TEN
It’s been raining all day. There’s wet grime everywhere. I dart up the stairs from the subway, skidding in a puddle of unimaginable slop as I elbow my way into Grand Central station. And I nearly twist my ankle into sick-leave territory.
“Sweet mother of Christ!” I moan.
A nun turns around and scowls and me. I look her in the eye and sneer right back. I never did like sanctimonious Catholics. She looks away first. But then again, don’t they always?
And damn. Doesn’t anybody ever mop up around here? No wonder a union job is the holy grail in this city. These MTA workers quite clearly don’t have to do much for their money.
I’m late, and it’s the second time this week. So I’m preoccupied with the fine I probably won’t be able to dodge. Impatiently I push past two fat middle-aged tourists who are oozing along like garden slugs. And I prod some creep with the end of my umbrella – if these fucks are going to behave like cattle, then they’re going to get treated that way.
I muscle through the crowd, braying curses over the strains of someone’s guitar. Disembodied notes weave through the constant din of people jostling each other past turnstiles. They compete with the noise of trains screeching down the tracks. I’m still louder.
Then the voice comes through a microphone – not the station’s P.A., but a standalone speaker somewhere very close by. “Where’s the fire, pretty lady?”
I turn around. He can’t be talking to me.
“I’m just sayin’, sweet mama, you didn’t need to knock over that poor little old lady just to get where you goin’.” The sentence is punctuated with scratchy laughter.
I swivel in the previous direction. Maybe he is talking to me.
“… and you didn’t need to kick that blind woman’s dog… I’ve seen chicks wear plenty’a leather before, but you look like you in a gang!”
All right. Whoever he is, he’s definitely talking to me. But I can’t see him past the crowd.
“What dog? I didn’t kick any dog!” I yell over dozens of heads. Everybody within earshot stops to stare at me.
The guy starts belting a verse into his mic, and his band cuts into their next song. They’re a blues band. They sound fantastic. Meanwhile, blues is the crux of all modern pop, and my one secret love.
So who is this wiseass? The one getting high on his own sense of humor? I hurry towards the sound of his vocals. I’ll give him a piece of my mind.
Just past the MTA ticket booth, I spot them: a three-piece band with the prestigious Music Under New York banner hanging above their heads. They’re funny looking guys playing twelve-bar standards. They remind me of the band from The Muppet Show. Or something equally silly.
There’s the singer. The guy who’s been admonishing me for all of Grand Central to hear. He’s a thickset, light-skinned black dude. Croaking into a microphone, hitting chords on a battered acoustic guitar, he sounds like he’s gargling with gravel.
Another little black man is propped up behind the world’s smallest kick drum and the world’s largest Coke-bottle glasses. He’s ancient. Seriously. He’s got to be at least a hundred and ten. He’s barely tall enough to reach his pedals. I can’t decide if he reminds me more of a turtle or a mummy.
But the real show-stopper is the guy on the black Les Paul. With his slicked back hair and his ridiculous suit, he looks like a Japanese Pee-Wee Herman. He’s even wearing a bow-tie. He’s also an absolute virtuoso. He has the fastest fingers I’ve ever seen in my life. Not counting all the perverts at Angels, naturally.
I march over and stand in front of them. My late fee and my destination are both temporarily forgotten. The band goes into a bridge, and the singer winks at me. “Faster, pussycat,” he says into the mic. “Kill, kill.”
“You trying to get me beaten up out here?” I demand. “Or arrested?”
He throws his head back and laughs a rolling, spontaneous chuckle that sounds oddly in tune with the chords he’s playing. Then he starts singing again.
His band is raking it in. They have an aquarium-sized fish tank in front of them, and it’s stuffed to capacity with paper money. Not all of those bills are singles, either.
Then the number ends. The singer reaches down near his feet and produces a flask, from which he takes a long swig. He smiles. He’s missing more teeth than Barry. But his smile’s a lot gentler.
“Just tryin’ to slow you down, girl,” he says. Then he whistles. “You sure are a pretty one.”
The other players regard me silently.
“If I give you some money, will you leave me alone?” I demand. I’m laughing. I can’t help it. The twinkle in his eye is contagious. And hell, it’s been a long time since anyone’s complimented my appearance while I had clothes on.
“Shucks, doll. We just wanna sing you a song,” he says with a mock-pained expression.
He’s hamming it up for the crowd. And he knows how to put on a show. Sure enough, some curious commuters have stopped to watch us heckle each other.
“Do you know ‘Louie, Louie,’ then?” I deadpan.
He gives me a sly look. “Nah, we don’t play ‘Louie, Louie,’” he drawls. “But you such a dish. Why don’t you join us up here? We got a tambourine. You can stand here with us. Shake it and look pretty. Make us some money.”
The commuters all stare at me. My face is hot. “Shake it and look pretty,” I repeat. “Right.” I turn around. “I’ll see ya.”
The singer won’t leave me alone. “Come on now, beautiful!” he calls out. He starts to play a scratchy, slow twelve-bar blues on his guitar. His band chimes in. He hits an open E chord and lets it ring. “We need you up here.”
I catch his eye and mouth the word “no.”
He winks at me again. “Hey, y’all out there!” he announces. “Start clappin’ yo’ hands right now. Let this precious little lady know how much you wanna see her git down with us!”
So then of course everybody starts clapping, and when I shake my head at them, they clap even louder.
The drummer does a big fill. After that, the band bursts full on into their twelve-bar. Every single person on the platform is looking at me expectantly.
And I’m mortified. This guy is putting me on the spot.
But I can’t turn down a good dare. Or the chance to one-up it.
“You want it? You got it,” I shout.
The crowd cheers. I grab the mic.
“We-ell I – once had a daddy, he say he’d gimme everythin’ in sight,” I sing.
Someone gasps.
I continue. “Yeah, once had a daddy, he say he’d gimme everythin’ in sight…”
A guy in a suit pushes his way to the front. His eyes are glued to me.
“So I said, I want the sunshine, I want the stars out of the night!”
I glance over at the singer, and am pleased to see that he’s gaping right back at me. I stare him down triumphantly and I keep on singing.
The crowd around us thickens. It looks like I’m the one roping them in. The faces blend together. I close my eyes.
When I open them back up, people are staring at me in astonishment. And they’re stuffing money into that fish tank, which threatens to overflow.
My place now established, I give in to the music and to the ecstasy. I escalate my wails to match the boys in the band. It’s primal. My blood pumps. My voice catapults off the walls of the station. When we finish, my heart is thumping in my chest.
The applause from the crowd is so thunderous that I’m besieged by a fresh wave of embarrassment. This is not actually the part of performing that I enjoy. I stare at my shoes, hunch my shoulders, and wait for them to finish.
“You gonna let me off the hook now?” I ask the singer quietly.
He shakes his head. “Not even close, girl. I didn’t know you was gonna sing. Hot damn! Where’d you learn to sing like that?”
I never know what I’m supposed to say to that. So I don’t answer.
“Why don’t you finish the set with us?”
“I can’t,” I mutter. “I’m late for work.”
“All right, I can dig that,” he says. “But – wait! Hold up another minute, darlin’. Some of this here green is yours.” He jams both hands into the fish tank, cultivates two fistfuls of crumpled cash, and offers them to me.
“I can’t argue with that,” I say, pocketing the money. “Thanks.”
“Hold up!” he exclaims. He grabs my arm, then hands me a business card. “Now look. This here my number. You gotta take it and come sing with us again. I’m beggin’ you.”
I read the card. “You’re Chuck?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, baby.”
“Chuck,” I say again. And I tuck the card into my pocket next to all the cash.
When I finally do get to work, I’m almost two hours late. Tim gives me a sour look. For once I’m not intimidated.
“You have a fine,” he announces matter-of-factly. “Fifty bucks. Gonna pay it tonight?”
I pause, with one hand on the door that leads to the basement.
“Sure am, Tim,” I say with a shit-eating grin. “Would you like it in singles?”
Without waiting for his response, I begin the descent into the dressing room, and the door slams shut behind me.
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November 4th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Nice pace. lovely scene.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Thanks, Paul.
I’m especially glad you liked this one, because I had to do some last-minute tweaking before I posted it.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
This chapter makes me really happy. It gives me some hope for her. I hope she can pull herself out.