Salvador Nightshade

In earlier cultures, the first repeated story of the year was always a highly anticipated event.
"I wonder which story Grandfather Shaman will choose to retell first this year?" The young Pawnee children would eagerly whisper. "The one about the Fern who Cheated Winter or The Raven and the Vole?"

"Say, do you reckon if we ask real nice, Cookie might tell us the one about the preacher, the mule and the dance hall girl again?" The cowpunchers would say when Cookie was out of earshot.

It was a wonderful time. There weren't that many stories and so each was worth a lot.

Of course, these days a repeated story is viewed as the unwelcome product of a lazy or perhaps infirm mind and met with groans and much rolling of the eyes.
"Oh Christ! Dad's telling The Office Party and The Trick Candles again."

Well, so be it. If you roll your eyes at Latigo Flint he shoots you in the face. And half the time he's probably so drunk he actually thinks you're Pawnee.

From the archives - August 12, 2005. Enjoy.

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Salvador Nightshade

There was once a young Gypsy named Salvador Nightshade who lived in Bakersfield, California. Salvador played the harmonica so beautifully and with so much passion, that when two people heard it there was a very good chance they would instantly fall in love with each other.

But no one ever fell in love with Salvador Nightshade. Salvador was kinda funny looking to begin with and when he played, his eyes would cross and his cheeks bulged. It also didn't help that all that rapid in- and exhalation tended to make him extremely flatulent.

Well, Salvador and I became occasional drinking buddies. We'd wile away evenings, decimating cases of Coors Long Necks and playing Musical Magic 8-Ball with the upcoming songs on the jukebox.

"Hey Musical Magic 8-Ball, will a girl ever fall in love with Salvador?"

...

Blame it all on my roots
I showed up in boots
and ruined your black tie affair

With every Musical Magic 8-Ball answer, Salvador and I would giggle drunkenly and collapse against each other. Then we'd demand another round with hearty slaps upon age-stained oak. We never compared our interpretations. Sometimes now I think back and can't help but wonder if we ever read the same answer into a given song. I guess it's not important--our response was always the same and that's probably all that matters.

When our giggles started to become hysterical, the bartender would unplug the jukebox and then Salvador and I would go our separate ways: I to a nearby barn, bedroll under my arm, Salvador to his concrete culvert where he'd practice harmonica 'til dawn. His melancholy strains and trills would drift reverberantly across lonely truck stop lots, bringing unexpected tears of joy to the handlebar cheeks of weary long-haulers.

Salvador Nightshade was so incredibly good with that harmonica, you can't even fathom. If you heard the first half of a song, you'd be willing to eat a puppy just to hear the rest. Salvador Nightshade made John Popper sound like an asthmatic mule with a kazoo in its nose.



One night Salvador Nightshade took his own life with a modified hay baler and a barbed wire noose.

It made me so goddamn sad that I forgot how to speak and spent the next four months trying to headbutt passing freight trains off their tracks.


(Which is impossible by the way. It can't be done. Not with a headbutt. You may try if you like--I guess I can't stop you. But I am kind of like, the foremost expert in the world and stuff, at headbutting passing freight trains off their tracks, and if I say it can't be done... Well then, you know, it probably can't be done.)