Last Call

"I freaked out," Michael says. "I didn't know what was wrong. Then I saw on the floor of the van all his heroin stuff. He had overdosed. I hit him on the back, and he started breathing. Then I got him in a cold bath and revived him. It scared the hell out of me."

But the turning point came just as Michael was entering high school, still living with his father. There was never any money to pay the bills, so they had little food and no electricity or running water. They were both high all the time--that's where the money went.

The first day of class, Michael went to high school and sat down on the front steps waiting for the doors to open. He'd been up for several days straight. "I threw up and passed out in front of all the other students and teachers," he recalls. "I knew then that I had to get out. That's when I did the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I told him I was going back to Mom's."

Michael has to look away. Putting the cigarette to his lips, he inhales deeply. But this kid is tough, like his old man. After a moment he continues, "It was the first time I had ever seen him cry.

"He wanted me to be there. He feels better when he's near his kids. He's extremely lonely. But he knew he could barely take care of himself. It was tough to walk away, but I had to save myself." Michael grinds out his cigarette. He looks up. When they are filled with tears, his eyes look a lot like his mother's.

"I feel sorry for him sometimes," Michael at last says quietly, then corrects himself. "All the time."

The boys think of Bobby as a good dad. He never hit them. They came first, at least when he was sober. If they needed to talk, he was always ready to listen. He encouraged them to attend college as something to fall back on should their music careers not pan out.

"He loved us unconditionally," says Michael. "He never judged. I felt like I could tell him anything."

"I think he did the best he could," adds Brian.
And he gave them what he loved best. His music.
Both boys plan to make it big someday. "He influenced our style and encouraged us," Brian says. "He didn't have a lot else to give us, except his love and the blues. I think you do have to live the blues if you want to play them honestly. But the blues can be a feeling and it can be a lifestyle, and there's only a thin line between them."

After a couple of false starts--including both father and one son doing jail time--the Bob Hornbuckle Band, featuring Bobby and Brian and Michael, was starting to hit stride this year. Then came the news about Bobby's cancer.

Michael went with him to the oncologist. "He was saying on the way, 'I hope it's not the Big C.' But I knew it was before he said that. I didn't want to know, but I knew."

The boys and their father played the Breckenridge Blues Festival in August. Robin Ford, one of the top avant-garde jazz-blues guitarists in the country, had just finished his set and was back in his dressing room when the Bob Hornbuckle Band took the stage. Ford stopped packing and went up to watch and listen.

"I heard the first few notes of that guitar," he explained to the festival producer, "and I had to come back." He stayed there until the band finished. "I couldn't leave," he said simply.

The producer relayed the message to Bobby and sons. It is a memory that will remain with the boys long after their father has played his last note.

Not that they're ready to let him go. They plan to catch up with him in Mexico. He's going down first to scout out the scene, line up a few gigs, they say. Then he'll send for them.

We're going to leave
our troubles behind,
go home to ease our minds.
We're going to spend our days
by the cool Arkansas.
You'll find your place there,
and dream your dreams.
Down in the Valley.

--from "Down in the Valley,"
by Bobby Hornbuckle

"I tried to live my life as a bluesman," says Bobby. "I tried to be the kind of guy who couldn't wait until that next gig on the weekend.

"I lived for the next 'bluesy' experience because I thought it would make my music better, more real...like waking up in a jail cell because I was too drunk to get myself home...or facing off against some jealous guy in a parking lot because I had messed around with his woman...or pawning my wedding ring to buy a tank of gas to get to my next gig..."

Bobby chokes up for a moment. He looks out the window of his mother's kitchen. Dead leaves whip by in the wind. A bitter winter waits just ahead. He tries to smile. "I guess that qualifies as bluesy." The smile gets lost in the lines on his face. There are some pains, often self-induced, that morphine can't touch.