Joe looked like he was going to puke – not from touching me, as he kept his hands safely in place – but from whatever internal state all of this generated for him.
“You OK?” I asked, sliding my palm against his cheek. “It’s OK.”
His eyes were skittish and skirted all over, finally resting on Trevor. “Is it?”
“I don’t know,” Trevor said, honestly. “I just know that I’m not jealous and I’m not wicked pissed. I feel like I should feel those things…but I don’t, so I’m not going to pretend to feel something I don’t feel.”
“Why not? That’s what I always do,” Joe ventured. “That’s how I get through the day.”
“You don’t have to do that here,” Trevor said, squeezing his shoulder. He looked around the nasty hallway at the back of the bar, its exit light blown out, cobwebs in the corners and some stain of undetermined origin on the dropped ceiling taking over, seeming to grow through like a mold or a cancer. “Right here, Joe, who would have thought? Here you don’t have to feel anything you don’t really feel and here you don’t have to reject anything just because you think you’re supposed to follow some kind of rule that tells you so.”
A cloud of magic filled the air, enveloping us in it – not literally, of course. If that were the case this would be a Harry Potter mystery, only with lots of sex.
“Trevor. Hey, Trev!” Mike’s boozy voice echoed down the hallway. “You’re up.”
The three of us pulled apart and Trevor looked solemnly at me and then Joe. “We can all find a way to make this work,” he said.
What did that mean? Was he giving Joe and me permission to sleep together? Was he proposing some sort of threesome? I guess that some people do that but around here…I tried to keep my mind open. I couldn’t know what he was thinking and right now Jerry was up on stage shouting, “Last call for Trevor!”
Trevor sprinted, bounding up the steps to take center stage with a lightness in his foot I’d never seen. Joe respected the fact that I’d come in holding one man’s hand and probably shouldn’t leave holding another’s. Plenty of that happened here – but not in quite the same way. Uncle Mike would be suspicious and I didn’t need Mama asking me any more questions or trying to pretend to be a parent again.
Trevor
“How is everybody tonight?” I called out. Darla and Joe cheered, but the rest were fairly muted. Undeterred, I kept going. Working a lukewarm crowd was no big deal. The stage felt like a high school assembly room, loud and thunky under my feet. The acoustics in here absolutely sucked, but there was a basic microphone and I could strum a borrowed guitar. Two songs and Darla would be happy.
Plus I had a surprise for her.
“My name is Trevor Connor and I play for a band back in Boston, Massachusetts.” Cold silence. “We call ourselves Random Acts of Crazy.” Eyerolls. “I know you’ve never heard of me, and that’s cool. Give me a break, though – at least I’m a Red Sox fan and not the Pirates.” A few snickers. Better than nothing.
“So I’ll just shut up and sing, even if I’m not a Dixie Chick.” A low rumble of chuckling and a few more bodies came over and sat in the chairs sprinkled around tables at the front of the stage. “This is our band’s most popular song, which means seven people have heard it. It’s called ‘I Wasted My Only Answered Prayer.’”
The opening chords made me feel like I was right at home. Throat was fine – I’d practiced a little while Darla was at work – and this place had no harsh lights, no sound operations, nothing. It was great – me, my voice, and my guitar.
That, and Darla, was all I really needed right now.
Oh, I wasted
my only answered prayer
on a woman
who didn’t believe in God….
The first verse came out slow, with a little touch of country I’d never added before, more a ballad than a rock anthem. Joe sat up straight and zeroed in on me, like an animal hearing something new in a field, attuning to it to figure out what it was. Darla’s face was in a place of complete rapture, hair framing her face in soft curls, her eyes on me and her body loose and relaxed. The ebb and flow of her chest as it rose and fell from her breathing captivated me as I hit the chorus.
At one she walked away
At two she said no
At three she said please
At four she said more
Darla’s lips were mouthing the words, singing along with me, while Joe’s foot tapped out the beat. His fingers knew the bass line and I wished we had the entire band here. The crowd grew slowly around me, and soon people were nodding their heads, tapping feet, and drumming their beer bottles with fingers.
Gotcha. It made me dig in deeper and find more of my soul to pour into the song, my fingers on the fret and my heart on stage. Here I was the real Trevor Connor, the real naked soul for everyone to devour and share, to assimilate me into their consciousness and to go to a place where notes and chords combined created pure bliss.
As the song ended, and I stretched out the last few words, “…didn’t believe…”, the crowd went wild. OK, about as wild as fifty or so flannel-shirted rednecks could be for some overeducated punk from Massachusetts.
It was better than great.
“Encore! Encore!” someone shouted. It was Mike, raising his cup of coffee and calling for more. Mike! I’d won the big old lump over. Fuck yeah! Darla was clapping and jumping and bouncing in all the right places, her face beaming. For me. For my music.
For us.
I had something for her, too. As the crowd died down I put out my hands and said, “All right, all right. You convinced me. I have an original that I’m debuting right here, right now.”
A frown crossed Darla’s face. “I wrote it today,” I explained. “It’s a tale about…well, it speaks for itself.” Joe looked at Darla, then me, and a strange sort of smile changed his face. I couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad. Most of the time he was irritated, but this didn’t look like any expression I’d ever seen on his face.
Grabbing a chair, I adjusted the mic down so I could do this one sitting. A few people held up smartphones and Joe scrambled to get his out of his pocket. That made me nervous – brand new song I’d never practiced with a guitar? I picked some basic chords and stuck to those, hoping the lyrics were good enough to not humiliate myself.