Chapter 5: Our Rocky Road To Success

We rode to the Buck Horn in the garbage truck again. I figured it would be safer than Homer's old van. There was a fresh crop of screwballs waiting with their pickets. Two motorcycles parted the crowd and we followed them. The other two bikes came along behind. These nuts were a different brand of screwballs. The newspaper owner's wife led the bunch this evening. She had a face what made Janet Reno look downright sexy by comparison.

Two of them tried to lie down in front of the truck. "Run over those cock suckers." My sweet and demure Em was in fine voice already. "At least run over the fat pig faced one's legs. I wanna hear him cry like a baby."

"Naw, I better not, Babe. I ain't got any insurance. Besides, he's a Baptist preacher and I hear it's seven years bad luck to run over one of them." I smiled at her enthusiasm and pulled around the ones in front of us and stopped at the back door.

We got out and the nutty preacher's nuttier wife came running up to us and yelled about how she hoped Emily would have a miscarriage. Brenda came running up and decked the scrawny assed vicious bitch and the rest of the nuts came screaming for our blood. Those bikers just plain old beat the shit out of everybody within reach. I reached back in the truck and pulled out my old forty-five and shot once in the air. That sucker sounded like a cannon going off, the way it echoed back there between the roadhouse and the big old building what used to be a barn and was now a storage depot for illegal whiskey. Everybody stopped.

In a conversational tone of voice I said, "I am going to shoot the next son of a bitch who raises a hand toward any one of us. This shit must cease right now."

Delicate and gentle Emily reached over and tried to take the gun away from me and it went off. The slug passed between two of the religious nuts and hit a case of beer one of the bar maids was carrying from the liquor room to the bar. It exploded in a cloud of foam and the barmaid took off running, all hysterical, covered all over with beer foam her own self. Everybody stopped still.

"Gimme your goddamned gun. I'm gonna kill me a son of a bitch or two. I want to kill me a preacher. Give me your fucking gun, Wilbur, right now."

I raised it up in the air out of her eager, pregnant reach and said tenderly, "Let's go make some music, hon." We filed on in and the bikers ran the church nuts off. Then they came in and Moose took the freaked out barmaid aside and calmed her down. That big Moose dude started to lick the beer foam off the barmaid. Brenda looked at what was happening and hurried over to lend a hand, or in this case a tongue. That bar maid must have liked it, because she sure as hell wasn't arguing. She stood quietly and purred like a kitten.

We were a little more shook up than we thought and our opening number, an old Tex Ritter piece, was pretty ragged. Homer was clumsy on the guitar and I couldn't find the right note with a magnifying glass.

Poor sensitive Emily just threw up her arms in despair and yelled at the crowd, "Is there an idiot in the house? That would be an improvement on who I see out there in the audience tonight." The whole place got real quiet. You could almost hear the smoke rise from the ashtrays it was so quiet.

"I mean," she continued, "Here we bust our asses to get here tonight to entertain you. A bunch of religious crazies attack us in the parking lot. My Wilbur here wouldn't even kill one of the bastards for me and the cops aren't even going to just arrest them and take them to jail or just plain old shoot them. Now this place is so crowded there is standing room only in here. Did you come to hear us sing? Hell no you didn't. You came because some guy was seen eating pussy in the back booth over there."

She pointed at the back, the very darkest corner in the place and everybody turned to look. As luck would have it some guy was nuzzling his date between her legs on the table in the darkened corner. As soon as she saw what was going on, Emily just shook her head and said, "Aw shit." She shook her head and sat down. Walt ran over to the couple who was enjoying a sexual respite and told them how as soon as they were finished, they would have to stop and leave.

Homer started laughing, Connie started laughing and I had to grin. Then I quit grinning real fast. The camera crew from KHMPTV was there, recording the whole thing. We found out later they had also taped the fight we had with the religious nuts out in the parking lot. When I saw me waving my forty-five around out there in the parking lot on TV later, I thought I looked real heroic. Connie said I looked dumb. But, what the hell? She can't be right all the time.

Connie told Homer to play something loud and fast. So he did the Flight Of The Bumble Bee on his old Gibson. I once heard Roy Clark clink on Malaguena, but old Homer Carville started out slow and gentle and kept going faster and faster until you would have sworn there were three guitars playing and a whole hive of bees in the Buck Horn the way he was going on. That was the night I found out Homer wasn't just a great musician, he was way up there in a class of his very own.

The whole crowd just turned away from the lovers in the corner and stared up at the stage and Homer. When he hit the final notes, there was silence and first one person started to clap and then another and another until the whole place was clapping and cheering and yelling, "More. More."

Homer smiled and said into the mike, "Folks, I seem to have cut my finger on a string, here. Anybody got a band-aid? His ring finger on his left hand was sure enough bleeding. Walt ran and got a Band Aid and Homer stuck it on his finger. The crowd was quiet, but waiting.

Em and I started to sing, "You Can't Be True Dear" and Homer just sort of chorded his accompaniment. When we finished up, Homer put the Gibson down and went over to the old upright piano and said into his throat mike, "I seem to have cut the hell out of my finger so I'm going to beat up on this defenseless old Piano and give that finger a rest."

He hit a chord and grinned. Somebody had put carpet tacks through the felts on the hammers and the piano sounded like an old rinky tinky honky-tonk piano. He grinned and started to do some old Jerry Lee Lewis numbers. Emily and I sang "Whole Lot Of Shakin' Goin On." and some others. I had forgotten how good Homer was on the piano. We were off and running.

After the first set Homer called one of the bikers over and asked him to make a run into Humper and get him a finger stall for his cut finger. "I just don't feel right making noise without my old guitar." Brenda went. It is twenty-eight miles each way between Humper and the Buck Horn. She made the round trip and had the fingerstalls in almost exactly a half hour. "I hurried." was all she said.

Now what none of us knew was the dude from the record company was back with his crew. When I saw all the cameras, I thought they were every one from the TV station. Hell no. TV station WHMPTV had sent one guy with a hand held. All of the big time professional equipment was from TruWest Recordings. Instead of just doing a demo, they had decided to tape the whole show. Connie caught on first and went over and started wheeling and dealing.

"Go Blue Grass." Connie yelled and we started with "Trail Of The Lonesome Pine," and followed it with "Arkansas Traveler."

"Blood On The Highway," Homer yelled over the noise and Emily called "Love On The Wind." Hell I hadn't heard that one in years. I shrugged and she said, "I'll do it solo." I had forgotten how sweet she could sing when she gets some of her extra special quality in her voice. She is just outstanding.

Any way, for the last set we did old timey state waltzes, starting with the Kentucky Waltz and ending with the Tennessee Waltz. We finished off with "The Waltz You Saved For Me and sent 'em home with "Good Night Ladies." As the last drunk was poured into his pickup truck where he would find himself funneled into a traffic trap, Homer said. "By Jesus, I never knew how much work this entertainment business really could be."

Walt came bustling up to us with a check in his hand and asked, "Who do I give this to?"

Before the last word was out of his mouth, Connie had slipped the check out from between his fingers and was tucking it away in her bra. "Aren't you even going to look at it?" Walt asked.

"No need to, Walter," Connie told him sweetly, "If you short us we are out of here and on down the road. I can get almost double what you're paying us now since we are all celebrities. I trust you, Walter." She grinned and walked over to where Homer was looking at her strangely. "Let's go home."

I turned to Walt and said, "Why don't you hire the big biker gal to tend bar? You need someone who can keep the drinks flowing and the big gal looks like she can." I started to turn away and then added, "I told the bikers I'd talk to you about hiring them for as long as we play here to keep trouble from happening. They gave you a little freebie demonstration this evening. You want more of them keeping things quiet in here you're going to have to pay 'em."

"Well, hell, Wilbur, I don't know. What with what I'm paying you guys, I ain't going to make any money if I have to pay it right back out to extra help." Old Walt could whine with the best of 'em.

"Goddam you, Walter Deaver, you are one cheap son of a bitch. Once she recovered from the tonguing Moose and Brenda gave her, your poor bar maid Janet, ran herself into the ground. You sold more booze tonight alone than you ever sold before on any two weeks combined. You ran out of brand name whiskey and was serving some of your cheap bootleg corn whiskey as everything from Crown Royal to Jack Daniels. Your bartender said he was going to quit if he didn't get some help and you want to cry poor mouth."

Then Emily came up with an idea, "Walt, why don't you charge a five dollar cover charge on the nights you are having live entertainment?"

"I'm sure glad I thought of that." he answered her. "We'll start tomorrow night."

We headed on out and aimed ourselves for home and bed. Any way, it was our intention to hit the sack. Those goofy bikers were all buzzed up "to have a real gig and get to make like security dudes and bang heads legal." was how Moose, the other biker put it. Nothing would have it but what they had to come home with us and party.

We cracked a keg and drank it down and I sent the bikers home with another keg. Brenda balanced the keg on her shoulder and rode her bike one handed all the way to their pad. She was something else. I decided I didn't want to get into a stand up knock 'em down fight with her. She was one tough dude.

The next evening when we came in, I learned something else. She looked damned good in a bikini. I walked up to her and said in my most seductive voice, "You are one fine looking woman. What would it take to get inside your bikini you got on?"

"A six pack and my good will," she answered.

"How about a couple of kegs of beer, a quart of good corn and I throw in Connie to boot?" See? I told you I was a slick tongued old country boy.

"Sounds great to me," she answered, "And if you sit up and beg I might even let you watch."

"You mean you don't want to sample my manly charms?" I asked her all coy like.

"My uncle Rafe has more charm than you and he's a geek in a carnival. You ain't never shown me any manly, neither you or your buddy Homer. I mean, what kind of a man is named Homer?"

"Homer." I yelled, "get your ass over here."

He had been watching me do my masterful best to get in her crotch and not getting anywhere. "What's the' matter, good buddy, doesn't the lady wish to play?"

"Homer, show her your manly," I told him. This lady needed some reality.

"What you mean, right here? Wilbur, there is a crowd here in the bar. The' place is filling up. Maybe later." She sneered.

"She has been casting dispersions on your manhood, boy." Hah. I knew that would get him.

Without him saying another word, he whipped his old Johnson out, slowly but surely. "Holy shit." she exclaimed, when does it stop coming out? Is it real?"

Finally when he had it all hauled out, it hung down in front of him. "Grab it," I told her. This is where the fun began.

She grabbed hold of it and the damned old thing just started growing harder and longer and bigger around until it stuck straight out in front of him. She never let go.