Who Is Huckleberry Baskin?

"Hey, you're up next", the tall brunette bartender smiled as she said it.

Huckleberry Baskin nodded his thanks to the bartender and finished his beer. He felt the energy inside him and knew this was going to be a good show. He really liked the bartender, but could never remember her name right before I show. In fact, he couldn't remember anyone's name right before a show. Hell, sometimes he couldn't even remember his own.

He slowly got up off the creaky barstool and handed her a $10. "Thank you darlin' and keep the change."

He picked up his guitar case and turned toward the small stage. The singer who was finishing up reminded him of someone. But, he didn't know who. She was attractive, dressed like one of the girls from the Grand Ole Opry or that old TV show He Haw in a tight-fitting red western shirt that showed an ample amount of cleavage. She was finishing up with the song Jolene, and she was doing it justice. Once again Baskin thought of someone, a vague shadow from his past, but try as he might he could not figure out who she reminded him of.

Maybe he'd figure it out later. One thing he'd learned over the years is that his mind short-circuited right before going on stage every time. So, he did what he always did. Looked down at his snakeskin boots and thought about absolutely nothing at all. He held that nothing in the front of his brain like someone might put their hands over their eyes to block out the sun. Thinking was dangerous right now. He'd think again after the set was over.

The bar only had about 30 people in it, and almost all of them had come to see Huckleberry. He had the uncanny ability to give them the exact set they needed to make their lives better for just a little while. Even if it wasn't exactly the kind of music they were used to in a broken-down country bar. Huck did place country music, sorta, but at the same time, it wasn't country music. But it always had an effect on the crowd. It always touched them.

Cassie, the bartender whose name Huckleberry couldn't remember right now walked up to the stage. Even in his unthinking fugue state he could sense, if not appreciate an attraction that existed between them. I could remember at the moment if he knew her, or just wished he did. But seeing her walk to the stage made him smile involuntarily, like a reflex.

As the Jolene singer left the stage, Cassie took the mic. "Alright everyone, settle down. I know everyone has been waitin' for Huckleberry to take the stage, but first, I wanna let everyone know we are sellin' raffle tickets at the bar to help get Janet's cow the operation. Ten bucks each and first prize is an old colt revolver. I have it behind the bar if anyone wants to check it out."

"Now, without further ado, the man most of y'all came to see... Huckleberry Baskin!" The crowd roared as Huckleberry walked to the stage. The fugue state still existed, but it allowed him to feel the joy of performing as he walked to the stage. It was almost as if this brain-state picked and choose what he felt at any given time.

"Howdy, everyone." His mind wouldn't let him say Y'all. He'd tried many times. It and several other words the locals could say were apparently blocked from his vocabulary, and not just when he was in the fugue state. The only exception was if he read them out loud off of a piece of paper, but he could not, no matter how hard he tried, say them otherwise.

He set the guitar case down and opened it. Inside was a nondescript left-handed acoustic guitar. He practiced right-handed, but when it mattered his brain would only let him play with his left. His brain let him feel some excitement and he smiled at his six-string friend.

"I'm Huckleberry Baskin, I want to thank you all for coming out tonight to listen to me play this old guitar and sing you a few songs." While huck talked to the crowd his mind's eye analyzed them. Unknown to Huckleberry, his brain was studying the faces and body language of every person in the crowd. It saw every tic. It registered every emotion. His brain knew the crowd and he didn't even know it was happening. His brain assembled the setlist without any conscious decision on his part. Not just the songs, but the order in which the songs would have the maximum effectiveness and give something to the entire audience.

Huckleberry Baskin sat on the stool behind him, adjusted the mic and the pickup for the guitar, and started playing. He never knew what was going to come out. The only thing he knew for sure is it would be music from the rock group Journey but done as a country song. Huckleberry had a beautiful voice with just the slightest touch of southern twang. Just like with the left-handed guitar if Huckleberry was practicing he could sing other songs and other styles, but as soon as he hit the stage it was country versions of Journey songs, and nothing else.

He sang, "Runnin' out of self-control, getting close to an overload, up against a no win situation..." It was the Journey hit, Be Good To Yourself. It had been a long time since his brain pulled that one up. His brain gave him enough freedom to look around at the audience while he played. When he hit the refrain he saw them. A couple sitting toward the back was being affected. Small almost imperceptible changes in the couple's faces told the tale. They had been blaming themselves for something, but Huckleberry's song was releasing them. When the refrain started in "Be good to yourself when no body else will. Whoa, oh be good to yourself. You're walking that highwire, caught in the crossfire, woah be good to yourself." Huck could see the barely perceptible changes that let him know the song was working.

The song came to an end and he immediatley launched into another one. "When the lights go down in the city, and the sun shines on the bay, ooh I wanna be there in my city, oh, oh, ooh, oh, ooh..." Almost immediatley Huckleberry saw the change in someone. The man had tears in his eyes listening to the song, but his body language showed it was pure joy.

Unfortunately, Huckleberry would not get to finish the song.

Cassie knew the men were trouble the minute they walked into the bar. Eight of them in paramilitary garb, armed to the teeth with assault rifles and handguns. "This is going to be bad. This is going to be really bad." She thought as she reached under the bar and hit the silent alarm. Not the one that calls the police, the other silent alarm.

A warning shot from the obvious leader sent everyone into a panic and snapped Huckleberry out of the fugue state. A second shot followed by the words, "Be quiet or I will start killing you all." got the crowd under control.

"Hi Huck, how have you been?" He had a voice that could most accurately be described as wafting, whispery and reedy all at the same time. He smiled at Huckleberry as he said it. He was a tall man wearing amber red sunglasses. He was extremely polite, but at the same time fairly oozed menace.

"It's Huckleberry mister. I don't go by Huck. Do I know you?"

The leader looked over at Cassie. "He doesn't know me?" Then back at Huckleberry. "are you sure you don't know who I am?"

"No mister. I'm pretty sure I'd remember you if I'd seen you before."

"He doesn't know or remember any of it General." Stated Cassie. "So how about you just leave him alone?"

"I can't Cassandra. We need him. We need what we left inside of him."

"You can't have it." Cassie wanted to reach toward the revolver under the bar, it was the raffle prize and wasn't loaded, but maybe she could bluff.

"Can't? You say I can't have him?" As the General spoke Huckleberry's brain noticed a very slight shift in the general's facial features. The fugue state took back over and Huckleberry knew what the General was going to order even before he said it. "Okay, enough of this... someone kill her, now!"

One of the soldiers lifted his gun and aimed toward Cassie in the bar as the others kept watch over the scared crowd. Two soldiers at the front of the stage were watching Huckleberry but were still surprised when he suddenly lept off the stage over their heads and landed at the feet of the one who was about to fire on Cassie. He quickly slit the man's throat with his guitar pick while pulling the pistol from the man's side holster.

The man dropped the assault rifle and grabbed frantically at his throat trying to stop the blood spurting from the open wound in his neck.

The men Huckleberry had jumped over to save Cassie had already raised their guns and were firing at him. Just in time, Huckleberry was able to grab the wounded soldier and use him as a human shield. A bullet still found its mark biting deep into Huckleberry's leg but in the fugue state, he didn't even feel it. Another bullet hit one of the bar patrons. The same man that Huckleberry had started to sing Lights for earlier. The man went down crying in pain grabbing the wound that suddenly appeared in his gut.

The General yelled at the men to stop shooting, "We need him alive you idiots!"

"Good to know," said Huckleberry as he fired two shots from the sidearm hitting both men in the head. As they slumped to the ground another came at him leveling his rifle. Huckleberry was too fast, he ducked inside punched the man hard in the face. He fell. The last two soldiers had barely started to react when Huckleberry lept into the air shooting the farthest one from him in the leg, while still in the air he grabbed the closest one by the head and slammed him down hard into his knee while landing. He immediately spun toward the general who was smiling at him.

"Now, there's the Huck I know." Said the general.

"I told you, it's Huckleberry."

"Do you know who I am now Huckleberry?"

"Your General James Winter, and you're a dead man."

Huckleberry started to move toward the General. "I'd stop if I were you, Huck!" The General said, still smiling.

Huckleberry immediately read the General's face. He couldn't tell what it was, but he knew that he wasn't bluffing.

"Cassandra, look outside and tell my friend Huck what you see."

Cassie crossed to the nearest window and looked outside. Head down in defeat, she uttered one word. "Tanks."

"Yes," The General smiled. "Yes tanks, and they will open fire on this bar killing everyone in here. If I don't walk out of here alive and with you."

Huck thought about it long and hard. He knew he needed to get the bar patron some first aid, and he knew what damage could be done to the bar by the tanks. The General obviously wanted him alive "Take your men and go General, and don't come back."

"I said you are coming with us, Huck."

"And I said stop calling me Huck. I can see it in your face General. If I go with you all these people are dead. It's not going to happen."

Huckleberry could read the General's face. He could see the calculations going through the man's head. For some reason the General needed him alive. After a brief stair down the General holstered his gun and motioning to his wounded men turned to leave. When he got to the door he turned around and looked at Huckleberry who was already moving to help the man with the bleeding gut wound.

"It was good to see you again Huck!" And with that, they left.

After stabilizing the man's wounds he turned and very calmly walked toward the bar. He looked Cassie in the eye. She knew what was coming and she dreaded it.

"What am I?" Were the only words that came out of Huckleberry Baskin's mouth.