Friday's Whims of the Time Traveler 88.0: April 2011
Night at Pearl's
by Belinda Roddie
I’ll meet her in a jazz club in San Francisco, the tug-of-war traffic dying down with the sizzle of the setting sun. Guided by the husky microphone feedback, the smooth artillery of a snare with the warm tremolo of a wet reed in an embouchure’s kiss. Spittle glowing passion silver in the light. Charming.
But it’ll be the pianist I’m listening to. Fingers bristling with yellow calluses against the white and black bones, rising and falling like multi-syllabic inhalations. Music can start a conversation without the restraints of human language, and we all know that what we recite says very little compared to what we perform.
The lounge setting will be palpable: Red-hot lamps, casting a haze over half-empty glasses. The couches lined with comatose critics. The smell of juniper and vermouth on everyone’s breath. I’ll be standing in the corner like the stereotypical loner and all I’ll be missing is the fedora. My tie will match the capillaries of the chandeliers, pulsing, pulsing red in a pattern of veins stretching over my pale face. Drained of all other color but red.
And then she’ll walk to the improv rhythm, heels bouncing on the ivory vibrations, peachy lips. She’ll wave a stemmed glass in my face and ask me, "Where are you from?" and I’ll reply, "Nowhere," knowing all too well the triteness of the borderline film noir comment. Humphrey Bogart would be proud.
She’ll let me take a sip from her glass. Cool syrah, expensive tastes. Dressed well, good posture. She’ll probably look a lot like you. Bringing me back to crescent tables in a weary diner where I broke down in front of you for the first time over waffles. In a small country town.
"I never want to undermine you. Not now. Not ever."
And you told me never to censor myself, but you only kissed me on the cheek because I asked.
A poke in the sternum will pull me from a cheap reverie. Dry lips licked. Vision glazed, the hazel spread on my watery whites. Her eyes will be blue. Just like yours.
"You look like you belong here," she’ll say to me, and she’d be right. The tickle of brass and stumbling tripulets rustling my suit jacket as they fall. The piano leading all the others, mellow phrases lending themselves as figures of speech. I belong with the jazz in San Francisco, the lonely city. I belong with her.
The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since April 2011.
by Belinda Roddie
I’ll meet her in a jazz club in San Francisco, the tug-of-war traffic dying down with the sizzle of the setting sun. Guided by the husky microphone feedback, the smooth artillery of a snare with the warm tremolo of a wet reed in an embouchure’s kiss. Spittle glowing passion silver in the light. Charming.
But it’ll be the pianist I’m listening to. Fingers bristling with yellow calluses against the white and black bones, rising and falling like multi-syllabic inhalations. Music can start a conversation without the restraints of human language, and we all know that what we recite says very little compared to what we perform.
The lounge setting will be palpable: Red-hot lamps, casting a haze over half-empty glasses. The couches lined with comatose critics. The smell of juniper and vermouth on everyone’s breath. I’ll be standing in the corner like the stereotypical loner and all I’ll be missing is the fedora. My tie will match the capillaries of the chandeliers, pulsing, pulsing red in a pattern of veins stretching over my pale face. Drained of all other color but red.
And then she’ll walk to the improv rhythm, heels bouncing on the ivory vibrations, peachy lips. She’ll wave a stemmed glass in my face and ask me, "Where are you from?" and I’ll reply, "Nowhere," knowing all too well the triteness of the borderline film noir comment. Humphrey Bogart would be proud.
She’ll let me take a sip from her glass. Cool syrah, expensive tastes. Dressed well, good posture. She’ll probably look a lot like you. Bringing me back to crescent tables in a weary diner where I broke down in front of you for the first time over waffles. In a small country town.
"I never want to undermine you. Not now. Not ever."
And you told me never to censor myself, but you only kissed me on the cheek because I asked.
A poke in the sternum will pull me from a cheap reverie. Dry lips licked. Vision glazed, the hazel spread on my watery whites. Her eyes will be blue. Just like yours.
"You look like you belong here," she’ll say to me, and she’d be right. The tickle of brass and stumbling tripulets rustling my suit jacket as they fall. The piano leading all the others, mellow phrases lending themselves as figures of speech. I belong with the jazz in San Francisco, the lonely city. I belong with her.
The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since April 2011.
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