He shovelled the last of the 15 cubic metres of soil which he had excavated for a hot pool, onto the raised growing beds. He'd hewn the logs from a fallen sequoia tree and fashioned a dozen 12 foot by 12 foot by 4 foot planters in which he planned to grow herbs, vegetables and flowers for Trixie.
The call was from Richard and while the old guy was trying to sound upbeat Humbert knew that something was wrong. Very wrong.
Richard said that his band, or what was left of it, was playing a gig at the Bluegrass Society on the coming weekend. Bluegrass Society. This was bad. Very bad.
Humbert knew from his military experience, growing up and living in army base towns throughout the South that Bluegrass hid any number of weirdos from the burnt out drug-ingesting hippies through to the full-blown, gun-toting crazies who could do a Timothy McVeigh at any time. Humbert was worried. Very worried.Talking to Richard, Humbert tried to keep positive to cheer him along but what he heard froze his blood. Richard said that his brother Chris was likely to make trouble again. Chris doesn't like rubato intros or outros and Richard, foolishly had a couple planned. Humbert calculated the likely fallout of this while he mumbled a few yeses and noes and maybes as Richard rambled on. Then came the bombshell. Richard said that Chris might amp up his guitar. Humbert knew what this meant. Richard always believed that Chris should learn to play his guitar louder, in order to match the uncomfortable loud droning from the double bass, but the other guys in the band would be playing acoustically. This meant trouble. Big trouble.
Humbert would have to get over there just in case. He went through the odds of a good outcome in his head.
- The audience of in-bred, feral denim wearers;
- The band of squabbling brothers always on the edge of violence;
- The fact that the band were doing more beer drinking than practising recently;
- The fact that the venue was going to be small with probably no cage protecting the band.
At least there was one positive. One of the crazies wasn't going to be there.
Not an audience member - the middle brother - the god-botherer.
That improved the odds somewhat but Humbert thought he'd better get some heavy armaments just in case.
"Hope for the best but plan for the worst."
3 comments:
Ha ha ha Very funny!
The old Hillman seat didn't go very far back. The runners were short. Humbert ended up driving with his back straight an his knees splayed, like he was at the wheel of a ride on lawn mower. It was better than flying. Much better, in fact.
Humbert was done with flying, for a day or two at least.
His first stop was in Palmerston North...
"Palmerston North", Humbert thought. The only place on earth that twinned with Nuova Lazio.
Dar es Salaam, Tripoli, Falugia, Damascas and even Petone had refused.
"Oh well", he thought, "it'd be good practice" as he pulled the CZ 75 SP-01 from under the seat and put it in his breast pocket.
Post a Comment