like they'd done out in the woods near Pine Bluff. I didn't have any trouble saying no way Jose to this alien phone booth. It kept up the annoying siren's song though but I didn't think it could make me comply.

If I ever saw the union men from my first trip, the ones that helped me out so, I was going to kiss them. I'd no sooner wondered what in the hell the thing was than a full description popped into my handy dandy information area.

The gizmo was a man size transportation unit. They were commonly used to carry one person to or from a drone satellite in orbit. All the ships like the one I'd been brought here in had them available also, but those ships hardly ever used them because they could simply transport from surface to orbit and vice versa.

The drone satellite was new to me too, but the info told me it was about half the size of the ship I'd ridden. They had life support for as many as twelve of the spacemen or eight humans, though they rarely contained any of either. The question before the court now was what in the hell did they want me up there for if no one else was.

Whatever they wanted, they weren't going to get anytime soon. By now I liked it just fine down here, especially since breakfast would surely be appearing soon. I went back in the bus to cheer the cooks on even though the thing kept bothering me.

All the women were up but only Karen and Stacy were in the kitchen doing anything for the good of my stomach. The other three were still in the bedroom or bathroom getting ready for their appearance no doubt.

"What were you doing outside? Is something going on this early?" Stacy asked.

"Something's going on alright. Some kind of one man space ship came down to pick me up," I said.

"What?" both of them asked at the same time.

"It's a little bigger than a phone booth and it's broadcasting some kind of compulsion into my head trying to get me to climb aboard," I said.

"How can you keep from it? They did me the same way and made me do things whether I wanted to or not," Karen said.

"They did the same to me, but this isn't that kind of compulsion. Gimme a second to read more about it," I said.

They looked at me like I was crazy so I explained about the info the union men had stuffed in my head and then I shut up and started concentrating on the damned instruction manual that came up.

Damn, the info ran to five hundred pages or so and I'd just about resigned myself to reading the whole damned thing when I found an index that showed me the way to the summary.

The main point was the machine couldn't force me inside it because it wasn't big enough and it also mentioned some specific regulations for this particular experimental planet project. I called those regulations up and then laughed to myself after reading the best part as far as I was concerned.

The information was short on details about what this damned experiment was, but the rules covering our participation were specific about several things. For one thing, we couldn't be pestered without our permission once we were down here, and the type of transport outside was the only one they were allowed to use for fetching people back off the planet.