The Adventures of Slim & Howdy

Destiny is a hard one to get your hands around—just when you think you’re leading the horse, he’ll take a step to the right and keep you from getting snake bit. This book is a fine example.

We started writing
The Adventures of Slim & Howdy
in our CD covers to give the listeners something to stare at while they listened to the music. That’s what we liked to do when we bought a new album, so we gave it a try. A story here and there is one thing, but a whole book is a special talent we’re not really trained for. A book seemed like a fun idea, but it never would have happened without the talent of Bill Fitzhugh, a guy who sees the world a lot like we do, and understood the personalities of these two . . . mmmm . . . not sure what you call ’em, but truth is they’re a lot like us. It’s a good yarn, and don’t plan on reading just a little bit—you’ll want to turn the page for sure.

This book is dedicated to all the talented people who have helped us on this journey—thanks for the ticket; we’ve certainly enjoyed the ride.

Kix and Ronnie

PREFACE

WHEN THEY MET, IT WAS LIKE A HEAD-ON COLLISION, THOUGH
with a lot less blood and glass and hissing radiator steam. They didn’t need an ambulance or a tow truck, and nobody called the cops, though this one fella thought about it. Like a rung bell, it couldn’t be undone, things got dented, and it changed them both. It wasn’t the sort of thing one could insure against either, probably wasn’t the sort of thing you’d want to. Like trying to keep life from happening to you. Somewhere between impossible and a bad idea to begin with.

So call it what you will. Fate, the hand of God, kismet. Or just two paths crossing. Naming it wouldn’t make it any different from what it was.

And what it was, was the Adventures of Slim & Howdy.

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.