The Adventures of Slim & Howdy
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The Adventures of Slim & Howdy CD New
Release date: May 12, 2008
Publisher: Center Street
Print pages: 272
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The Adventures of Slim & Howdy
Kix Brooks
1
A SUN-FADED BLUE CHEVY PICKUP WAS ROLLING DOWN A RED dirt road. No, faded sounds too nice, like a pair of jeans you’ve been waiting to get just right. Besides, it wasn’t just that the deep admiral blue had oxidized into a pale imitation of itself. Point was, this truck was a beater. It had rust holes in the wheel wells, bullet holes in the side, a hole where the antenna used to be, and a wrecked quarter panel that looked like a sheet of crumpled construction paper.
The front bumper hung at the angle of a crooked smile, there were two busted spotlights mounted on the cab, and the passenger door had come from a different truck altogether, which explained why it was pale orange.
In other words, the truck was a survivor from a time when pickups were things used for work on the ranch or the farm, not for tooling around Boston or Miami, or for towing a fifth wheel, a pleasure boat, two Jet Skis, and an ATV. It was built at a time when trucks didn’t come in feminine taffy colors with extended cabs, heated seats, and DVD players. They were made of real metal, not alloy, and they had bumpers like steel I-beams that would bust a hole in a cinder block wall if you hit it right or gave it a couple of shots.
If you were towing anything it was cattle to market or a horse trailer or maybe a bass boat. It had a bench seat, a busted AM-FM radio, and brackets where an eight-track tape player was once proudly mounted. It was a relic from a different age, held together with duct tape, bailing wire, Bondo, and the occasional prayer.
Somewhat like the dark haired guy at the wheel. Howdy looked like the kind who might’ve spent some time on the back of a tractor or a cutting horse or maybe both at one point or another in his day. He wore a black Resistol, a Cowboy Classic with a three-piece silver-tone buckle clasp that gave the impression of a guy familiar with working outdoors and, at the same time, one who wasn’t unfamiliar with the inside of a honky-tonk.
As he steered that beater down the road, Howdy couldn’t believe he was still thinking about her. Marilyn Justine, the kind of girl who makes you shake your head later in life. There’d been a time when, if you’d asked him, and if he knew you well enough, he would have said the thing he loved about that girl was her unpredictability. And he’d have stuck to that story right up until she disappeared without any warning or explanation, let alone any reason he could think of. Would’ve been nice if she’d left a note, he thought, maybe some hints on self-improvement, if that was the problem, or that margarita recipe he liked so. But she was long gone, last seen in a crowded coffee shop south of San Jose, according to those who had caught a glimpse.
Howdy looked in the rearview at the cloud of dust he was leaving like a smoke signal to the state of Louisiana that said he’d be back someday, but first he had some things to do.
With Lake Charles over one shoulder and Sulphur over the other, he was heading for Beaumont, Texas, where he heard he might get a better price for his truck, maybe enough to get a good horse to put under the saddle that was bouncing around in the bed behind him. Be nice to put a little folding money in his pocket and get work someplace where all you need is a horse and a stake, like it was for a cowboy in the old days. This was the sort of idealized notion that appealed to Howdy. Truth was, he’d always been a bit of a romantic, it was one of the things that Marilyn Justine had liked about him.
Howdy rested his arm on the beat-up guitar case propped up in the passenger seat like an old friend sleeping one off. He looked down the road and wondered if he was heading toward something or if he was just leaving something behind. Either way, he figured he might get a good song out of all this. He’d be sure to keep his eyes and ears open for the lyrics.
2
SLIM HAD WORKED HIS WAY FROM WEST TEXAS TO EAST FOR no particular reason other than it was easier to steer straight than it was to turn around. At least that’s how it had started, before that business at Diablo’s Cantina back in Del Rio. After that, with help from some friends who were keeping their ears to the ground for him, he headed east because that’s where he needed to go. That’s where the thing had ended up. East Texas.
Started out on old Highway 90, heading for Hondo, doing all he could to stay off the interstates, not because his old car—a tattered and worn ’69 Chevy Nova SS, metal flake blue with a black vinyl interior, four on the floor with a Hurst stick, and 396 horses—couldn’t handle the high speeds anymore, but because he preferred the scenery offered by the older roads, the Blue Highways as somebody called them a long time ago. He took the long way around San Antonio, past the Verna-Anacacho oil field and down to Jourdanton where he saw the fine old Atascosa County Courthouse.
You can talk all you want about how big Texas is, Slim thought, but until you go across the thing side to side, you have no idea. He just hoped the old Chevy would get him where he was going, which, according to his friends, was somewhere near the Louisiana line.
He’d had the Chevy as long as he could remember, a used gift from his grandmother on his eighteenth birthday. He’d wrecked it good one time, but somehow put it back together. The odometer had retired years ago with two hundred one thousand and change on it. In fact the only gauge that still worked was the temp, always leaning toward overheating. The old engine gave him a scare outside Corpus Christi, a bad case of blue smoke trailing out the pipe for a minute before he hit a pothole and, honest to goodness, it seemed to fix whatever was wrong. He gave the dashboard a pat and kept on driving, though with slightly more clench to his cheeks. He skirted around the sprawl called Houston, gave Galveston a passing thought and Glen Campbell came to mind.
He took the ferry over to Port Bolivar then drove old 87 with the Gulf of Mexico keeping him company on the right. Straight ahead was Port Arthur, and just like that he thought of Janis Joplin singing about how she wished the Lord would buy her a Mercedes-Benz, a color TV, and a night on the town. Yeah, Slim thought, me too. Except he’d skip on the Benz and take a new truck, one of those fancy Silverados maybe, long as the Lord was buying.
He skirted north to Bridge City, where a friend told him he needed to head over to Beaumont. That’s where he’d find the thing he was looking for. He crossed the Beaumont city limits, saw a sign that read, “Texas with a little something extra.” Extra what, he wondered. Maybe it was the spirit of George Jones. And then he started singing in his head, “B double E double R you in?” Always liked that one.
The blue smoke started up again about a mile later. Slim looked for another pothole but things were paved pretty smooth on that particular edge of Beaumont. That ain’t to say it was the glamorous side of town, at least Slim hoped it wasn’t, just bars, cheap motels, and used-car lots. And it looked like Slim was going to have to do a bit of business on this stretch of road before he went on to take care of that other thing.
3
RED’S USED CARS WASN’T A BIG OPERATION. JUST AN OLD trailer with Red inside and a couple dozen cars and trucks sitting under a few tired strings of red-white-and-blue pennants outside. The lot itself couldn’t have been more than a half acre, all cracked asphalt, cigarette butts, and Styrofoam burger boxes lodged against the cyclone fence like modern-day tumbleweeds. Red boasted a fine selection of pre-owned vehicles, if by pre-owned you meant something with more than ninety-five thousand miles on. Red was always quick to throw in a clean cardboard box to put underneath to catch the drips.
Slim got there first. Climbed out of the Nova, unfolded his six feet plus, and got a long overdue stretch. Then he just leaned against the side of his car waiting for someone to come out of the trailer and make him an offer, like he was Jeff Gordon sitting on the hood of his number twenty-four DuPont Chevrolet.
Howdy pulled up a few minutes later and saw the tall, thin stranger in the black jeans and T-shirt and dark glasses. The guy wore a short brown leather jacket and boots that had seen better days. No hat, but plenty of hair, on top of his head and all around his mouth in the form of a thick goatee, and of a rusty color that made sense, given the sign over the used-car lot.
Howdy got out of the truck and approached the guy. Nobody else around, so he said, “You Red?”
Slim shook his head. “Thought you might be.”
“Nope.” Howdy extended his hand and said, “Howdy.”
“Howdy,” Slim said back, shaking the hand.
“No, that’s my name. Howdy. What about you?”
“Oh. Call me Slim,” he said.
“And you can both call me Red.” They turned to see a bullfrog of a man hopping down the steps from the trailer. “What can I do you for?”
Turned out both men wanted to sell. Neither was looking to trade up or down. Slim just wanted to get enough money to get cab fare so he could go take care of his business. He’d worry about transportation later.
Howdy just wanted to get enough cash to buy a horse or a bus ticket, or hell, he’d even take a job selling used cars if there was some money in it. But Red wasn’t hiring. What Red was doing was trying to play Slim against Howdy and vice versa.
Red talked pretty fast, trying to get both of them down on the price they’d be willing to take for their vehicles. “Fellas, it’s a simple matter of supply and demand,” he said. “Right now I got a bad case of the former and none of the latter.” Without so much as a cursory look at either vehicle, Red started talking about the obvious transmission problems, and the cracked heads, and the valve jobs, and the twisted differential, and so forth, lowering his offer with each imaginary problem, and before long it started to sound like an auction going in reverse.
Howdy gave Slim a look that cast a dark shadow on Red’s character. He nodded to his left and said, “Can I talk to you a minute?”
“Y’all go on,” Red said. “I’ll be in the trailer.”
Howdy waited until the man was out of earshot. “Tell you the truth,” he said. “I don’t think we’re gonna get fair market value from Red here. In fact, I think if we stay here much longer we’re gonna end up paying him.”
“You might be right,” Slim said.
“And then where we gonna be?”
“Up that creek.”
They sized each other up as they talked. Slim took as a good sign the fact that Howdy had a guitar and a nice saddle that looked like it had been taken care of. That he reminded Slim of Frank Zappa with a cowboy hat was interesting but neither here nor there.
The thing Howdy liked about Slim was his easygoing confidence. He seemed like a no-nonsense kind of guy. Serious without being prickly. Accountable. Couldn’t understand why he didn’t wear a hat, but, as he knew, people were funny.
Slim rapped his knuckles on the roof of the old Nova and said, “This has been a good ride, but I don’t think I’d trust it to get as far as Sabine Lake. How’s yours?”
“Runs better than she looks,” Howdy said. “Probably got another hundred thousand in her, long as she gets her oil.”
They talked for a few minutes before they agreed they’d be better off working together than working at odds. And they’d sure be better off if they had at least one vehicle between them. So they decided to ride together for a while, partner up, as it were.
They sold the Nova SS, split the money, and agreed to put both their names on the title to Howdy’s truck. “Fair enough,” Slim said.
And off they went.
4
AS THEY EASED OUT OF RED’S USED CARS, HOWDY SAID, “Where to?”
Slim pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and pointed up the road. “I gotta see a guy about something.”
“Okay,” Howdy said, putting the truck in gear. “But I was thinking more about the long term. You know, hopes, dreams, aspirations, destinations. That sort of thing.”
“Oh,” Slim said. “That’ll have to wait till after.”
“Fine by me.”
Slim gave Howdy directions that led to the Settler’s Cove Apartments, a few miles farther on. When they got there, Howdy pulled to the curb. He leaned out the window, looking at the thirty-six units of modest floor plans, thin walls, and a place to hang your satellite dish. “Not exactly my cup of tea,” Howdy said. “I don’t like living so close to people that I know their TV and bathroom habits.”
As Slim got out of the truck he said, “Nobody’s asking you to move here.”
“Good point.”
It was late afternoon. A young Mexican guy wearing a two-tone straw cowboy hat was cutting the grass around the complex.
As they headed down the sidewalk, Howdy kept up a steady stream of small talk, trying to pry a few words from his new pal. He nodded at the guy pushing the mower. “Ever do yard work for a living?”
“Yep.”
“Me too,” Howdy said. “Longest summer of my life. Tough way to make the rent.” He paused to see if Slim had anything to add on the subject. He didn’t. Then Howdy said, “So, who’re we visiting?”
“A guy I know.”
Slim tended to keep his answers short, as if instructed by his attorney not to give more information than absolutely necessary. He sometimes answered Howdy’s question with one of his own.
Like when Howdy said, “What kind of work you do?”
And Slim gave a shrug. “What kind you got?”
Like that.
As they passed by the landscaper’s truck, Slim casually grabbed a pair of hedge clippers, never breaking his step. He snapped them a couple of times and seemed satisfied they’d do.
“Whatcha gone do with those?” Howdy’s tone indicated he didn’t see any trouble coming, which meant he needed either his eyes or his head examined.
“Trim this guy’s shrubs,” Slim said.
As they climbed the stairs to the second floor, Howdy couldn’t help but say, “Must be some tall ones.”
They walked down past two, three, four apartments before Slim stopped in front of number 206. He leaned toward the door and listened for a second, heard the television. Sounded like Dr. Phil. Howdy turned to look down at a couple of pretty girls sitting by the pool. He tipped his hat when one of them looked up his way and gave a friendly wave.
Slim reached back, put his hand on the rail behind him, then, much to Howdy’s surprise, he kicked the door wide open and charged inside. The girls down at the pool seemed surprised too. They jumped up and moved, not to get away from any trouble so much as to get a better view of it. Girls like that.
Howdy wasn’t sure what the next best thing to do was, so he tipped his hat again and followed Slim inside, where he found a steely-eyed man with both hands raised, a TV remote in one, a beer in the other.
A quick look told Howdy this guy was bad luck and trouble. Third-degree burn scars all around his mouth gave him a painful, waxy sneer. His nose, bent and humped, looked like it had been broken more times than a politician’s promise. He was a mad dog disciple of violence and retribution with one droopy eye and the overall countenance of a man who drank to get the crawl off his skin. Seemed half biker, half roughneck, and all crazy.
Slim had him backed against a wall with the hedge trimmers aimed low. He gave a smirk and said, “Brushfire Boone, how you doin’?”
“The name’s Boone Tate,” the waxy sneer said. “And I knew I shoulda killed you back in Del Rio.”
“As I recall, you hadn’t drunk enough courage that night,” Slim said.
It was fair to say none of this was on the list of things Howdy had been expecting. He said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s going on?”
“Taking care of some business,” Slim said, without turning around. “Doesn’t involve you.”
“Well, now, to the extent anybody saw me come in here with you, I think it does. I mean, I’m not a lawyer, don’t really like ’em much, but I’ve seen some Court TV and, well, why don’t we all just take a minute and calm down?” Howdy looked at the man with the droopy eye, aimed a thumb at the kitchen, and said, “Hey, champ, you got a couple more cold ones in there?”
Boone nodded once. His eyes never left the dirty hedge clippers.
Howdy, standing at the open fridge, called out, “Slim, he’s got regular and lite, you care one way or another? You don’t look like you need the lite, but maybe that’s why you’re kinda thin in the first place.”
When Slim turned to tell Howdy to shut the hell up, Brushfire Boone jammed that TV remote in between the blades of the hedge trimmers and produced a knife of bowie proportions. It was long and sharp enough to lead directly to a Mexican standoff, each man taking jabs and swipes at the other, but unable to gain an advantage.
Howdy calmly watched the action while sipping on his beer and shaking his head at the turn of events. Finally he set the beer down and told this Brushfire Boone to “Drop it!”
When Slim and Brushfire turned, they were both surprised to see Howdy with a pistol trained in their general direction. “I said drop it.”
The bowie knife fell to the floor. There was a tone of incredulity in Slim’s voice when he said, “You have a gun?”
“Well, it ain’t a weed whacker,” was Howdy’s response.
“Is it loaded?”
Howdy aimed it at the fridge, pulled the trigger. Bang! Like a clap of thunder, a .32 slug right through the door. “Oh, man, I’m sorry,” Howdy said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I think I just put a hole in your crisper.” He opened the door, looked. “Awww, got your mustard too.”
Slim said, “Why didn’t you tell me you had a gun?”
“First of all, you didn’t ask,” Howdy said. “Second, you didn’t tell me you were going to kick in this man’s door and threaten to make him a soprano with a pair of dirty hedge clippers.”
“He stole my guitar.” Slim pointed at the instrument leaning in the corner of the apartment. It was an old Martin D-28 with the dark Brazilian rosewood.
“That’s a beauty.” Howdy seemed pleasantly surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me you played guitar?”
“You didn’t ask.” A little peppery in his reply.
Howdy stepped a little closer and said to the man, “Did you steal his guitar?”
“Yeah, but only after he stole my girl.”
“Tch.” Howdy looked at Slim with a hint of disapproval. “You stole his girl?”
“Not stole so much as . . . ended up with,” Slim said. “ And not for long, either. Fact, if I knew where she was, I’d bring her back for a trade. But she wasn’t big on forwarding addresses.”
Howdy smiled and said, “I think I know that girl, or somebody like her anyway.” He began to think about Marilyn Justine and her margarita recipe again before he pointed the .32 at Brushfire Boone and said, “You know, in my experience, if you steal a musical instrument every time a girl leaves you for another man, you’re gonna end up with a damn symphony orchestra or something.” He pointed at the television. “Dr. Phil probably tell you to find some other way to express your anger.” Howdy nodded toward the Martin, said, “Slim, go on and get it.”
Slim took the guitar, put it in the case, and said, “I think I’m entitled to gas money, having to come all this way to get what’s mine.”
In the distance, Howdy heard a siren. “Well, I can see your point, but I think you might just have to write that off, unless you want to continue this in the lobby of the Gray Bar Motel in beautiful downtown Beaumont.”
Slim heard the siren too. “Yeah, all right. Let’s go.” He made to throw a punch at Brushfire Boone but pulled it, just wanted to make him flinch. “Far as I’m concerned, we’re square now,” Slim said. Then he turned to follow Howdy out the door.
Last thing they heard was Brushfire Boone yelling, “This ain’t over yet!”
With the sirens approaching, Slim and Howdy left the apartment complex a little faster than they arrived. Howdy tipped his hat again when he saw those two girls from the pool. They were stuffing their towels and whatnot into tote bags, fixing to leave, almost as fast as Slim and Howdy. But they took the time to smile and give another friendly wave.
As they passed a trash can, Howdy dropped the .32 in like it was an empty soda bottle.
Slim couldn’t believe it. “You just gonna throw that away?”
Howdy shrugged. “Ain’t mine.”
“What do you mean it ain’t yours?”
“Oh, it was on that fella’s kitchen table. I was just borrowin’ it.”
5
AS THEY WERE SCOOTING BOOTS DOWN THE SIDEWALK, HOWDY noticed the Mexican guy rooting through the tools in the bed of his truck like he’d lost something. Howdy nudged the guy and said, “Hey, if you’re looking for them hedge clippers”—he pointed back at the apartments—“that fella up in 206 stole ’em.”
The man gave Howdy a funny glance and a suspicious “Gracias.”
“De nada.”
As they approached their truck, Slim held out his hand. “Gimme the keys.”
“That’s all right,” Howdy said, missing the point. “I don’t mind driving.”
“I think we oughta alternate.”
“What?”
“It means take turns,” Slim said, putting his guitar case in the back. “Truck’s half mine, ain’t it?”
“Fine by me.” Howdy tossed him the keys. “Just don’t drive outta here too fast.”
Slim started the truck and said, “Cops are responding to shots fired, and you want me to dawdle?”
Howdy hung an elbow out the window and said, “We don’t wanna draw too much attention’s all I’m saying.”
“Here’s a tip,” Slim said as he pulled away from the curb. “When you’re trying to be inconspicuous, don’t be taking potshots at people’s appliances.”
Despite the truth of the observation, Howdy seemed a little insulted by it. “Now, first of all,” he said, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded. And second—” He stopped when he saw the two cop cars come racing around the corner heading in their direct. . .
A SUN-FADED BLUE CHEVY PICKUP WAS ROLLING DOWN A RED dirt road. No, faded sounds too nice, like a pair of jeans you’ve been waiting to get just right. Besides, it wasn’t just that the deep admiral blue had oxidized into a pale imitation of itself. Point was, this truck was a beater. It had rust holes in the wheel wells, bullet holes in the side, a hole where the antenna used to be, and a wrecked quarter panel that looked like a sheet of crumpled construction paper.
The front bumper hung at the angle of a crooked smile, there were two busted spotlights mounted on the cab, and the passenger door had come from a different truck altogether, which explained why it was pale orange.
In other words, the truck was a survivor from a time when pickups were things used for work on the ranch or the farm, not for tooling around Boston or Miami, or for towing a fifth wheel, a pleasure boat, two Jet Skis, and an ATV. It was built at a time when trucks didn’t come in feminine taffy colors with extended cabs, heated seats, and DVD players. They were made of real metal, not alloy, and they had bumpers like steel I-beams that would bust a hole in a cinder block wall if you hit it right or gave it a couple of shots.
If you were towing anything it was cattle to market or a horse trailer or maybe a bass boat. It had a bench seat, a busted AM-FM radio, and brackets where an eight-track tape player was once proudly mounted. It was a relic from a different age, held together with duct tape, bailing wire, Bondo, and the occasional prayer.
Somewhat like the dark haired guy at the wheel. Howdy looked like the kind who might’ve spent some time on the back of a tractor or a cutting horse or maybe both at one point or another in his day. He wore a black Resistol, a Cowboy Classic with a three-piece silver-tone buckle clasp that gave the impression of a guy familiar with working outdoors and, at the same time, one who wasn’t unfamiliar with the inside of a honky-tonk.
As he steered that beater down the road, Howdy couldn’t believe he was still thinking about her. Marilyn Justine, the kind of girl who makes you shake your head later in life. There’d been a time when, if you’d asked him, and if he knew you well enough, he would have said the thing he loved about that girl was her unpredictability. And he’d have stuck to that story right up until she disappeared without any warning or explanation, let alone any reason he could think of. Would’ve been nice if she’d left a note, he thought, maybe some hints on self-improvement, if that was the problem, or that margarita recipe he liked so. But she was long gone, last seen in a crowded coffee shop south of San Jose, according to those who had caught a glimpse.
Howdy looked in the rearview at the cloud of dust he was leaving like a smoke signal to the state of Louisiana that said he’d be back someday, but first he had some things to do.
With Lake Charles over one shoulder and Sulphur over the other, he was heading for Beaumont, Texas, where he heard he might get a better price for his truck, maybe enough to get a good horse to put under the saddle that was bouncing around in the bed behind him. Be nice to put a little folding money in his pocket and get work someplace where all you need is a horse and a stake, like it was for a cowboy in the old days. This was the sort of idealized notion that appealed to Howdy. Truth was, he’d always been a bit of a romantic, it was one of the things that Marilyn Justine had liked about him.
Howdy rested his arm on the beat-up guitar case propped up in the passenger seat like an old friend sleeping one off. He looked down the road and wondered if he was heading toward something or if he was just leaving something behind. Either way, he figured he might get a good song out of all this. He’d be sure to keep his eyes and ears open for the lyrics.
2
SLIM HAD WORKED HIS WAY FROM WEST TEXAS TO EAST FOR no particular reason other than it was easier to steer straight than it was to turn around. At least that’s how it had started, before that business at Diablo’s Cantina back in Del Rio. After that, with help from some friends who were keeping their ears to the ground for him, he headed east because that’s where he needed to go. That’s where the thing had ended up. East Texas.
Started out on old Highway 90, heading for Hondo, doing all he could to stay off the interstates, not because his old car—a tattered and worn ’69 Chevy Nova SS, metal flake blue with a black vinyl interior, four on the floor with a Hurst stick, and 396 horses—couldn’t handle the high speeds anymore, but because he preferred the scenery offered by the older roads, the Blue Highways as somebody called them a long time ago. He took the long way around San Antonio, past the Verna-Anacacho oil field and down to Jourdanton where he saw the fine old Atascosa County Courthouse.
You can talk all you want about how big Texas is, Slim thought, but until you go across the thing side to side, you have no idea. He just hoped the old Chevy would get him where he was going, which, according to his friends, was somewhere near the Louisiana line.
He’d had the Chevy as long as he could remember, a used gift from his grandmother on his eighteenth birthday. He’d wrecked it good one time, but somehow put it back together. The odometer had retired years ago with two hundred one thousand and change on it. In fact the only gauge that still worked was the temp, always leaning toward overheating. The old engine gave him a scare outside Corpus Christi, a bad case of blue smoke trailing out the pipe for a minute before he hit a pothole and, honest to goodness, it seemed to fix whatever was wrong. He gave the dashboard a pat and kept on driving, though with slightly more clench to his cheeks. He skirted around the sprawl called Houston, gave Galveston a passing thought and Glen Campbell came to mind.
He took the ferry over to Port Bolivar then drove old 87 with the Gulf of Mexico keeping him company on the right. Straight ahead was Port Arthur, and just like that he thought of Janis Joplin singing about how she wished the Lord would buy her a Mercedes-Benz, a color TV, and a night on the town. Yeah, Slim thought, me too. Except he’d skip on the Benz and take a new truck, one of those fancy Silverados maybe, long as the Lord was buying.
He skirted north to Bridge City, where a friend told him he needed to head over to Beaumont. That’s where he’d find the thing he was looking for. He crossed the Beaumont city limits, saw a sign that read, “Texas with a little something extra.” Extra what, he wondered. Maybe it was the spirit of George Jones. And then he started singing in his head, “B double E double R you in?” Always liked that one.
The blue smoke started up again about a mile later. Slim looked for another pothole but things were paved pretty smooth on that particular edge of Beaumont. That ain’t to say it was the glamorous side of town, at least Slim hoped it wasn’t, just bars, cheap motels, and used-car lots. And it looked like Slim was going to have to do a bit of business on this stretch of road before he went on to take care of that other thing.
3
RED’S USED CARS WASN’T A BIG OPERATION. JUST AN OLD trailer with Red inside and a couple dozen cars and trucks sitting under a few tired strings of red-white-and-blue pennants outside. The lot itself couldn’t have been more than a half acre, all cracked asphalt, cigarette butts, and Styrofoam burger boxes lodged against the cyclone fence like modern-day tumbleweeds. Red boasted a fine selection of pre-owned vehicles, if by pre-owned you meant something with more than ninety-five thousand miles on. Red was always quick to throw in a clean cardboard box to put underneath to catch the drips.
Slim got there first. Climbed out of the Nova, unfolded his six feet plus, and got a long overdue stretch. Then he just leaned against the side of his car waiting for someone to come out of the trailer and make him an offer, like he was Jeff Gordon sitting on the hood of his number twenty-four DuPont Chevrolet.
Howdy pulled up a few minutes later and saw the tall, thin stranger in the black jeans and T-shirt and dark glasses. The guy wore a short brown leather jacket and boots that had seen better days. No hat, but plenty of hair, on top of his head and all around his mouth in the form of a thick goatee, and of a rusty color that made sense, given the sign over the used-car lot.
Howdy got out of the truck and approached the guy. Nobody else around, so he said, “You Red?”
Slim shook his head. “Thought you might be.”
“Nope.” Howdy extended his hand and said, “Howdy.”
“Howdy,” Slim said back, shaking the hand.
“No, that’s my name. Howdy. What about you?”
“Oh. Call me Slim,” he said.
“And you can both call me Red.” They turned to see a bullfrog of a man hopping down the steps from the trailer. “What can I do you for?”
Turned out both men wanted to sell. Neither was looking to trade up or down. Slim just wanted to get enough money to get cab fare so he could go take care of his business. He’d worry about transportation later.
Howdy just wanted to get enough cash to buy a horse or a bus ticket, or hell, he’d even take a job selling used cars if there was some money in it. But Red wasn’t hiring. What Red was doing was trying to play Slim against Howdy and vice versa.
Red talked pretty fast, trying to get both of them down on the price they’d be willing to take for their vehicles. “Fellas, it’s a simple matter of supply and demand,” he said. “Right now I got a bad case of the former and none of the latter.” Without so much as a cursory look at either vehicle, Red started talking about the obvious transmission problems, and the cracked heads, and the valve jobs, and the twisted differential, and so forth, lowering his offer with each imaginary problem, and before long it started to sound like an auction going in reverse.
Howdy gave Slim a look that cast a dark shadow on Red’s character. He nodded to his left and said, “Can I talk to you a minute?”
“Y’all go on,” Red said. “I’ll be in the trailer.”
Howdy waited until the man was out of earshot. “Tell you the truth,” he said. “I don’t think we’re gonna get fair market value from Red here. In fact, I think if we stay here much longer we’re gonna end up paying him.”
“You might be right,” Slim said.
“And then where we gonna be?”
“Up that creek.”
They sized each other up as they talked. Slim took as a good sign the fact that Howdy had a guitar and a nice saddle that looked like it had been taken care of. That he reminded Slim of Frank Zappa with a cowboy hat was interesting but neither here nor there.
The thing Howdy liked about Slim was his easygoing confidence. He seemed like a no-nonsense kind of guy. Serious without being prickly. Accountable. Couldn’t understand why he didn’t wear a hat, but, as he knew, people were funny.
Slim rapped his knuckles on the roof of the old Nova and said, “This has been a good ride, but I don’t think I’d trust it to get as far as Sabine Lake. How’s yours?”
“Runs better than she looks,” Howdy said. “Probably got another hundred thousand in her, long as she gets her oil.”
They talked for a few minutes before they agreed they’d be better off working together than working at odds. And they’d sure be better off if they had at least one vehicle between them. So they decided to ride together for a while, partner up, as it were.
They sold the Nova SS, split the money, and agreed to put both their names on the title to Howdy’s truck. “Fair enough,” Slim said.
And off they went.
4
AS THEY EASED OUT OF RED’S USED CARS, HOWDY SAID, “Where to?”
Slim pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and pointed up the road. “I gotta see a guy about something.”
“Okay,” Howdy said, putting the truck in gear. “But I was thinking more about the long term. You know, hopes, dreams, aspirations, destinations. That sort of thing.”
“Oh,” Slim said. “That’ll have to wait till after.”
“Fine by me.”
Slim gave Howdy directions that led to the Settler’s Cove Apartments, a few miles farther on. When they got there, Howdy pulled to the curb. He leaned out the window, looking at the thirty-six units of modest floor plans, thin walls, and a place to hang your satellite dish. “Not exactly my cup of tea,” Howdy said. “I don’t like living so close to people that I know their TV and bathroom habits.”
As Slim got out of the truck he said, “Nobody’s asking you to move here.”
“Good point.”
It was late afternoon. A young Mexican guy wearing a two-tone straw cowboy hat was cutting the grass around the complex.
As they headed down the sidewalk, Howdy kept up a steady stream of small talk, trying to pry a few words from his new pal. He nodded at the guy pushing the mower. “Ever do yard work for a living?”
“Yep.”
“Me too,” Howdy said. “Longest summer of my life. Tough way to make the rent.” He paused to see if Slim had anything to add on the subject. He didn’t. Then Howdy said, “So, who’re we visiting?”
“A guy I know.”
Slim tended to keep his answers short, as if instructed by his attorney not to give more information than absolutely necessary. He sometimes answered Howdy’s question with one of his own.
Like when Howdy said, “What kind of work you do?”
And Slim gave a shrug. “What kind you got?”
Like that.
As they passed by the landscaper’s truck, Slim casually grabbed a pair of hedge clippers, never breaking his step. He snapped them a couple of times and seemed satisfied they’d do.
“Whatcha gone do with those?” Howdy’s tone indicated he didn’t see any trouble coming, which meant he needed either his eyes or his head examined.
“Trim this guy’s shrubs,” Slim said.
As they climbed the stairs to the second floor, Howdy couldn’t help but say, “Must be some tall ones.”
They walked down past two, three, four apartments before Slim stopped in front of number 206. He leaned toward the door and listened for a second, heard the television. Sounded like Dr. Phil. Howdy turned to look down at a couple of pretty girls sitting by the pool. He tipped his hat when one of them looked up his way and gave a friendly wave.
Slim reached back, put his hand on the rail behind him, then, much to Howdy’s surprise, he kicked the door wide open and charged inside. The girls down at the pool seemed surprised too. They jumped up and moved, not to get away from any trouble so much as to get a better view of it. Girls like that.
Howdy wasn’t sure what the next best thing to do was, so he tipped his hat again and followed Slim inside, where he found a steely-eyed man with both hands raised, a TV remote in one, a beer in the other.
A quick look told Howdy this guy was bad luck and trouble. Third-degree burn scars all around his mouth gave him a painful, waxy sneer. His nose, bent and humped, looked like it had been broken more times than a politician’s promise. He was a mad dog disciple of violence and retribution with one droopy eye and the overall countenance of a man who drank to get the crawl off his skin. Seemed half biker, half roughneck, and all crazy.
Slim had him backed against a wall with the hedge trimmers aimed low. He gave a smirk and said, “Brushfire Boone, how you doin’?”
“The name’s Boone Tate,” the waxy sneer said. “And I knew I shoulda killed you back in Del Rio.”
“As I recall, you hadn’t drunk enough courage that night,” Slim said.
It was fair to say none of this was on the list of things Howdy had been expecting. He said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s going on?”
“Taking care of some business,” Slim said, without turning around. “Doesn’t involve you.”
“Well, now, to the extent anybody saw me come in here with you, I think it does. I mean, I’m not a lawyer, don’t really like ’em much, but I’ve seen some Court TV and, well, why don’t we all just take a minute and calm down?” Howdy looked at the man with the droopy eye, aimed a thumb at the kitchen, and said, “Hey, champ, you got a couple more cold ones in there?”
Boone nodded once. His eyes never left the dirty hedge clippers.
Howdy, standing at the open fridge, called out, “Slim, he’s got regular and lite, you care one way or another? You don’t look like you need the lite, but maybe that’s why you’re kinda thin in the first place.”
When Slim turned to tell Howdy to shut the hell up, Brushfire Boone jammed that TV remote in between the blades of the hedge trimmers and produced a knife of bowie proportions. It was long and sharp enough to lead directly to a Mexican standoff, each man taking jabs and swipes at the other, but unable to gain an advantage.
Howdy calmly watched the action while sipping on his beer and shaking his head at the turn of events. Finally he set the beer down and told this Brushfire Boone to “Drop it!”
When Slim and Brushfire turned, they were both surprised to see Howdy with a pistol trained in their general direction. “I said drop it.”
The bowie knife fell to the floor. There was a tone of incredulity in Slim’s voice when he said, “You have a gun?”
“Well, it ain’t a weed whacker,” was Howdy’s response.
“Is it loaded?”
Howdy aimed it at the fridge, pulled the trigger. Bang! Like a clap of thunder, a .32 slug right through the door. “Oh, man, I’m sorry,” Howdy said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I think I just put a hole in your crisper.” He opened the door, looked. “Awww, got your mustard too.”
Slim said, “Why didn’t you tell me you had a gun?”
“First of all, you didn’t ask,” Howdy said. “Second, you didn’t tell me you were going to kick in this man’s door and threaten to make him a soprano with a pair of dirty hedge clippers.”
“He stole my guitar.” Slim pointed at the instrument leaning in the corner of the apartment. It was an old Martin D-28 with the dark Brazilian rosewood.
“That’s a beauty.” Howdy seemed pleasantly surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me you played guitar?”
“You didn’t ask.” A little peppery in his reply.
Howdy stepped a little closer and said to the man, “Did you steal his guitar?”
“Yeah, but only after he stole my girl.”
“Tch.” Howdy looked at Slim with a hint of disapproval. “You stole his girl?”
“Not stole so much as . . . ended up with,” Slim said. “ And not for long, either. Fact, if I knew where she was, I’d bring her back for a trade. But she wasn’t big on forwarding addresses.”
Howdy smiled and said, “I think I know that girl, or somebody like her anyway.” He began to think about Marilyn Justine and her margarita recipe again before he pointed the .32 at Brushfire Boone and said, “You know, in my experience, if you steal a musical instrument every time a girl leaves you for another man, you’re gonna end up with a damn symphony orchestra or something.” He pointed at the television. “Dr. Phil probably tell you to find some other way to express your anger.” Howdy nodded toward the Martin, said, “Slim, go on and get it.”
Slim took the guitar, put it in the case, and said, “I think I’m entitled to gas money, having to come all this way to get what’s mine.”
In the distance, Howdy heard a siren. “Well, I can see your point, but I think you might just have to write that off, unless you want to continue this in the lobby of the Gray Bar Motel in beautiful downtown Beaumont.”
Slim heard the siren too. “Yeah, all right. Let’s go.” He made to throw a punch at Brushfire Boone but pulled it, just wanted to make him flinch. “Far as I’m concerned, we’re square now,” Slim said. Then he turned to follow Howdy out the door.
Last thing they heard was Brushfire Boone yelling, “This ain’t over yet!”
With the sirens approaching, Slim and Howdy left the apartment complex a little faster than they arrived. Howdy tipped his hat again when he saw those two girls from the pool. They were stuffing their towels and whatnot into tote bags, fixing to leave, almost as fast as Slim and Howdy. But they took the time to smile and give another friendly wave.
As they passed a trash can, Howdy dropped the .32 in like it was an empty soda bottle.
Slim couldn’t believe it. “You just gonna throw that away?”
Howdy shrugged. “Ain’t mine.”
“What do you mean it ain’t yours?”
“Oh, it was on that fella’s kitchen table. I was just borrowin’ it.”
5
AS THEY WERE SCOOTING BOOTS DOWN THE SIDEWALK, HOWDY noticed the Mexican guy rooting through the tools in the bed of his truck like he’d lost something. Howdy nudged the guy and said, “Hey, if you’re looking for them hedge clippers”—he pointed back at the apartments—“that fella up in 206 stole ’em.”
The man gave Howdy a funny glance and a suspicious “Gracias.”
“De nada.”
As they approached their truck, Slim held out his hand. “Gimme the keys.”
“That’s all right,” Howdy said, missing the point. “I don’t mind driving.”
“I think we oughta alternate.”
“What?”
“It means take turns,” Slim said, putting his guitar case in the back. “Truck’s half mine, ain’t it?”
“Fine by me.” Howdy tossed him the keys. “Just don’t drive outta here too fast.”
Slim started the truck and said, “Cops are responding to shots fired, and you want me to dawdle?”
Howdy hung an elbow out the window and said, “We don’t wanna draw too much attention’s all I’m saying.”
“Here’s a tip,” Slim said as he pulled away from the curb. “When you’re trying to be inconspicuous, don’t be taking potshots at people’s appliances.”
Despite the truth of the observation, Howdy seemed a little insulted by it. “Now, first of all,” he said, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded. And second—” He stopped when he saw the two cop cars come racing around the corner heading in their direct. . .
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The Adventures of Slim & Howdy
Kix Brooks
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