If Mr Friendly moved to Texas…
Since Rich is a single man these days, and since Mellow Cat recently inquired if Rich might possibly be sorta-kinda-interested in getting fixed up with her sister…let's take this thread and tug on it a bit, and try to think what would happen if Mr Friendly moved to Texas…
_______________________________________________________________________
We open the story in the biker dump called the Lone Star Country Club, where Doug Woodall's band regularly entertains the locals, and where various North Texas Forumites have been known to hang out and sit in. Mellow Cat has indeed fixed up Rich with her equally charming sister, Miss Kitty, a titanium bluebonnet if there ever was one. Miss Kitty's ability to charm the birds off the trees, drink Rich under the table, drive 80 in a black '99 Stang, and change a tire one-handed while never breaking a sweat at high noon in August all combine to win his heart instantly. The State of Texas has just attracted its 420,345,489th Northern transplant. (That's right - even Virginia is Up North to us Texans.)
Before taking the stage at the North Texas Jam and Twist-Off, Doug Woodall inducts Rich into the Texas Guitar Army with the rank of colonel. ("Colonel?" asks Rich. "To start??" "We're all colonels. This is Texas," Doug replies.) Mr Friendly, feeling the pressure of being a newcomer with something of a rep, confidently wields his Wolfgang like a Tommy gun, muzzle down, and flips the power switch to his hot-rodded Ax212. It is connected by a thick set of cables to a Cray supercomputer for the extra patches Rich has spent most of 1998 programming. But before he can even plug in, he sees a heart-stopping sight. His breath comes in labored gasps, his vision blurs, his knees get week, it's …it's…oh my GAWWWD…it's…
It's Doug's pedalboard, on DEFCON 3. The four Fulltones are activated, the Big Muff Pi's are gleaming, the Klon Centaur is humming inaudibly, the Bad Horsie Wah is wockin', and the Small Stone ruby slipper laser-phaser is set to Stun. A dozen other vintage collector's pedals are laid out in neat rows, gleaming. They are all wired in series and ready to launch a sonic attack that would, in Coil's memorable phrase, "knock the balls off a charging rhino at thirty paces." The lights dim for three zip codes around as Doug powers up the pedalboard and his Rivera rack-n-stack, and selects one of his twelve Boo-Teek guitars, a specially commissioned Anderson-Grosh-Suhr model that required an anti-trust exemption from Congress for these three primo designer-builders to collaborate on.
Doug catches Rich's face, slack-jawed with amazement. "Oh, these," Doug says dismissively at $42,000 worth of effects pedals. "Thiz Texas, son. Man wants somethin', he goes and gets it." Rich is dumbfounded.
K-wey, the maestro of three-chord hack rhythm guitar, drains a Shiner Bock and tosses the empty into the corner, where it smashes satisfyingly against the others pulled out of his pickup truck's bed. His left hand's thumb muscle bulges as he grips the neck of his Lone Star Strat, whose body was routed to take the Seymour Duncan humbuckers he yanked out of his Guild Polara. "The best of both worlds," he assures the awed Rich, and starts a-grinding on a 1-4-5 in A.
The drummer, knowing a metronome when he hears one, picks up K-wey's beat, and Andy Daventry, who's flown in from Turkey for the occasion, starts a roaring bass line that is picked up on seismographs in the Permian Basin, 420 miles away.
Miss Mellow Cat, despite her diminutive hands, takes the first lead. Although she has by now emptied three bottles of wine into her 100-lb frame and decked the clerk of the 7-11 down the street for running out of Boone's Farm, her touch is sure as she begins a strong, stately, melodic blues line that would cause BB King to weep. "I've never played with you guys before, so don't expect much," she yells over the din, but Single Coil (the MBA student) in the back is already calling the lawyers to draft the recording contract and calculating the present value of the future stream of royalties from all the hit records he's just decided she's gonna crank out.
Rich's jaw is hanging open at her simple, beautiful lines. Guitar lines, that is. "Something in the water here in Texas, Rich," K-wey yells, as his hands barre up and down the neck with robotic precision independent of any thought process. "Seems like every Texan can play some."
Coil abandons his HP-12c financial calculator; it's running an IRR calc anyway and needs some time for iterations. He straps on the SRV Strat, and as smoothly as any other Texan who's born to it, he takes over the next lead as Mellow Cat ends on the final E with a double-stopped turnaround and vibratos both strings for four bars as an outro. Simple, clean, classic, what every Texan learns in fourth grade.
Coil closes his eyes and his hands flow over the fretboard with frightening fluidity as he channels Stevie Ray and Jimi. Mr. Friendly is getting sweaty palms now, as the intense, almost visible vibes of dead blues-rock stars wash over him in cascades of rippling notes. "Can't really get the hang of that funny F-C-G#m7dim6th lick ya do, Jimi," Coil mutters to himself, "How's that go again? Hunh? Yeah? Oh - right - got it!" The hair of all those present stands on end as he throws his head back and plays "Red House" to sonic perfection. He slides effortlessly into "Texas Flood."
He begins to sing, and it is at this point that Rich et al. realize that "Red House" and "Texas Flood" are, in fact, the same damn song. Coil, eyes shut, is bellowing,
There's a red house over yonder,
And all the telephone lines are down.
Lawd, it's rainin' down in Texas,
That's where mah baby lives.
Rich puts Wolfie down, and grabs a Shiner Bock himself. He looks around and sees the only other person in the place. By way of introduction, he says to the Old Black Gentleman leaning against the bar, "That's my Forum buddy Coil…mixing up the words, there."
The Old Black Gentleman replies, "Son, that's a hazard of being a great Texas bluesman like Coil. Working for the U.S. Department of Education all those years. All those years of cheap airline Chardonnay, all those double rooms in all those Hyatt Regencies in all those major American cities, all those limo rides into DC from Georgetown on the government nickel. It weighs on your heart, it surely does."
"You know him much?" Rich asks. "I only know him from the Internet."
"Coil's a travelin' man," said the Old Black Gentleman. "Some say he shot a man in Plano. Some say he's left broken hearts from Southlake to Highland Park. Some say…well, best not to say. Thiz Texas, and what a man doesn't say is as important as what he does say."
The HP-12c has finished its iterations and arrived at three possible solutions for IRR. Coil and K-wey look across at each other and trade off rhythm and lead flawlessly, the result of months of practice and mountains of Shiner empties on Saturday afternoons. Mellow Cat is barre-chording 1-4-5's up high, hitting those A's with her pinky, like K-wey taught her to do. Coil unstraps the Strat and returns to his statistics homework, which he's brought to the club, and continues assessing null values and portfolio coefficients, oblivious to the almost visible spirits of Jimi and Stevie he's left hanging in the air.
He sees Rich's look of reverent awe. "Oh, that," he says dismissively, "Yeah, I wasn't really on tonight. Used to play better in grade school." Rich looks for a chair to sit down in and catch his breath.
K-wey resumes the rhythm grind. Doug now kicks five pedals at once, and Friendly is knocked backward in his chair by the Tone of Death, the Tone to Die For, the Tone That's Killed A Thousand Club Owners. The fretboard of Boo-Teeker #11 slowly begins to smoke as he rips through one solo after another. The lights are dimming all over Dallas/Fort Worth as the pedal-board's tubes heat up, and air-conditioners in four counties slow and stumble from the reduced power. Doug, ever the pro and a disciplined engineer who parlayed his nuclear-power-plant operator's license into constructing and running the "GOP" (that's "God's Own Pedalboard"), gracefully winds down his solo and splashes some Shiner onto his smoldering fretboard.
"B'leeve I've played better," he mumbles. "Sorry, y'all." Rich's head is hanging between his knees.
Mike Melzer runs in from the back, cell phone ringing, pager going off, trailing wires and diskettes from his latest network installation. "Got twelve and a half minutes, guys," he gasps. "Then I'm off to Germany for eight hours. Headquarters has a project for me." He is carrying his Ernie Ball Axis flame-top with the wang bar dangling dangerously.
"Where's the Franken-Tele?" asks K-wey.
"The Doberman used its neck for bodily-protection training this morning," Mike grins. "Snapped the maple neck in half on the first bite when the postman rang the doorbell. Dang, I'm proud of that dog." He plugs in his V-Twin Mesa and dials up full gain on the Solo channel for a pure, singing, Carlos Santana sustain. Doug's band shifts effortlessly into "Black Magic Woman," K-wey dimly remembers what minor-7th chords are, and Doug and Mike trade off fluid licks that make Rich swear one of 'em's actually Carlos Himself. They end cleanly with the crashing power chords, and Mike unplugs and glances at his watch. "11:53:02," he says, unplugging. "Gotta go."
Rich slams a Shiner in disbelief. Mike sees his despair. "Hey, don't worry about it, Rich," Mike says. "I couldn't play a lick either, before I got to Texas from Maryland."
The Old Black Gentleman nods toward Rich. "Your turn, son."
Rich straps on Wolfie and asks Doug and the band, "You play any 80s metal?"
The band members shrug and Doug replies, "Thiz Texas. Everybody can play some."
Rich launches into a medley of Ozzy, Slayer, Van Halen, Metallica, G'n'R and Poison's best-known hits. It's a brilliant collection; his technique is impeccable as he flays, slays, wangs, taps, pick-slides, and roars through a decade of metal music. The 911 switchboard in Tarrant County lights up with complaints as Rich's slashing, driving, precision attack on Eddie Van Halen's trickiest licks is punched through 24,000 gigabytes of computer-emulated tone and 5,000 watts of power. Wolfie begins to smoke and the Cray-AX2 combination is beginning to display error messages on subroutines when Rich finishes his masterly assault. There is, implausibly, a brief moment of silence as Rich drains a fresh cold Shiner.
The Old Black Gentleman says quietly, "'Joydit. Son, do you know some blues?"
By way of reply, Rich tears into the "Tush" riff with the Cray-AX2 set to Dimed-Out Marshall. He grins coolly. "Do I know blues? Do I know BLUES? Dammit, man, I been giving Dusty Hill lessons for years."
There's another silence.
"Not quite what I meant, son," the Old Black Gentleman continued in the same quiet voice. "I meant, do you feel the blues? Do you live the blues?"
"In Staunton, Virginia? Where you could detonate a 200-kiloton H-bomb in the Shenandoah Valley, and still only kill two guitarists, at most? I have to import people from three states away just to play guitar with another living human being. A good night in Staunton is playing before an audience of twenty toothless fat coal miners with flannel shirts and B.O. - and those are just the women. Damn right I get the blues."
"Naw, son," the Old Black Gentleman shook his head, "that line's been used before. I'll ask again. Do you know the blues?"
Rich is beginning to get it. Doug and the band members are looking at each other. The light's going on over Rich's head.
"Sir," says Rich, "I'm not sure what you mean."
"The blues, son. Not that fine fast fancy music you were playin' for us just now. Plenty of motion, not so much ee-motion, if you follow me." He paused. "You got woman trouble?"
Rich begins to smile. "Holy SHI--! uhh, 'scuse me, uhh yessir. You could say I got woman trouble."
"Your woman done leff you?"
Rich laughs bitterly at the memory. "And how. Wrote 'Bastard' on our marriage license and trashed the house on her way out."
"You foun' a good woman to take her place?"
The Titanium Bluebonnet beams from the back of the bar. Rich actually blushes, for the first time in twenty-one years.
"You been lonely? Terrible lonesome?"
""Well," says Rich, "I make jokes about it, but yeah, the road was hell. Never felt as lonely as when I was up in front of a couple thousand people."
"You know 'bout the Lord?"
Rich pauses. He answers slowly and very quietly, "Yessir. I know 'bout the Lord." He pauses again. "Just had a problem with his minister, was the trouble."
Everyone in the bar begins to smile. Three Shiners, and Rich is actually beginning to talk like a Texan.
"You leave them ministers be. They ain't nothin' but hairspray and trouble, ever since television. You got to fin' the Lord on you' own. You done drugs and liquor, too?"
Rich hangs his head. "Yessir, I did. And I gave it up. But every day's a struggle not to go back to it."
"I know 'bout that." The Old Black Gentleman's face splits into a grin; his white teeth are dazzling and vivid in the dim smokey light of the bar. "Son," he proclaims, "You got a right to sing the blues! Now, son?"
"Sir?"
"I want you to pick up that guitar and close your eyes, and tell me what you jus' tol' me about you, the women, the wine, bein' lonely, an' that junk you used to do. I want you to tell me you won' do it no more. But you don't just talk it. You use that there guitar to tell it."
"Sir? That's not really what I play. You heard me play just now. I'm not some old blues guy, y'know? How can I - "
"Son!" The Old Black Gentleman almost snaps at him. "Son, you just do what I say. It'll be fine. Mistah Doug, now you boys go on. Play it slow."
Rich starts to protest, but the Old Black Gentleman waves his hand as if to hush him.
"Son? You in Texas now. We all can play some. But you can play a lot. Go on, now."
Doug and K-wey start a slow, aching blues shuffle. Rich stares at the floor until the first turnaround, collecting himself. He looks over one last time at the Old Black Gentleman, who simply smiles slightly, and nods encouragingly. Rich begins to play.
Rich's slow, aching guitar lines now bend upward and soar, descending into jagged, anguished breaks and fills. There are split bends, three-step bends, and three-bar sustains as twenty-one years of hard living, disappointments, heartbreaks and triumphs pour out of his heart through his fingers into the Wolfgang. The whammy bar hangs unused as his fingers coax weeping raw emotion out of bends and a vibrato he never knew he had.
The Cray-AX2's "Re-Set" button blinks in warning; an unknown hand has seemingly written lines of code that summon forth an overdriven Buddy Guy Strat tone, seventeen layers of vintage tube harmonics, and nearly infinite sustain. The humbuckers now seem to be vintage single-coils, full of decades of smoke and spilled whiskey.
Doug and the boys slide into another slow blues shuffle in G, followed by another in E, and Rich's fingers have forgotten all their dazzling technique and instead are expressing pure slow pain, joy, anguish and hope, all in a five-note scale. The band members can't look at each other, for their tears welling up from the tales of misery and redemption in the music. The window glass cracks and shivers as his bends and sustained harmonics feed off each other, combine, blend, and finally overdrive the Crays into a tangle of smoking wires and burnt circuits.
At the end, Rich is exhausted and spent, and crying tears of joy. K-wey quietly gives him another Shiner and mutters in his ear, "Thanks for telling us, man. We were waiting for you all along."
The Titanium Bluebonnet plants a sloppy wet kiss on him and silently hugs him. Mellow Cat hugs both her sister and Rich. "Feels better down here, doesn't it?" she whispers.
Doug and Coil step up to give him manly handshakes. "Showed us how to do it, Rich," says Doug. "Welcome."
"Where'd all that come from?" Rich asks. "I've never played like that in my life." Rich collects himself and looks around. "Where's the Old Black Gentleman?"
Coil and K-wey look puzzled. "Who?"
"That old black guy at the bar I was talking to. Where'd he go?"
Everyone is bemused. "Who?" Doug repeats.
"The Old Black Gentleman! He was right here! You guys didn't see him?"
The group looks at each other, mumbles and shakes their heads. "Rich," K-wey finally says. "There wasn't anyone like that here. Not exactly."
"Whattya mean? I was talking to him!"
"Musta heard The Voice."
"Hunh?"
"The Voice. Asked if you could play some blues?"
"Yeah, that's the guy!"
"Asked if you had the blues?"
"Yeah!"
"Asked about your troubles? Asked about your life? Said you knew how to play?
"Exactly! Exactly what he asked!"
"It's The Voice. We've all heard it sooner or later here. You just heard it for the first time."
"So what's with the Old Black Gentleman? Who the hell was he? He was sitting there, talking to me. I heard him."
There's a short silence.
"Welcome to Texas, Rich. Everybody can play some."
___________________________ ____________________________
___________________________THE END____________________________
