Spirits Move Me

By Sharon Quinn

Southern Rocker, Bucky Richard knows his next gig will be eternal--eternal hell. He wants to play guitar in The Big Room, the heavenly rock 'n roll bar, alongside his music idols, but his name isn't etched in the promoter's book. Instead, he will appear nightly, alone, at The Fire Hydrant, the lowest dive bar in Hell...and his audience of rotting corpses couldn't be more happy, until Bucky is bounced from The Fire Hydrant for being good--too good.

Caught between musical heaven and hell with on place left to go, Bucky seizes a last chance to earn his spotlight in The Big Room. To prove he's changed his tune, Bucky must sacrifice a part of his past, the part sustaining his soul, before his music dies and the doors to The Big Room are closed to him forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Quinn
• Release date: Oct 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988292116

Sharon Quinn

Sharon Quinn, award winning screenwriter and filmmaker is married and divides her time between her beloved Texas and the mountains of Utah, where she does most of her writing and creates her characters while walking her Siberian husky, Tennessee.

Book preview

SPIRITS MOVE ME

SHARON QUINN

Published by Sharon Quinn

Copyright 2020 Sharon Quinn

ISBN: 9780988292109 (print)

ISBN: 9780988292116 (ebook)

Table of Contents

Spirits Move Me

A Broken Highway

The Elevator

The Barefoot Bull Rider

For Sandy, Ric, Diane, and Liz

Thank you for breathing life into my characters.

For Matt, Marc, Star, and Brandon

Thank you for making them look good on film.

For Aaron

Thank you for making them look good on paper.

Spirits Move Me

Bucky Richard uttered a weary sigh as he trudged down a rocky, desolate road—a road leading him straight into the setting sunlight of failure. He shifted a black, guitar case, gouged at the neck, from one hand to the other and focused his attention on the bright, white lights of a nightclub marquee. He stopped under the sparkling rectangle, pushed back the brim of his black felt cowboy hat and marveled at the round, marching lights and bold, black letters on the marquee. His handsome, worried, thirty-something face relaxed into a gleaming smile. A smile purchased with his first record royalty. Yesss…The Big Room, he whispered in his smooth southern drawl. I made it.

Bucky’s gaze fell on a winding, gold-carpeted, staircase leading to tall, marbled doors securing The Big Room’s second-story entrance. Gusts of bright light, joyful laughter, and upbeat music burst from the doors each time they opened.

Bucky lowered his eyes, dark with the experience of a thousand hangovers, to a small a-frame sandwich board positioned beside the staircase. A photo of a young man dressed in a white suit with a Stratocaster guitar perched on his lap graced the board. A banner angled across the young man’s picture read: Appearing Nightly.

Bucky exhaled a low whistle and passed a reverent hand across the photo. Wow, David Dinero. Man, I’d give anything to open for him. He…he’s just cool.

They don’t come any cooler.

Bucky snapped to full consciousness.

Welcome to The Big Room, a man behind a burnished wood podium greeted with a tip of his white cowboy hat. I’m Pete. Ya’ got a gig tonight? he asked with a sturdy handshake and smile.

Believe so, Bucky replied with a tentative grin.

Great, Pete nodded. One second, while I check my book. He flipped the cover of a large white-leathered volume resting on top of the podium.

Every night a new musical act appeared at Pete’s podium eager for a permanent home. He welcomed them all, always with the hope he would find their name etched on a page inside his book.

Bucky fidgeted with a busted latch on his guitar case while he waited for Pete. He produced a small bottle of bourbon whiskey from his back pocket with a mechanical hand and planted the bottle on Pete’s podium as he obsessed over the damaged latch.

Pete’s expression turned to concrete. He studied the whiskey bottle with a horrible sinking in his heart. He’d seen it all before—the drugs—the booze, all the camouflages for pain in their various forms. Geez, it never changed.

Pete plucked the bottle between a thumb and forefinger and dangled it over a black trash can labeled, ‘Waste,’ in white letters. Kin’ we get rid o’ this for ya? he asked in a cheerful lilt.

Bucky’s face fell like an express elevator. He snatched the bottle from Pete’s grip, more than a little freaked out at even the suggestion he give up the bottle. No way. My father gave it to me.

Pete threw Bucky and his whiskey bottle a compassionate glimpse. Your name? he inquired.

Bucky wedged the whiskey bottle into his back pocket for safe keeping. Uh, the name’s Buchanan…Bucky…Richard,

Pete lowered his eyes to the pages of the book with a resigned sigh. He flipped through the pages, stopped and skimmed a page with a slow sweep.

Ha! Hey, Buuuuuuuuuuckeeeeeee!

Pete’s curious eyes darted up and over Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky whirled with Pete’s gaze to locate the source of the sarcastic summons.

Next door to The Big Room sat another nightclub. The walls were slanted, made of split rotting wood, like fuel for a bonfire. A rickety staircase descended to a basement entrance. The wooden door was closed, overlapped by blue steel bars—a padlock with a key in the chamber—dangled off-center from an open drawbar. Thin, angular, red neon lights near the roof of the club read: Fire Hydrant. The t on the end of Hydrant flickered and burned out before Bucky’s eyes.

Under the red neon sign, dressed in a black t-shirt, leather vest, and saggy khaki pants stood Bouncer, round and solid, like a medicine ball on legs, his elbows propped on top a worn, wobbly, particle board podium. A masticated toothpick dangled from his mouth. He surveyed Bucky with malevolent, dark-circled eyes. Buuuuuuuckeeeeee, he trilled with a small side-of-the-mouth smile and sly wink.

Bucky jerked his eyes back to Pete’s podium and rubbed a sweaty palm down his pant leg. Find it yet?

Pete shook his head. No man, sorry. Not here.

Bucky’s voice rose a nervous octave. Uh, try lookin’ under Buchanan. Sometimes my first and last names get switched.

Happy to. Pete flipped pages and ran a finger down another long list of names. He was nothing, if not accommodating.

Bucky pursed his lips and monitored Bouncer out of the corner of his eye while he waited.

Bouncer wrinkled his nose, winked, and mouthed Bucky a wicked, smacking kiss as he crept toward Pete’s podium. Ain’t there, man, he chided with a despicable giggle.

Bucky cut Bouncer a harsh squint. It is.

Bouncer shrugged his shoulders. "Okay, be as dim as ya’ look."

Bucky’s face clouded over. All sense left him. He charged Bouncer with gnashed teeth, bright hate-filled eyes, and a clenched fist. The more logical part of Bucky wondered why he would even consider taking on such an enormous elephant. He guessed the booze he’d consumed earlier in the evening was still sloshing around in his system giving him a courage he didn’t normally possess. Ya’ wanna piece o’ me, jerk?

Bouncer waved a piece of yellowed paper in Bucky’s face with a haughty laugh. Already got a piece o’ you, pal. His oily fingernail grazed a long list of names. See? Buchannan, Bucky, Richard, he informed with air quotation marks, pleased to have provoked him. No mix up with names ‘round here.

Bucky’s face fell, his shoulders dropped, and his eyes turned bleak. Awwww, man, no!

Bouncer slapped Bucky on the back with a wild laugh. Talk ‘bout yer luck o’ the Irish. He grinned and scooped up Bucky’s guitar case with one meaty hand.

Bucky’s eyes did a frantic dance. Help me, please? he whimpered to Pete as Bouncer hooked him by the collar and dragged him through the dirt toward the Fire Hydrant.

Pete’s heart melted. This was the one part of his job he hated. He had zero control over the names in or outside the pages of his book. Those decisions were made by those who had more information than Pete and he knew it. It had to be enough, at least for now.

Sorry Bucky, Pete frowned as his forlorn eyes trailed the ill-starred guitar player. Wish I could let you play here.

C’mon, we’re late, Bouncer complained as he forced Bucky down the unbalanced, decayed, wood staircase to the Fire Hydrant entrance. He swept the steel barred gate open with the crook of his fat finger and rammed the creaky wooden door with a tucked shoulder. Bucky’s stomach did a sick somersault when he caught