The Jazz Bar

Red works. So does blue. Definitely not yellow. Can’t imagine orange. Purple is perfect. Have to have a drink. Sitting on the table. Looks ornamental. A lime wedge. Must be almost full, the audience. To be nestled in a corner. Everyone else somehow in open space, vulnerable, while you’re safe. They absorb the sax. You look around. Focused, everyone. Listening. Different types of listening. Bobbing heads. Swirling necks. Open mouths. Approving face scrunches. Closed eyes. Hand on chin stroking beard. Other hand on her thigh and the AC is on. Hot outside. Hot would work in here, too. Might even be more appropriate. For the fast songs and the slow ones. And the living is easy. One slow one. Everything else fast. Wishing they would end with a slow one. “Dreamy,” she calls it. The bassist. He must have calluses on his finger. Rigid, plucking. Shocked when he strums. Sounds like a guitar. Foot gets confused. Hesitates to tap. Not dark, but glowing. Light on faces. Just enough of it. One guy at the bar. Adam Driver? Seeds of light. Potential light. Potential sound, held in check. Smiling at no memory in particular. Smiling at the memory of this. While you wonder how they do it. How they know when to play. How they look at each other. What are they thinking? I try to think nothing. Perchance to hear. To really hear. Could be too radical. For her? No. Exactly what we expected. They say to not have expectations, but they don’t tell you how good it feels when they’re met. Expectations exceeded are overrated. Excessive expectations. Excessive excitations, fine. Expectations, though. Alignment when they’re met. Peace, finally. When hope meets safety. And she plays with your hair. And you sink deeper. Between the music and this. What if they were one? And you didn’t have to toggle. To get it all at once. Because I’m here. We’re all here. Getting it. Really getting it. And who knows if they care if we get it? If we get it, will they play again? What if we all got it? What they were trying to do. Three or more rhythms, the drummer. That’s what makes the foot stop. She’s squinting now. What is it like? To be her. To be any of them. Monk. Mingus. Coleman. What they would have thought. Of them. Of any of this. Living on, in us, if we’ll remember. Spirits don’t just live. They find a home. A home cares. Most of us will remember the moment more than the music. Black tables. Red shag carpet. Red light. Yes, it works. The smell of cool. Warmth coming and going, on my arm now, from her. Side talk, ending soon. Stray camera flash. Pray, not again, the bartender signals. She shakes a drink, in and out of rhythm with them. It works. At first I thought it was a cymbal. Not all drinks make the same sound when shaken. Black and white and red all over. That’s what this jazz bar is like. Twelve tones, not as jarring in a place like this. But it’s over anyway. For me. For us. Tonight. And the band plays on. And the tab closes. And we walk through the open curtain.