Some of the Music

“I would like to thank you for all the things that are going to happen,” I say to her, but  she doesn't understand.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she asks.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m saying, but I refuse to tell her so. This isn't the time. But I look her squarely in the eyes and say, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

My words are lost on her. She snubs her nose at me and walks away, shaking her hips as she leaves. I watch the way her body moves inside the frail fabric that covers her. Her skin is screaming to be released.

There is no better place to encounter strangers than at the park. In the grass, alongside the curb on a bench cast of metal and wood, I watch and wait for passersby’s, holding onto myself in a way that appears as if I were cold, but the sun is shining and it is as hot as Hell.

I’m still watching the woman walk away. I’m stricken with the way she moves, and I’m sure we’ll meet again sometime soon: we’ll kiss and fuck away the cares of our unfortunate encounter and pretend it never happened. Her name is like a spice… it could mean anything; anything at all.

I think of nutmeg, but I’m positive that her name is Pepper. It’s an odd name for a girl who doesn’t believe in the future. There is a faint smile in her eyes before she leaves; the kind of smile that is as telling as a gentle gust of wind blowing against a forest of fallen cotton, brushing against the earth that has born them.

Thankfully, I don’t really care.

I’m just here to pass the time.

Across the park, under an enormous elm tree, I watch a bird peck through the grass, searching out seeds. It rummages through the waste until it finds what it is looking for, and flies away.

It’s time for me to make the future happen. I stand and brush myself off, leisurely looking at the bright sunny day that is beginning to recede behind the horizon, making way for the nighttime as I take to the sidewalk and begin to wander.

In no time at all, I’m a block away, walking along the thoroughfare that takes commuters from one side of town to the other. If visitors don’t stop for gas or food they could drive right through town without even knowing they had ever done so. It’s a sad state of affairs for our community because no one ever stops.

Down the next street and I've picked up the scent of the woman I saw earlier. She’s still walking with her hip motion guiding the way. A short business skirt is about her waist like a white flag of surrender. With a cock-eyed glare from over her shoulder, she knows I’m following her. She passes the drug store where I live in an apartment on the second floor.

I smile and she seems disturbed. She crosses the street and is inside the bar before I can blink. I follow her in because that just happens to be where I’m going. She twitches when she sees me follow her in, but she takes a seat at the bar and orders a drink. I pass her up and walk to the stage.

Mike and Stew are already there so I know it’s my turn to take the stage. Stew taps the top of his snare drum, tuning it by ear when he notices I've arrived.

“You ready, man?” Stew asks me.

I nod.

I turn on my amp and pick up the guitar from the stand and toss the strap over my shoulder. The instrument is as stained and worn out as I feel, but has that certain something that old guitars can’t live without. There is character in the strings, a blood stained soul just beneath the bridge. I slide my finger along the volume knob and the sound erupts from the speakers, slow and deep with a bark as I strum the strings.

Pepper looks in my direction. Her eyes are at ease when she realizes that I’m supposed to be there. A smooth little smile punctures her mouth and makes her lips tighten like a rosebud about to bloom.

A blue note blows out from my fingertips and into the strings like a waterfall cascading over worn and weathered rocks into the river that awaits its arrival. Subtly, I purge my emotions into the plank of wood strapped across my chest. My voice comes out in a crack like gravel being raked over well worn leather and I’m drawn into the woman’s gaze. She can feel what I have come to do and her lips pout in agreement.

Right along with me, Mike thumbs his bass, creating a harmony made of butter and melting ice cream. He taps his foot to the beat, keeping time while I moisten my lips and sing the woman’s name over and over again in a type of code that can only come from a John Lee Hooker song.

She responds as I caress the neck of my guitar, pulling her lips in tighter as she closes her eyes. I go into a vibrato, holding the wettest note I can find for as long as the guitar will sustain it. I’m in her head and she can feel me from across the room; she can feel my hands slide across her back, sending waves up her spine and into the pit of her sex like some ghostly thing composed of fuck and musk.

She pants as I belt out the next chorus, wetting her panties like an expectant school girl, giggling on the inside like virgins often do.

The old timers are moving on their chairs and upon the stools against the bar. Heads lower as they snap their fingers to the beat of the drums that pound away behind me. They’re inside the music, swaying and moving like they’re hypnotized by every note, waiting for the next to release their hardened souls.

It’s my pleasure to make them melt from the inside; liquefying their bones into a supple soup of tone that erupts from my machine. I watch them breath to the music as I control the blood that courses through their veins. The sound is like magic fluttering through their skin, creating waves of motion that lick at their fantasies, purging them of the waste that accumulates from being alive.

My guitar screams and the crowd is awakened, holding their breath in anticipation. I give them what they want; I loosen their souls and take them higher than they have ever been before. The crowd howls as I bend the strings, coaxing out a heart attack of tone. They clap and hoot as the music moves them, but I’m not doing it for them. I’m playing just for the woman at the bar. I can see her loins shake beneath her skirt as she sweats to the rhythm. Her eyes are locked on me now, begging for more as I tear into a solo that sends shudders through the souls of the weary, the weak, the damned.

My body convulses as I make my instrument moan out like an orgasm, wrenched by the hand of fury and sorrow, guided by molten fingers and sensual tendons. I live for this moment. I live for the space of time when space and time no longer exist, but are nursed from the grasp of reality like an earthquake.

There’s a smell of love and violence in the air that couples with the scent of desperation and romance. I let the odor hang upon my senses while I urge the music forward. I lick the vapors from the swirling mass of sex that has gathered at my nose, holding it like an enamored child, waiting for it to cry out for an end to the ravishing night air. It’s as pliable as pure gold, as slack as a silk cord.

She’s right there at the edge of ecstasy as I hold the final note, letting it breath, letting it evolve into bliss.

And then there is silence.

I take my time returning the guitar to its stand, placing it upon the bars that hold it in place and draping the strap over the back like an angel that needs time to rest.

Pepper is looking at me, waiting for me, watching my every move. The clap of my boots sounds out along the worn and dusty floorboards, echoing in time with the blood that pumps through my heart. I approach her as she pants with the tingle of music that still courses through her.

I look her in the eyes, savoring the moment and wet my lips. She holds my gaze. Her mouth is slack and questioning. Her eyes are glistening with the residue of emotion that quickens in her chest. I lean forward and whisper into her ear.

A look of surprise spreads crosses her face in a smile that seeps romance and she repeats the words before they leave my lips, “Music is a gift.”