by J. R. Rain
I didn’t know whether to hug the kid or run.
“Then get the fuck out here,” said Bill the Manager, flipping his shades back down. “Haven’t got all fucking day.”
Great, you’ve already pissed him off.
I downed the last of my beer, jumped off the stool, and promptly ran headlong into another stool. It went flying—and I nearly went flying, too. Luckily, I fell over onto a table. Yeah, luckily. Someone laughed. I heard Bill mumble “Jesus Christ”, and all I wanted to do was run for the door and get the hell out of Dodge. Or, in this case, the Pussycat.
But the bartender was there in an instant, taking my elbow, helping me to my feet, dusting me off. “It’s okay, man,” he said to me quietly. “Calm down. You’ll be okay. I’m rooting for you.”
I smiled at him weakly. He straightened my collar, winked, and guided me through the maze of chairs and stools. Buzzed, discombobulated, and now in pain, I found myself moving numbly forward toward the stage and lights.
The Pussycat, which was a fairly small nightclub, suddenly seemed expansive and endless, and the stage itself seemed to recede exponentially with each step I took.
Suddenly Bill materialized before me, looming, easily two inches taller than me. “Wait,” he said. His eyes, though mostly hidden behind the aforementioned blue shades, appeared to be searching my face. “What’s your name?”
“Aaron King,” I said. My mouth felt dry, even though I had just pounded a few beers.
He continued standing directly in front of me. Those behind him ignored me completely, their heads huddled together, referring to a master list. Already they were scratching off names.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Fifty, um, five.”
Surprisingly, he grinned. “Sure you are. Can you sing?”
“We’ll see.”
“Fine. What will you be singing?”
“‘Ring of Fire,’” I said.
“Johnny Cash.”
“Yup,” I said.
“I love ‘Ring of Fire,’” he said.
“Then you’re not so bad,” I said, “after all.”
He stared at me some more, then shook his head and chuckled and asked a young girl sitting at a piano if she knew the song, and she said, “Hell, yeah.” She sounded offended.
His blue shades settled back on me. “You’re on,” he said. “Don’t suck.”
And with those encouraging words ringing in my ears, I stepped up onto the stage, the first real stage I had been on in nearly thirty years. The wood creaked with each footfall. Stages always creak; I love that about them. Soon I stood front and center, blinking hard into the lights.
There were six of them beneath me, huddled together on the dance floor, ready to pass judgment. Beyond the dance floor, in the murky depths of the bar area, the young bartender was leaning a hip against the counter, a towel slung over his shoulder, arms crossed, watching me. He caught my eye and nodded, smiling.
Calmness radiated from the kid, a sort of infectious tranquility. So I focused on him, focused on his grin. I needed support, I needed faith, and he was the only one presently giving it to me.
God bless him.
My heart pounded.
Too hard, too fast.
The stage was semicircular. It was rutted and scraped and stained from years of amps and speakers and drums being hauled across it, from boots scraping it, from beer bottles slamming down on it.
In front of me was a single microphone stand, glowing in the single spotlight. I stepped slowly up to it. Bill checked his watch.
I clicked my fingers in front of the microphone, an old habit. The sound was good. I looked over to the young pianist. She was looking at me from over her shoulder, waiting for my cue, eager to get this show on the road. I nodded.
The music started. A simple song, really, but nearly impossible to sing right. So many have tried and so many have failed. Johnny Cash, my one-time friend, was a tough act to follow. And I should know. I followed him often enough.
And as the music started, and as I gripped the microphone in front me and looked out across the empty tables and booths and focused on that single, handsome face smilingly encouragingly at me from behind the bar, as the first words of the song rolled smoothly and easily off my tongue, and as my hips moved instinctively to the music, something amazing happened.
I had come home, and it was as if I had never left.
Chapter Thirty-two
The music stopped and I let my voice trail off. My snapping fingers dropped to my side, and my tapping foot slowed, then stopped. There were tears in my eyes and joy in my heart. Whether or not I got the gig, I didn’t care. I needed to do this. Bad.
Somebody was clapping. It was my friend from across the room, the bartender. He stopped long enough to give me a thumbs-up sign, then clapped some more.
Bill the manager was staring at me, his mouth slightly open. Well, at least I think he was staring at me. Hard to tell with those stupid shades. I was still coming down from my high and so I continued standing there on stage, in the spotlight, soaking it all in.
Now this is a high I can get used to.
Bill started nodding and he kept on nodding as he made his way to the others. He joined the group and everyone seemed to be talking at once.
As they did so, I closed my eyes and relived the moment—and it had been a helluva moment. At least for me nowadays. And as I relived this moment, the other moments flood back, too. The bigger moments. The grander moments. The crowds. The churning sea of smiling faces. God, I used to put so many smiles on so many faces. I could bring joy to others with my voice. I had forgotten about that. There’s value to bringing joy to others. Immense value.
Bill finally stepped away from the others and came over to me. He stood below me on the dance, pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead. The upper bridge of his nose was pinched and red where the rubber stabilizers had sat for God knows how long.
“Fucking incredible,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. Thank you. Thank you ver’ much....
“You’re a little older than what we’re looking for.”
“I understand.” My voice sounded distant and not quite my own. Only then did I notice the sweat pouring down my face.
“But we want to give you a shot. I want to give you a shot. Hell, I could listen to that—to you—all day and night. My God, King, you can sing.”
“So I don’t suck.”
He smiled. “No, you don’t. And you can move, too, for an old-timer.”
“Go figure,” I said.
“You’ll have to show me that move sometime.”
“Sure,” I said. “After you pay me.”
He laughed, and flicked down his shades again. Mr. Cool was back. “Can you be here Monday nights, starting next Monday at nine p.m.?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Good; see you then.”
And as he turned away, I said, “And Bill?”
He looked back. “Yeah, King?”
“What’s with the stupid blue sunglasses?”
He looked at me some more. I suspected he had once been a bouncer back in the day, before rising up to nightclub manager. “It’s a good thing that you can sing lights out.”
“Yeah, good thing.”
He left and joined the others, and I walked slowly off the stage. Floating really. At the bar, the good-looking kid stepped around the counter, and slapped me heartily on the shoulder. I nearly fell over.
“You killed out there!” he said. I think he wanted to hug me but somehow refrained. Hell, I could have used a hug.
“Everyone gets lucky,” I said.
“Then you must be the luckiest person on earth!”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been told that.”
“Want a drink?”
“More than you know.”
Chapter Thirty-three
It was late, and the street was dark. I was sitting in my Cadillac with the engine off. Two houses down
was a small house that wasn’t so dark. In fact, the lights were on in just about every room. With my windows rolled down, I could just make some music issuing from the house.
It was 1:22 a.m.
I was flying high on Vicodin. I should have felt euphoric. Instead, as I watched the cheerfully-lit house in front of me, I felt numb and melancholy. In the big curtained front window, two figures would appear sometimes, dancing slowly, arm in arm, sometimes cheek to cheek.
Between my legs was a warm Sam Adams. I took a sip of it now and felt my melancholy deepen and take on a life of its own. A living, dark thing that dwelled inside me, like a parasite of the soul.
I had been following her for the past two weeks. Yes, she would hate me if she knew I had been following her. Well, what did you expect? I followed people for a living? What made her different?
You’re supposed to trust her.
They usually ended up here, at this small house, followed by a lot of talking. And laughter. Then the music and dancing, their silhouetted faces sometimes pressed against each other in an intimate embrace.
I drank more warm beer. I wished I had brought more Vicodin. The pain in my heart was intense. Almost too intense.
Vicodin doesn’t help heartache.
After being separated for nearly six months, Kelly and I had only recently gotten back together. I knew she had been dating while we were off-again, and I suspected this guy was a holdover from that. Perhaps she didn’t have the heart to let him go. Maybe she loved us both. Maybe she didn’t give a fuck about my feelings. Or his feelings.
Fuck his feelings.
Kelly had said we had trust issues.
No kidding.
Now I watched as the man I both loathed and was curious about dipped Kelly romantically in front of the big window. I had, of course, looked into his background. I knew he lived modestly here in this small, suburban, three-bedroom home. No kids, never married. Twenty years my junior.
There was the rub.
Twenty years my junior.
You’re an old man, King.
They stopped dancing and stood silhouetted in the window and kissed deeply. I took another swig from my warm beer.
Get a room.
Still kissing, still holding each other close, they fumbled away from the window and the living room lights went out. A few seconds later, a muted half-glow flickered from somewhere near the back of the house. Candlelight. The music was still playing, drifting across the quiet street.
I started my car and left, tossing the empty beer bottle onto my girlfriend’s boyfriend’s front lawn.
Chapter Thirty-four
I was in Dr. Vivian’s office on an overcast morning. The window behind her was gray. The office, despite being cheerfully lit, felt gray. Perhaps my mood was gray, too.
“Is your twin single?” I asked.
“That’s not an appropriate question, Mr. King.”
“I shouldn’t even be alive, so what the hell do I care about appropriateness?”
“Because you’re not a buffoon.”
“Is that a clinical term?”
Dr. Vivian smiled and shook her head. “Fine. She’s happily married with four kids.”
“And you?” I asked.
“That’s a very inappropriate question, Mr. King.”
“Just expressing my inner buffoonery.”
She shook her head; she might have sighed, too. “No, Mr. King, I’m not married.”
“Are you dating anyone?”
I noticed Dr. Vivian’s cheekbones caught some of the desk lamp light. Her hair glowed softly. All of it framed against the gray, curtained window behind her. She pursed her lips, looking at me somewhat sternly.
“I know, I know,” I said, “highly inappropriate.”
“Thank you.”
“Well?”
She suddenly laughed, and the unexpected, high-pitched sound of it surprised the hell out of me. “Any other patient,” she said, “and I would have put an end to this line of questioning long ago.”
“But I’m not any other patient?”
“No,” she said. “You’re not.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you’re Elvis-fucking-Presley.”
“I haven’t been him for thirty years.”
“Fine,” she said. “You were Elvis-fucking-Presley. That weighs heavily on my mind.”
“I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have his influence over other people.”
“It’s powerful,” she said.
“Too powerful for you to resist?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m doing things with you that I swore I would never do with patients. You’re affecting my judgment.”
“I don’t want your judgment affected,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I meant it.
She was silent for a long moment. “I’m not sure that’s possible now.”
“Then perhaps we should move on with today’s session,” I said, winking.
“Hey,” she said, “that’s my line.”
Chapter Thirty-five
“So, you’re stumped,” said Kelly.
We were walking along a semi-gravel trail through Griffith Park, which lies north of Los Feliz and Hollywood. The park is home to the L.A. Zoo and the Griffith Observatory, itself made infamous by one James Dean. I miss that little rebel.
“You could say that,” I said.
We were holding hands, our fingers loosely interlaced. Kelly was dressed in tight black fuzzy sweats, a tight sweater and sneakers with gold trim. I was in workout pants and a tee shirt. My sneakers, surprisingly, had no gold trim. The day was warm, but not inordinately so. We traveled mostly through shadows along the heavily vegetated trail, thick with oaks and spruces. Squirrels dashed madly across the trail, up trees and through the chainlink fence that led off to the Los Feliz Golf Course.
“So you have a white van driven by an ugly guy with acne scars, as witnessed by a bum who was stalking the very same girl, the bum being witnessed by a box boy who was stalking the very same girl.”
“Lots of stalking going on,” I said.
“This girl, somehow, elicits this kind of behavior in men.”
“She’s a beautiful young lady,” I asked.
“And she may not understand, or comprehend, her full effect on men.”
“Meaning?”
“A simple glance, an innocent smile, an innocuous flip of her hair in the wrong direction at the wrong time could have the wrong guy panting and thinking very unclean thoughts.”
“You make it seem like the males of our species have no control over themselves.”
Kelly looked at me, raised her eyebrows. “Is that really a road you want to go down?”
“Fine,” I said. “We have no control over ourselves.”
“Look, all I’m saying is that most girls, especially pretty girls, learn at a young age to avoid eye contact, keep their face passive and non-expressive.”
“Because to do otherwise—”
“Is to invite trouble,” said Kelly.
“I seem to recall you smiling rather brilliantly at me when we first made eye contact.”
“It’s different when you think the guy is a cutie,” said Kelly.
“You think I’m a cutie?”
“No,” she said. “I think you’re beautiful. In fact, I’m hard pressed to find a more beautiful man anywhere.”
“Even for an old guy?”
“You’ve aged wonderfully, and you’ve always reminded me of someone, but I’ve never been able to put my finger on it.”
“Brad Pitt?”
She shook her head, squeezed my hand.
“I don’t know. Someone,” she said.
“So why are we having such a hard time getting along?”
“Because beauty is only skin deep.”
“We have other issues,” I said.
“Attraction isn’t one of them.”
We were quiet some more as our sneakers crunched over loose gravel. B
efore us the road widened and curved past the northern end of the golf course.
“I do want to keep seeing you, Aaron,” she said.
“Good.”
“But I want to see other people, too.”
I took in some air. A lot of air. We kept walking. Now the trees opened up and the sun beat down. I was dripping sweat.
“I know,” I said.
“You know what?”
“You’ve been seeing someone for quite some time.”
She released my hand. “How do you know that, Aaron?”
“I’m a private investigator. Put it together.”
“You were following me?”
“It’s what I do.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since the first week we tried doing this again. You sent him an email from the computer at my house. You left your email up.”
“And you read my email.”
“It’s what I do.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “Snooping on your girlfriend’s private email is not what you do. You follow cheating husbands and wives, you find runaways and missing teens, but you don’t have a right to read my email.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, aren’t you going to apologize?”
“No.”
“You don’t think you did anything wrong?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just not going to apologize.”
“Why not?”
I said nothing.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You’re not going to clam up on me now. Don’t pull that shit on me again.”
“Hey, this was supposed to be a peaceful walk,” I said.
“That’s out the window. Why won’t you apologize?”
“Because you were cheating, Kelly. Look at the bigger picture. You’re doing what you do best and diverting the attention away from the bigger issue. We both know that I’m a private eye, we both know that I make a living snooping into other people’s lives—yes, even the lives of my girlfriends. You made a deliberate act to continue seeing another man, even while we were trying to mend our relationship.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”