Texas Flood

NOTE: This is the first in a series of short stories loosely inspired by song lyrics.

Lyrics by Larry Davis and Joseph Scott
Iconically performed by Stevie Ray Vaughan

Calling what I woke up with this morning a 'hangover' would be a massive disservice to the preceding night. Anyways the first thing I noticed when I rolled over was my dry tongue, stuffing my mouth like Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge. The next thing I noticed - which was probably more like ninety minutes later, but you get the idea – was that I was alone. Then I desperately had to piss, but you probably don't want to hear about that. A tiny sliver of piercing sunlight peeked through the cheap vanilla window shade with careless malice. The clock blinked 12:00am, but that's obviously way way off.

When it became clear that nothing remotely warm was going to come through the faucet any time soon, I splashed some icy water on my face stared at myself through the grimy mirror for a second. I'm really looking like shit these days. Too many nights on the road will do that. No one in the crowd seems to mind though. They show up, they holler, they party. Everyone has a good time and nobody bothers to say “Hey Stevie, you look like crap. Clean your ass up!” Honestly, Jimmy is probably the only cat with the balls to come out and say it, but that dude looks even worse than I do.

My motel room was one of those second-story jobs, with the little walkway that's actually a hall creating a communal balcony for all the rooms to share. I grab a crusty old pack of Camels and head out to wake myself up with some air and some rays and some nicotine, barely bothering to toss on a t-shirt and a wrecked pair of blue jeans. My boots feel tight for some reason, like the snake decided to go on a diet, but I cram them on anyways.

I half expected to see someone I knew out there. Someone from one of the other bands or at least a roadie or two. But there's nobody. It's totally empty, of people at least. It takes a moment for what I'm looking at to sink in. The parking lot below is an absolute mess. He didn’t remember there being a lake at this motel when he arrived, but now they had one. The cars are tossed around like some kid got sick of playing and left all his toys out. The van is stewing in a like a foot of water. Just sitting there! At least it's right-side-up, which is more than he could say for a red pickup lying dead on its side in the middle of the lot.

“Fuck, me,” I mutter to nobody in particular.

So I run over to Jimmy's room and start wailing on the door. At least I thought it was Jimmy's room. Some half-naked chick opens the door groggily and asks what the fuck I think I'm doing. I apologize with my last Camel and regroup. She had some nice tits, but that’s not really what I’m looking for right now if you catch my drift.

At this point I'm really beginning to fucking despise Lubbock Texas.

I'm also starting to remember last night a little better. It was kind of epic actually. It's a shithole of a town, but they've got some rowdy sons of bitches at Tech. And boy did they show up last night, even though it had already started to pour when the club opened. In a one-horse town, it's damned fine to be that horse just so long as it's for one night only.

But back up a second. That afternoon at rehearsal, we're dicking around as usual, when Jimmy yawns and is lazily scratching at his ever-expanding belly and says “You guys work on Stevie's new song, I'm gonna’ to take five.” Now what drug he planned on taking five of I'm not totally sure, but I was plenty pleased to get the band working on one of my tunes for a change.

Chris starts laying out the beat, but it was too damned slow. I told him to pick it up and Tommy laughed a little. He cracked some joke about me and speed but I let it slide. If there had been any truth to it, I might have let him have a piece of my mind. But bassists can be pissy and I just wanted to get on trying out the new instrumental with the full band for once.

So Chris has the snares really popping with a solid attacking blues line and I start up my part. I'm just feeling it, totally zoning in on the moment and all that zen shit. But I swear, it sounded – no, it felt - completely right. When we got to my solo, some new stuff just fell out onto the fretboard and magicked its way out of the amp. It was killer.

Luckily Tommy knew something was going to happen so he was checking the tape later that afternoon. He says I have a tell, some business about biting my lower lip; that when I do that in the middle of a solo something real good is going down. He always kicks my ass in poker so I guess he knows about that kind of shit. Anyways, I listened to it later and it was way better than the part I'd spend hours trying to hammer out on my own. No metronome on the planet can replace a real rhythm section.

While some other act was up warming the crowd, the guys tried to convince Jimmy to play the new one. Jimmy loves instrumentals, as long as he has the lead. When it's his little brother? Not so much. He grumbled something about that “scuttle buttin' shit” but nobody knew what that meant (and it didn't sound like “no” exactly) so we borrowed a pen from the bar and crossed off one of the half-assed Robert Johnson covers from the middle of the set and wrote in SCUTTLE BUTTIN' in its place. Maybe not the best name for a magnum opus, but hey. It's Texas.

This crowd - this worthless room full of hicks - man they might'a been a bunch of priests and rabbis and saints last night. It got positively religious in there. A totally righteous vibe, you know what I mean? And I'm not saying it was just the new tune, but there was an energy at the climax of it that was pure ecstasy. I felt connected to those losers like they were my flock and I was god-damned Jesus himself. What a rush.

I did get some help from a wicked rhythm section though, and I'm not talking about Chris and Tommy. Mother nature turned in a real groovy performance. The biggest thunder-crack of the night came right as I started my solo. It kicked up the intensity like ten notches. The lightning and the howling wind made it seem like our band was literally rocking the world to its core, and I do believe we were close to doing exactly that.

But then it was over, and hell if I know, maybe we'll never rock that hard again. That's the problem with this addiction to music I got. Any time you kick more ass and take more names than ever before, anything less just sucks. And pretty much everything is less.

So yeah, back to the van. I give up on trying to find Jimmy for now, I can’t remember which room’s his and there's probably not much his stoned ass can to do help at this point anyhow. Of course my Strat is in the room, I'm not a moron. I'm not going to leave my baby in some dilapidated motel parking lot so a Tech freshman can bogart it. But there's important shit in that car, like the gear that's too big to lug up to the second floor. And that tape with that solo on it I want to ingrain into my mind.

I get down near the bottom of the stairs, but the last two are completely submerged. I pull off my boots and try to roll up my jeans but it's hopeless; they are too loose and they just keep rolling back down. There's nobody out there anyways, so I just strip down to my shorts and make my way over to the van. Luckily it's parked close to the bottom of the stairs.

The water is damned freezing. And gross. Like the creek back behind the old house after a 4^th of July barbeque. I try to ignore the stench but the nasty stuff comes up half way up my calves for fuck's sake! It must have rained all night, it's not like we're at the bottom of a hill or something. At least I don't think we are. I don't have the keys at this point so I’m really just trying to survey the damage. Thank god we rolled the windows shut, it looks pretty dry in there. It's hard to tell 'cause of the shadows, but the floor looks spared.

When I am satisfied that we aren’t totally fucked, I lean back and stretch out my back. I notice that it's weirdly dark, much darker than when I first waded over. I look up and the sky is ominously gray.

“What the hell are you doing out there you idiot!?” Comes a voice from the main building. I make a gesture like “Whatever, fuck you”, but the guy is pretty insistent so I wade on over and meet him under a meager awning. Out of pure spite, a vicious rain decides to kick in when I’m about half way there.

The guy starts telling me that another tornado is coming and everyone is evacuating to the high school. I guess the twister hadn't had enough fun with this particular armpit of the world last night and felt the urge to return for seconds. I tell the guy some chick is still in the room next to mine and somebody better tell her too. He looks at me like it's probably my job to do that, but doesn't say anything more. He's probably right. I'm sheltered briefly from the rain while talking to this guy, but now I've gotta make my way back.

And my boots are sitting out there, filling up like shaving cups in the shower. This day just keeps getting better.

I splash on up to the stairs, grab my boots and empty em over the railing as I make for the cover of the overhang. Without thinking, I rap on the door and reacquaint myself with girl next door. Now I'm the one who's half-naked. She says she'll catch a ride with the owner and I say goodbye and sorry no I don't have any more cigarettes. I probably just saved your stupid little life but yeah, sorry. No more smokes. Glad to know she's got her priorities straight.

At this point, I need three things: some dry fucking clothes, some dry fucking boots, and to hear Lenny's voice on the phone. She's the only thing that makes any sense to me, and sense would be fantastic right about now. I go into my room, find my stage jeans and ruffled white shirt from the night before and throw 'em on. The shirt is still a little damp from my ample perspiration, but it’s the Gobi desert compared to the tee I’d left out in the rain. I pick up the dusty yellow phone on the dinky little nightstand.

No dial tone.

I try clicking the hanging-up-thing a few times, but nothing. I try dialing anyways, but obviously that isn't going to work. Tossing the receiver across the room also proved futile, though it was amusing to see the spiral cord struggle to impede its progress. So I've got dry clothes, but that's a negative on the dry shoes and Lenny. One outta three. I need to get my ass out of this town.

So I throw everything into my bag, carefully pick up my Strat and race down to the van. I'm sloshing through the water again, this time with my boots on, when I realized I've left the keys upstairs. I turn up to face the wailing sky, fat droplets pelting my closed eyelids. For a moment there, it all felt like a dream. Either Lubbock is some kinda hell, or I'm going insane.

So that's where we are. Jimmy and the guys are probably over at that high school trying to convince the horny townies to blow them in the men's room. Bye bye babies; I'm driving this van straight back to Austin where it's always nice and dry. Where Lenny is sitting by her phone waiting for my call. They can finish this leg of the tour without me for all I care.

I can actually see the goddamned tornado in the rear-view mirror. I don't think any cop in his right mind would begrudge me flooring it right about now, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going home and I'm not going to so much as look behind me until I'm there.