Yes, sir,... see that man at the end of the bar? Yeah, him. That’s ol’ Buster. He came breezin’ into town a couple o’ months ago, thought he’d set the place on fire, but,.. well...the tables kind o’ got turned on him. Mind you, it wasn’t all his fault, but he did make a lot of assumptions about the people around here, and well.. What? You wanna hear the story? Got some time? Let’s move over to that booth. Let me buy you one. Sonnyboy! Bring my friend here a pitcher o’ PBR. Now, I’ve been puttin’ this tale to paper, so I’ll tell it the way you’re gonna read it. Oh yes, it’ll be serialized in The Hee Haw Gazette, first installment next Monday. Anyway...
chapter 1 On Location
Buster Leggmann checked his watch, one o’ them fancy Rolexes. Makin’ good time, he reckoned. He’d been drivin’ since early that morning, coming down from Chicago. It was gettin’ late, you could see the early evening sun comin’ through the dogwoods along Highway 37. You could smell the forest too, if you drove with your windows open. The coming darkness was welcome, even in the mid-August Indiana heat. It cools down at dusk, and people stop their labors, go outside, go into town, visit the Dairy Queen, see their neighbors. Cool air raises the spirits.
Lookin’ out the window of his big Lincoln, Buster felt some unease, some apprehension about the trees that lined the road. In the long shadows at sunset, the trees become living shapes that hold and magnify the darkness, and shelter the landscape behind from eyes traveling the highway.
That Lincoln rumbled down the road, over rough asphalt, a black car on two lane blacktop, driving deeper into the darkening heart of the Hoosier state. Occasionally an oncoming car would flash by, headed in the other direction, in an awful hurry to God-knows-where.
The sign loomed up in the headlamp beams, Nashville, 6 miles, it said.
Good. Almost there.
The monotony and fatique was takin’ ahold, and Buster needed some rest. Maybe he’d luck out and this ville would have a motel. And, if he was really lucky, maybe Nashville would have a decent bar.
Now, Buster was a location scout for Heliotrope Studios, and you guessed it, he was down here to find a spot for a new film. He was the best, they say. He worked all over the world setting up shoots for movies. You probably seen ‘em all, too. Remember “Tuesday Barfly” starring Greg Hackey? Or “The Adventures of El Pinche Reynoso? with Flanders Stephenson as El Pinche and Nancy Ginkgold as Lesmerelda? Yep, he knew his stuff. They say he had the ability to frame a scene better than anyone else in the movie makin’ business.
All this adulation went to Buster’s head though. He got snooty and aloof, couldn’t keep a girlfriend. Forty four and still single, Hollywood was his lover, and the fast lane was his style. He was a pro, all the way.
A couple months before, Heliotrope bought up the option to Slim Dillinger’s book and new screenplay “His Brother Was His Sister, “ and Buster needed to find a suitable backwoodsy locale for the shoot. South Central Indiana was where he started his search, smack dab in the countryside described in Dillinger’s book.
Ah, here’s our pitcher. Nice and cold, too. Sonnyboy! Can you bring us some o’ them pretzels?
Good. Now where was I?
Yep, Buster was lookin’ for the back country he’d read about and seen in films, but he had no clear idea of what he could be gettin’ hisself into. He was on what amounted to a vacation, but a working one. When he found the right place, he was primed to spring into action, an electric figure of a man, obsessed, gettin’ the ball rolling, setting up accomodations for the crew and actors, smoothing the way for the Hollywood juggernaut that could transform a little place like Nashville overnight. This is what Buster Leggmann did.
Buster was startin’ to feel the mileage, and it was gettin’ dark.
Creepy, man. I sure wouldn’t want to be stranded along here after dark. He tapped the GPS monitor again, it had stopped working fifty miles ago. Oh, well. Shoulda rented the Lexus. He didn’t wanna stop to ask any of us locals for directions, he figured we probably wouldn’t know where we were, either.
Now, Buster had in his possession every gadget and device that modern personal communications technology offered in the belief that he somehow needed all these things to effectively convey his desires. His awake moments, and maybe some asleep moments too, were spent tied to all those gizmos. Hardly an hour went by that he wasn’t sending or receiving a text message or fax, talking to some associate in Gabon or God-knows-where, arranging this, disarranging that. He was connected, all right. He was IM’d, a.m.’d, p.m.’d, googled, yahoo’d and can you hear me now?
Of course, his whole generation is kinda like that. He was one of those X’rs that came along after my g-g-generation. He and his friends turned on, tuned in, and didn’t drop out. They started making a living off all that we created, and we’re still tryin’ to figure it all out.
It was a stretch, though, for Buster to simultaneously listen to his iPod, message on his Blackberry, follow his GPS map, drink a cup o’ joe, and chew gum without running off the road.
The big Lincoln eased over the top o’ the last rise, the town below glowed and sparkled, a jeweled rug between the hills. It wasn’t immense, like coming down from the mountains into Albuquerque, and it couldn’t compare to flying my corporate jet over the night glitter of Vegas, but it meant food and rest.
Buster gunned the engine, 70, 80, 90, than backed off. Probably a county mountie or two around, you never knew.
Blazing down that final stretch of blacktop, Nashville unfolded in front of him, a house, then two houses, a liquor store, three churches, and suddenly he was right downtown. Nashville was a cluster of old Victorian houses, some had been converted to businesses, shops, all were well kept. The salt of the earth lived and worked in those colorful manses, Nashville was one big family owned business community.
There was a theater on the left, The Nashville Opera House. The Reduced Shakespeare was playing. A block further down was a winery.
Winery? There’s a winery back in here?
A couple minutes later, Buster pulled the Lincoln into the gravel lot of the Croakin’ Frog Inn. Several other cars were parked there. Neon in the window said Color TV.
What? Oh, hell yeah, we were really happy to see somethin’ new at the Opera House, I mean, how many times can a person see Forever Plaid? The players were gettin’ bored, too, and the play was suffering.
Hey Sonny! When does the doo-wop concert start? Nine thirty? OK. We’ve got plenty of time.
As I was sayin’, The Croakin' Frog Inn, where you’re now sitting, is one of those big ol’ three story Victorians that somebody way back when converted into a rough and tumble roadhouse. Those were the days, alright. Later on, when the town began to grow, they built those little cottages out back and put in the grill, here. It was convenient, homey, and never empty. That is, except for the time when a family of skunks, ...well, that’s a whole other story.
Nevermind, of course, that in this bar on any weekend night of the year, some local was mixin’ it up with an out-of-towner, usually necessitating an arrest and a few hours overnight in the pokey. The circuit judge would stop by a nine sharp mornings, ask the boys how they pleaded. They always pled guilty, and old Judge Hartless would collect a fifty dollar fine from the accused, drunk and disorderly was the usual offense, slip the bills in his wallet, then looking down his nose, over the top of those round black framed lenses at the miscreants, solemnly intone “You boys can go now, and don’t let me see you in here again. You understand?”
Now, while Buster was goin’ about checkin’ in, Elmer Hodge and his old friend Fuzzy Mathis lounged at the bar, watching the plasma widescreen, clicking back and forth between a movie, Talladega Nights, and the International Curling Championship Finals. The two men were, as was their habit, guzzling beer and keeping an eye out for any weird actin’ out-of-towners looking for trouble.
“I’d shore like to get me some o’ that”, blurted out Elmer. His voice was smoke raspy, words came slow. Elmer was one o’ those people that just spew off whatever’s on their mind, wherever they are. It got him into trouble sometimes, got him thrown out of modeling school when he was young. Apparently he told a female student her ass was too big, sent her into a downward spiraling depression.
Fuzzy just nodded, eyes red and bleary, mullet unkempt, streaked with grey and wild lookin’. He chugged the rest of his beer and leaned over towards Elmer.
“Read inny good books lately?” he asked.
“Yeah. I just finished The Doomsday Falafel by Gus Feer. I couldn’t put it down!” Elmer shifted in his chair. The light from the disco ball glinted off his bald head. His sunburned face was suddenly serious. “It was a beautifully constructed farce, great parody, I must say. It was delightfully derisive of those uppity West Coasters and their high-falutin’ eating habits.”
“Welp, I do guess there ain’t nothin’ like a good ol’ pork tenderloin.” Fuzzy scratched his armpit then belched.
“I’m with you there, buddy.”
At the end of the bar, right over there, by the way, Fletch Carnoustie surveyed his fifth gin and tonic with his good eye, swallowed it, and promptly fell off his stool, crumpled to the floor, face down.
“Poor bastard.” Elmer got up, all shaky, and headed toward Fletch while Sonnyboy Perkins, the bartender, watched and preened his handlebars.
“He used to be a hell of a chef,” offered Sonnyboy. “Cooked at the Colonnade in Greenwood.”
“Well, he ain’t workin’ nowhere now,” intoned Elmer. “Hey Fuzzy, call Louanne and have her come pick up Fletch!”
“K...hic.” Fuzzy reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out his Blackberry, logged onto the net and text messaged Louanne. Seconds later the device beeped and a reply displayed. Louanne was on her way.
Buster checked into Cottage 3 and took a nice long shower, listening to local TV news while he scrubbed. From what he could hear, evidently the prime attractions at the State Fair were the two thousand pound cheese sculpture and the cockroach races. What incredible luck! This was gonna be perfect! He’d be able to flash a few bills and these melvins would be giving him the key to the city...or village..or whatever. Hollywood mystique was on his side. Tomorrow he would go visit the local sheriff and make some necessary contacts.
Buster’s cell ding dinged the first few bars of I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. It was Anita Mann, his boss’s secretary.
“How’s it going, George?” Come to find out later, she was the only one in the company that called him by his given name. He didn’t mind.
“OK", he told her, "Just reached the general locale. Gonna go find something to eat.”
“Listen, George.” Her tone was hushed. This is just between us, but Lev and Ahmed have been discussing your job performance.”
“Oh, yeah?” His neck reddened, temperature rose. “What are they saying?”
“That you’ve got to come through big time and under budget on this one. They’ve been weighing the expenses of shooting on location versus doing it all with computers in a big warehouse somewhere in Canada or Tennessee.”
“Dammit! They could never get the realism I’m able to! I’m the best there is at this, and they know it!” Buster was yelling into the tiny phone. He could feel the wince in Anita’s voice.
“Please don’t yell at me.”
“Sorry.”
“OK.” She paused. Just call if you need anything.”
“Will do...Uh...I’ll see you, and thanks for staying up so late to call me.”
“We’re all counting on you.”
“Bye.” Buster snapped the phone closed and threw it on the bed. He wasn’t sure now whether he should be upset or not.
Those bastards. It’s gonna be alright, though. I’m gonna do a good job, bring it in under budget, and by god, I’ll get a damn good paycheck for this. After all, I always do, right? It’s gonna be ok. He took a deep breath and headed out his cottage door toward the bar.
Notice how those saloon-style doors swing inward? Nice touch. Buster liked that. He’d been on a couple of western movie sets that looked like this. A lot like this. Even including ol’ Fletch lying on the floor. He slid onto the well-worn stool. Elmer and Fuzzy, settin’ a couple o' seats away, were watching him. He nodded. They just stared.
Sonnyboy’s big ol’ mustache parted and words came out. “What can I get you, sir?”
“What happened to him?” Buster gestured toward the prone figure.
“Oh, ol’ Fletch just passed out drunk. Happens to him frequently. He’ll be ok, his girlfriend’s on her way to take him home.”
“You got Blue Moon beer?”
“Naw, we got Bud and PBR.”
“Gimme a Bud, then.”
