Thin Slice of Life

Chapter 09

Charlie’s old truck rumbled down the bumpy two-lane asphalt of Highway 35, past a couple of shipyards and a hulking carbon black plant that looked like some sinister Industrial Revolution throwback. He needed to get away from the boat and the harbor for awhile, needed a breakfromtheblackthoughtsbuzzingaroundinhishead.Foramoment he entertained an idea to just light out, keep driving till he dropped, get back to Mexico and his placid beach bum life. But maybe Johnny would show up in the next few days. One way or another, he thought morbidly. He looked out the window at the dark bay, wondering if this was Johnny’s idea of a joke. It was easy enough to imagine…just another one of Johnny’s crazy pranks. He’d sneak in from the sea and show up at his own wake disguised as a beggar or an old man, like Odysseus, just to twist everybody’s noggin a little bit. The thought buoyed him a little as he rolled through Aransas Pass, en route to the ferry that would take him over to Mustang Island and Port A proper. Duringtheshortten-minuterideacrosstheshipchannel,Charliegot out of his truck to watch the dolphins play in the ferry wake. He breathed deeply the familiar humid air and felt the salt spray wash over his face. What there was of Port Aransas wasn’t much. Never had been. Originally called Tarpon, after the indigenous trophy fish found CHAPTER 09 52 09| offshore, the small town was best known as a Spring Break destination and a haven for sport fishermen and beach walkers. The place began as an expatriate Englishman’s cattle and sheep station in the 1850s and its civic ambitions had never progressed much beyond that. As a connoisseur of offbeat, off-the-track locales, Charlie was a fan. There were a few dockside seaman’s bars, an antique two-story hotel called the Tarpon Inn, where the lobby was wallpapered with bright silvery tarpon scales, and a few restaurants specializing in the catch of the day—baked, broiled or fried. One honky-tonk next to the harbor particularly beckoned: a tinroofed building on pilings with swing-up hurricane shutters and a big deck. In a red-neon scrawl over the door read a sign: “Gatorhythms.” Appropriately,ahuge,hulkingDay-Glogreenalligatorperchedontheroof. A relic from a long-since dismantled Mardi Gras float that had somehow found its way to tiny Port A, the jaw-gaping creation had ascended to the roof, seemingly on the wings of angels. Some of the bartenders at the club bragged about the humid young ladies they enticed into the interior of the creature for sexual capers. It wasn’t everyone, thought Charlie, who could say they’d fucked a Spring Break coed inside a giant fiberglass alligator. Charlie could hear a blues guitar wailing from inside and as he pulled into the potholed parking lot he was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar name on the marquee. L.C. Hebert hailed from East Texas near the Louisiana border (the Cajuns out there, of whom there were many, pronounced the surname “Ay-bear”) but he’d lately been making a name for himself in Austin, home to the most thriving music scene in the state. Charlie had first seen him when the guitarist was on tour, playing in Corpus Christi. Johnny had dragged him to a small downtown club there and Charlie became an instant fan. Johnny took to sending his brother cassette tapes of Hebert’s albums, and the fishermen, beach bums and scuba divers who made up Charlie’s Mexico clientele soon became fans as well. L.C. Hebert had busied himself for the past couple of years racking up critics’ awards and some not-inconsiderable record sales by reclaiming the R&B charts from the disco swill that had hijacked the radio airwaves and the record store racks a few years before. He came 53 |09 to Austin from the inner-city wards of Houston, and he played what he knew: greasy, belly-rubbing rhythm and blues played to a shuffle beat,saucedwithhornsandspikedwithbleeding,icepick-sharpguitar licks. T-Bone Walker, Bobby Blue Bland, O.V. Wright, Slim Harpo and Albert Collins were the faces on L.C.’s personal Mt. Rushmore. AndthatwasjustwhatCharliewasinthemoodfor—thirty-sixhours withlittleornosleepnotwithstanding.He’doncereadanewspaperstory about L.C. and the interviewer asked him to define the blues. “The blues is what gets you through,” the guitarist replied simply, and that was...