The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

        It was the spring of '88. No, it was the winter of '87. No, it was.... wait... let me see...
        In the fall of 2003, the boys and I decided to take a little R & R out in the wild and woolly boondocks of South Central Florida. This was not going to be a typical, boring jaunt. It was to be a fishing trip like no other, an exuberant, Redneckian celebration of life out in the middle of Nowhere... in Nowhere County, to be exact. To make the adventure complete, our good buddy Zeb Hendrix (Jimi's white brother) had agreed to come along.
        One cold November morning, we piled into my ancient four-door International pickup truck and headed for the boondocks. After traveling twenty miles down the old two-lane blacktop road that runs between Gutchinville and the Nowhere County Wilderness Area, we pulled the old rattletrap into the dirt parking lot outside of the Mulesboro Country Store.
        A couple of cowhands from the Triple Z were there, leaning against the front porch railing as they picked their teeth and squinted into the dust that we had kicked up with our noisy arrival. I recognized one of them right away as Bosco Bilgewater, a childhood chum.
        They nudged one another when they first caught sight of Zeb Hendrix. In fact, their eyes widened like flying saucers as they landed on old Zebbie, the world-famous mangler of song and verse. As Zeb rushed into the store, anxious for a candy fix, I stopped and said hi to old Bosco. Because I wanted to pass for a really cool dude, I grinned like a baboon.
        "Still punchin' them doggies, huh, Bosc'?" I asked.
        "Some," said Bosco. He paused for a few seconds, then dropped a bomb into our laps. "I've got a bet for you," he drawled.
        "You know we don't bet, Bosco," I replied. "Unless you're talking about real, honest-to-goodness Monopoly money."
        We heard a strange noise, and I looked up to see Zeb sauntering out of the store. He had just bought some of that candy that explodes in your mouth and had stuffed about two packs down his gullet. He was fizzing and popping all over the place.
        "Boys," I told them, "I know that y'all are not impressed by us Incredible Hootenannies, although we do happen to be the world-famous toast of several incontinents. But here is something that should rouse a response even from weary old silverbacks like y'all. In fact, I reckon that almost any Redneck on earth would be glad to trade places with you right now."
        I turned to Zeb. He stood a couple of feet away from me with his eyes open and mouth agape. The colorful fizz fired out of his open mouth like a psychedelic fountain.
        The deep purple eruption clashed with his fire-engine-red hair, pasty pale skin, and obligatory rash of orange freckles. But who cared? Zeb was a legend who dominated country music like a juvenile delinquent stomping ants on pavement.
        He was not just the inventor of post-rockabilly hippety hop, or the founder of The Iron Plow, which was the very first heavy country metal band.
        Zeb was also licensed to carry the Xhuman Nuclear Guitar.
        "Boys," I said with gusto, "I want to introduce my close personal friend, Mr. Zeb Hendrix." Bosco and his companion straightened up quickly and stuck out their hands.
        "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hendrix," said the wrangler who was with Bosco. "I'm Bosco's brother Beeper. I've got all of your CDs." He swallowed hard, dismayed by the fact that he had drawn too close to a star. He seemed to be remembering the warnings he had always heard about these things. Didn't he run the risk of being pulled into the star's orbit and catching on fire? Wasn't there a chance that he would be sucked into a black hole?
        Such risks existed, of course, but Zeb was too polite to mention them. He preferred to compose poems in the popular rhyme scheme known as Redneckish Nanometer, and this is what he promptly did.
        "Gypsy child copped a groove and purely walked upon the green and gentle grasslands, having a blast of natural gas in meeting friends of warm or feckless spotted cattle," said Zeb.
        "Well, I'll be switched," sighed Bosco, "what a poet!" Our drummer, Frogstick, was unmoved by the fancy poetry. He had been standing there listening to us the entire time, and now he interrupted.
        "What's this-here bet you were just talkin' about, Bosco?" croaked Frogstick.
        "Well," drawled Bosco, "you look like a man who knows his Monopoly money. I'll bet you Park Place and an electric company that our cousin can pitch your bass player Slug clean over the top of two pickup trucks parked side-by-side." At this junction there was a pause, which also happened to be pregnant.
        "Excuse me, Bosco," I oozed smoothly. "Am I hearing you right? Do you really think that we would allow such a thing to be done with our lifelong buddy, Slug Simpkins?" I looked around fiercely at the familiar faces of the other band members: Stink, Frogstick, and Egghead. We swapped a look, and then we turned to Bosco in a single, sudden motion.
        "We'll do it!" we cried in unison.
        While old Boscaroo scampered off to fetch his man-tossing cousin, Egghead and I strolled on up to our truck. Slug was leaning back in the seat with his eyes half-open.
        "How about it, Slug?" I asked. "Did you hear it all? Can you handle it?"
        "Piece of cake," drawled Slug softly. Egghead spoke up.
        "I'll bet that Bosco's cousin is named Bubba," Egghead offered. His voice was heavily dipped in a thick coating of sarcasm, with some artificial sweetener in the syrup. When Egghead said this, old Slug let out a guffaw and just about swallowed his gum.
        About this time, Bosco strolled up with some of the boys from the Triple Z Ranch. Accompanying them was a towering mountain of manhood who was obviously Bosco's cousin.
        This guy was a monster.
        His arms charged from his sleeves like hairy torpedoes. His eyes were like tiny flashlights flickering fiercely through the pudgy rolls of his bearded face. In his appearance and aroma he kind of favored Stink. In fact, if your back was turned, you could have sworn that the guy was Stinky's long-lost brother.
        "He's at least twice as big as any Bubba that I've ever seen," I whispered to Egghead. Bosco, proud and confident, was preening like a peacock.
        "Gentlemen," he crowed, "I want you all to meet my cousin, Double-Bubba Bilgewater!" As I leaned against our truck I could feel it rocking. Slug was trying hard to suppress his laughter, and doing a mighty good job of it, too. At least, that's what I figured at the time.
        "Let the games begin," said Egghead (he's been to college). And, sure enough, they did.
        Slug slowly stepped out of our truck. His shoulders were shaking, and tears streamed from behind his shades and down onto his impassive face as he fought back a bundle of laughs. Side splitting chortles, giggles, yok-yoks, hee-haws, and assorted har-de-hars threatened to fly like rubber penguins from his lips and derail our crafty plan. The boys from the Triple Z thought that he was having terror convulsions, and a few of them began to doubt the wisdom of the venture.
        "Let's call it off," a sage old cowpoke counseled.
        "On with the show!" shouted Slug in reply. And on it went.
        I'm not a betting man, but I must admit that I saw a few Monopoly dollars wagered that day. Slug stood coolly by as Double-Bubba flexed his muscles, warming up for their big fling. Stressed to the maximum, his shirt suddenly exploded, firing forth a tiny salvo of white plastic buttons as it tore open down the front with a resounding aural explosion. The jocular crowd gathered around the two pickup trucks, one of which was a fancy black mudder that belonged to Bosco.
        As the whoops and yee-haws echoed through the dusty parking lot, Double-Bubba grabbed old Slugger and stepped back onto the porch to get a running heave at the two vehicles. He squinted at the trucks like an Olympian preparing for the javelin toss. It was then that Slug decided he'd had enough.
        "Good luck, Hubba-Bubba," drawled Slug.
        "What did you say?" cried Double-Bubba, dropping him in surprise.
        "Good luck, Hubba-Bubba," drawled Slug.
        "I hate that name!" hollered old D.B., looking around in embarrassed, astonished rage.
        The crowd started to snicker. Sun-hardened old cowpokes hid their smiles behind their knotty hands while younger blades laughed right out loud. It was plain to see that old Sluggy had struck a nerve.
        "Hubba-Bubba," said Slug. "Hubba-Bubba!"
        "YEEEEAAAGH!" bellowed D.B., his face a mask of florid fury. His shirt split again, right down the back, as he seized Slug in his hairy hams. He staggered backwards three steps, then charged with astonishing speed off of the porch toward the two trucks.
        At the last moment, to Double-Bubba's surprise, something wonderful happened.
        Slug reached out and latched onto the stout porch railing with a vise-like grip that just wouldn't let go. Time conveniently slowed down at this point to allow us to fully enjoy what happened next. Stripped of his would-be javelin, old Double-Bubba experienced mental gridlock. His momentum sent him hurtling toward the truck as his arms flailed helplessly and his eyes bugged out.
        "Well, I'll be jiggered," said Bosco.
        Double-Bubba hit the big black mudder with a loud "whummmph," rocking it up onto two wheels. He sat down in the dirt in surprise and shook his big head. A mirror fell off of the door with a clang that sounded like a cymbal crash in the sudden, profound silence.
        Always ready to be on the road again, we band members and our good pal Zeb Hendrix piled into my beat-up truck. Slug hollered out the window to Bosco and the crowd of cowpunchers.
        "Tell the boys to keep their Monopoly money. And here's something for you, Bosco," he yelled, flinging a fistful of real money out the window, "you'll need it to fix that truck."
        I fired up the old war-horse. Then I looked up, and what did I see but the gigantic body of old Double-Bubba himself bearing down on us. It trundled up to the passenger-side window and stuck its head, which was attached to the body, right into our cab. I was surprised that it fit, to tell you the truth.
        "Can I have you guy's autographs?" he asked. Of course, we were only too happy to meet his request head on.
        "Write to our fan club," we shouted in unison as the truck lurched into gear.
        That one had been just way too easy.
        "What a brilliantly rainbowed, semi-transparent, red or aqua-tinted adventure," rapped Zeb Hendrix as we began to roll toward the highway. "We're on a shining sun-drenched voyage or watercolor trip that pours changeable 3-D paint across the canvas of your mind. This truck don't carry no gamblers, this truck!"
        We pulled out onto the desolate blacktop. Gorgeous sunlight splashed the green countryside with surrealistic explosions of color while the distant highway danced mysteriously, sinuously, in the languorously rippling waves of feeble late November heat. The birds all sang at once as if someone had given them a cue.
        I had to admit it. Old Zeb had hit the nail on the head. Our expedition into the great Florida Wilderness was already turning into quite an adventure, and we had only just begun. The road stretched invitingly ahead of us as the old truck bucked and shimmied like a colt in a green pasture. It felt good to be alive and moving forward, even if we didn't have a lick of sense.
        The future was our hoss, and we had just whomped it with a stick.