Red Hot Blues

by Rachel Dunning

  We’d gotten away.

  I tried to get Fiona, my other sister, to follow suit, but Fiona is daddy’s little girl. She blamed me for taking Janice, accused me of being disrespectful to my father, told me it was against the commandments. Yeah, she and I are definitely different colored sheep.

  Momma, well, I never understood why she stays with the man. She just does. She’s still with him. Does he hurt her? I’ve been down there a few times, and I don’t really know. I can’t tell.

  I’ve been down there when he’s not there, because if I ever see him again, I can’t guarantee my or his safety. I visit Aaron when I’m down there, and my mom. Not my father.

  People don’t realize it’s complicated. But it is. Love complicates things, families complicate things, fiscal responsibilities complicate things. It isn’t as simple as telling someone to shove off and then being rid of them. Does mom stay with him because she loves him? Needs him? Wants him?

  Truth is, in a weird and convoluted way, if my dad goes down, so does Aaron’s family, because dad’s got everything locked down financially. He’s the man. And he owns everything.

  See how complicated it gets?

  But if mom ever wants to run, I’ll be here for her. I’ve told her that. But more than that I can’t do. Because if I drag her out of there kicking and screaming, I’ll be no better than my father.

  Lesson number one that Aaron taught me about women is that a woman must be willing. And if she is, she’ll go to the ends of the earth for you.

  -22-

  At twenty-one I hit the road, with the Harley and the Gibson I’d saved up to purchase. The Harley was a piece of shit, but I had a friend at a hotrod shop who fixed it up for me.

  That was three years ago. I mostly travelled the northern states, and then the west coast. It’s as if I wanted to stay as far away from the South and from Virginia as possible. I’d settle a few months each time in a place, do some work, save up, put some money in a bank account. I usually stayed in out-of-the-way places.

  Because I can cook I tend to save up on eating out, and I also tend to get the short-order cook jobs when they’re available.

  I don’t fight for money any more, and there have been places where the demand has been there, and the money offered has been good—Detroit, Chicago—but I turned it down. I needed wheels, and I got them. Dad’s Pontiac had long since been returned to the farm by me. So now I live hand to mouth. More than that I don’t need.

  The last six months it’s just been open road, no working, no stopping, just riding, moving from town to town, spending two or three days there at the most. You spend very little when you’re on a bike, feeding only yourself. I have enough to keep me going for another twelve months, maybe eighteen, provided I don’t stay at The Ritz or the Sheraton whenever I make a stop. And even if I did that, I could probably still go four to six months without working.

  Yeah, I got my ass kicked a lot in Brooklyn. Made good money doing it. And I saved up.

  I just needed to clear my head.

  The pictures come back sometimes. They bother me. And it’s not the pictures of my dad’s fists to my face or my ribs. Those don’t bother me. He’s an asshole, so I don’t have any worries about him not loving me or anything like that.

  The pictures that bother me are the ones of my mother screaming, him on top of her, and then the fear in her green eyes. The pictures that bother me are the ones of him sitting next to my little sister, on her bed, his hand on her leg. And the sounds of fear she was making. This fourteen year old girl.

  I want to kill him when I think of that shit. I really do.

  And that scares me.

  So I ride.

  -23-

  I started off telling you about Mr. Cowboy Hat at the Blues Bar, and I’m sorry I went off on a tangent there. But sometimes you need to get these things off your chest. Sometimes you need to get them off your chest more than once.

  I’ve told people bits and pieces of this story as I’ve ridden through towns, but never in so much detail. And never anything about my sister.

  So, Mr. Cowboy, ogling Ginger the blue-eyed Diva, a girl I can’t stop thinking about.

  I chested him out of the Blues Bar because he’d pissed me off. I took his hat off, and told him to fuck off or else I was gonna cut him a new one.

  Blood was burning in my fists, and if I’d hit him, I don’t think I would have been able to stop.

  I’m sorry I don’t have a major climax to tell you about here, because the dude did just that—he screwed off. Maybe he saw the devil in my eyes, or the truth of what I was saying. So he fucked off, quick, and left me with his hat.

  I felt bad, so I left the hat on a garbage can before I rode off. Maybe he’d get it back later.

  Do I regret my temper getting the better of me?

  Do I regret keeping him away from this Ginger girl?

  Not a chance. I know his type—the Jed and Bobby type. Assholes.

  I don’t see anything romantic happening with me and her. It would hurt her too much to be with an asshole like me. I’m a loose cannon. Volatile. I’m not a relationship guy, and she doesn’t look like a one-night girl.

  But I would like to talk to her. You can tell the depth of someone’s soul by the way they make music. Aaron has one of the deepest souls I’ve ever seen.

  Sure, there was some attraction there for her. I just need to keep my bad boy in check. I can’t go for her. I can’t.

  I won’t!

  But those eyes—I can’t stop thinking about them. And that smile—I can’t stop dreaming about it. And that perfumed scent—I can’t stop wondering about it. And that voice that cleared my mind...

  And those lips—I can’t stop fantasizing about them.

  Or imagining what they taste like...

  ~ GIN ~

  -24-

  I was flustered, completely flustered. Layna and I stayed out talking after the bar closed at two a.m. and she wouldn’t stop asking me about details. I told her he eye-fucked me (or so I thought) and she rolled her eyes in a way that said, Then what the F are you still doing here!?

  She sat on my right, at the end of one of the tiny round tables outside the Blues Bar, just under the glass case with posters for the acts every day of the week.

  She lit up a smoke, made me jealous by crossing her long and sexy legs. She was wearing red cowboy boots, and pretty much nothing else. She exhaled. “Fuck, that’s hot,” she said.

  Whatever. I didn’t wanna get into it. I didn’t want to think about him. I didn’t want to hope or consider that something was there when it wasn’t. I was just dreaming. Dreaming is cool. Thinking the dream is reality is definitely not cool.

  Because it hurts bad when you realize it isn’t.

  “Next Tuesday?” she asked.

  I looked at her, panic roiling in my mind. I nodded.

  “Is that like...a date?” She took another drag of her smoke, kicked her leg up and down so that the boot looked like a red hyperactive cat on the edge of her foot.

  “No! It’s not a date!”

  “So what is it?”

  I shrugged, and felt the dress scrape against my breasts. My large breasts. My “generous” breasts. Oh, god, I really couldn’t let this go to my head. It would hurt. It would so hurt if I let it go to my head...

  I felt a sheen of nervous sweat break out on my skin. The sweat that had been on it before had been from the heat, this was from anxiety.

  And loneliness. Bone-gnawing loneliness.

  “I’d rather not talk about it, Lay.”

  She stared at me. My eyes were to the ground but I could still see her. Her smoke stopped an inch from her lips. She chewed her gum loudly. Then she said, “You know you’re really sexy, don’t you?”

  I shook my head. She shouldn’t go there. I was gonna start crying if she went there.

  “I’m not kidding, Gin. You’re really sexy. You’re the only one who doesn’t know it.”

  I felt the tears hemorrhage behind m
y eyes, felt my glands swell up and ache under my jaw. I couldn’t speak. I hated when she told me this. She tells me it often. And I hate it. Because it’s not true. But I want it to be true. I so want it to be true.

  But it’s not.

  It’s not.

  And that hurts. That hurts a lot. Because I can’t change it.

  “Come here,” she said.

  I didn’t.

  She stood up, extended her arms out to me, and that sent the first pricks of tears to my eyes. I saw one tear drop onto my dress. She grabbed me by the shoulders, lifted me and held me. And I shattered in her arms. I cried, and cried, and cried. And cried.

  Some guy walked past—bald, beer-bellied and drunk—and said something funny and consoling. You know how drunk people are, always sharing the love.

  I laughed. And that was cool, because it helped me forget.

  But there is no forgetting. Because there are always mirrors. Mirrors, mirrors, everywhere. And couples, happy couples—of men with muscles and chicks with hard asses.

  I don’t hate my life. But I hate the way I feel in life.

  I always feel shit.

  And I always feel a heavy ache in every part of my bones.

  And it never goes away.

  -25-

  Layna admires my tits. That’s what she calls them: My “tits.” She said she’d give her right arm for tits like mine. Layna is an A cup.

  I said I’d take her right arm, but then I’d look funny because I’d have a huge left arm and a tiny right arm.

  She didn’t like that. She says I should stop putting myself down. That I’m not fat. That I’m sexy. That I could get any guy I want because I’m “shapely” and “curvaceous.”

  Only problem is, I don’t want any guy. I wanted Brett Lexington, the guy who did me and dumped me when I was seventeen. And I don’t want to be “curvaceous,” I want to be skinny. I want the insides of my thighs to not graze against each other when I walk. I want my belly to not roll over itself when I bend over. I want my hips to be straight-up washboards.

  Layna might give her right arm for breasts like mine.

  I’d give my soul to the devil for a body like hers. Babes with a body like hers get the cream of the crop, the top of the cake, the crème de la crème of men.

  Girls like me get everything else. And everything else just ain’t worth writing about.

  -26-

  Outside the Blues Bar, that Tuesday night, me crying on Layna’s shoulder, drunk dude saying something funny:

  She said, after I’d settled down, “Dude had eyes for you. Dude had eyes for you all night.” She was talking about Ace.

  Somehow that made me laugh. A good cry does that to me. Suddenly things are not so serious after a good cry. “You think?” I played.

  She held me back, eyes wide. “He had fuckin eyes for you! He has the hots for you! Trust me. I know!”

  A little worm of doubt crept into my mind. Really? I looked at her suspiciously.

  “Didn’t you see how he rammed that other punk away? That freak with the Cowboy Hat?”

  “Huh?”

  She told me about some loser—the typical guy who chases me after an act—who was aiming for me, and how Ace chested the dude out the bar.

  The worm of doubt crawled deeper.

  I looked over at the cowboy cat on the garbage can. Layna looked at it as well.

  We had one of those moments where nothing is said, but everything is said. Just like Ace and I had had on the stage.

  I went home feeling happy. And hopeful.

  The hope lasted all week. I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t worried.

  He rammed a dude out of the bar that was coming for me?

  I couldn’t deny it. That was hot.

  There was only one thing left to prove whether or not he was, maybe, possibly, interested in me: If he showed up on Tuesday. Today.

  And if he didn’t, I could deal. I could. Because nothing had happened.

  Yet.

  -27-

  So I dressed up. Black. All black. Because I know black makes me look sexy. Yeah, I never said I was ugly. I said I was fat. Fat and ugly are two different things. And I know that if I push up my “tits” I tend to turn heads. The problem has been that the heads I turn are usually not the heads I want to turn (pun intended), but, OK, I’m feeling a little flirtatious today.

  I’ve gone with mostly my usual make-up before a gig, but chose a darker shade of red for the lipstick, and thicker eyeliner. Going for the whole Femme Fatale thing. Nothing wrong with a little bad-assness. Nothing wrong with putting on some paint to cover the insecurities.

  Lace sleeves. Silver chain with a blue pendant. Black pumps. Sexy pumps. And a purple velvet bolero.

  I catch myself hoping, really hoping, as I walk into the bar, that Ace is actually here tonight, that it wasn’t all a ruse. That he wasn’t just talking shit and that now I got my hopes up and dressed up and made a fool of myself and, after all that, he doesn’t arrive.

  As I walk into the bar, I’m immediately accosted by the sudden fifteen degree drop in temperature compared to outside. Black light shines, making the alligator above the “laissez le bon temps rouler” (Let the Good Times Roll) sign at the back of the stage, glow. Above me is a poster for the Mardi Gras. Somebody whistles in my direction. Jackson. He’s a regular. “Looking good, honey!” he cries out.

  I smile. Jackson’s cool. All seventy-two years of him.

  Ace is not here. I expected to feel bad about it. But I don’t. Nobody here knows I went the extra mile tonight. Except Layna. And she’s cool. She won’t even mention it. And if she does, it’ll be to tell me he’s an asshole and that she was wrong about him.

  I can have that.

  The blues get going, Max T and Vince Summers do a set, one hour long. They’re good. They’re regulars on a Tuesday night. I forget to put my name on the roster, and Max comes up to me during the intermission and asks me about it. I tell him it slipped my mind. And he adds it.

  I’m distracted.

  He pairs me up with four other guys, a keyboard player, drums, lead guitarist, a bass player.

  Suddenly it hits me. He really isn’t here. And he’s not gonna be here. And I don’t care that I dressed up. I like dressing up. I like making myself look stylish. But I wanted to speak to him. Because he seemed cool. I wanted to chill out with him outside, maybe even sip on a whiskey with him before two a.m., before every bar in Nashville closes and kicks you out.

  I wanted to talk, to get to know him, to ask him about his guitar playing.

  But that didn’t happen. That’s not gonna happen.

  I can’t help wonder if something went wrong, because...I trusted him. I think I’m a good judge of character. I know I’ve made mistakes, but those mistakes have made me sharper.

  So the fact that he’s not here is weird. It’s strange. And I find myself worrying about him suddenly. Is he OK? Did he have a bike accident?

  Two more motley crew bands go on. Another hour flies by.

  It’s me now. A few men whistle as I walk up. They know my voice. This is my favorite part of singing, going on the stage, and then that moment of silence just before...

  But I’m feeling lonely, heavy, a little sad.

  My set begins. I start singing. And halfway through it, Ace storms in the door like a man from a windstorm in the middle of the desert. I half expect leaves and rolling tumbleweed to blow in after him, followed by that classic Clint Eastwood whistling music.

  He bumps into the ATM machine he walked in so fast. People’s heads turn. I only notice after a moment of silence that I’ve stopped singing!

  The mike screeches.

  Ace relaxes, says out loud, “Sorry, folks! As you were.”

  I find my voice again, only now I’m singing to him. Now the song I’m singing is about him. And I’m in full sway, feeling it, rolling with it, letting the good times roll and being that Big Diva, the Fat Lady who sings before it’s over.

  And I can’t stop m
yself from smiling, or my cheeks from going red. You can always blame it on the lights here.

  People start clapping, cheering, getting into the beat. The drums go on behind me, I’m moving my body like I’m sexy, like I’m hot, like nothing is wrong in this moment because the lights are on me and the boy that I like is sitting right in front of me, grinning, clapping, and looking so damn gawjuss that I can’t make the grin disappear from my face.

  The last song we do is a lustful song, a hot song. It’s a song that I wrote.

  And it goes like this:

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuues.

  Quick. Shot. Boooooooze.

  Big. Spot. Newwwwwws.

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuuues.

  I met my baby on a Saturday night.

  I said no honey don’t you put up a fight.

  I tried to teach him that his way is wrong.

  I tried to tell him that he’s killin my song.

  But he...wouldn’t listen, he wouldn’t say no.

  I tried to kiss him. He said he must go.

  I stood my ground, looked him...in-the-eye!

  I said, “No honey, you kiss me now or I’m waving goodbye!”

  (Drums. Jam. Guitar.)

  He said, “Oh honey baby, you’re killin my groove.”

  I said, “Uh-uh, big boy, you think you’re too smooth!”

  He said, “Please darlin...just one more dance.”

  He looked me over, tried to touch me—I said, “Baby, watch what you doin wit doze filthy hands!”

  (Crowd clapping along.)

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuues.

  (You can’t afford this!)

  Quick. Shot. Boooooooze.

  (You can’t touch this!)

  Big. Spot. Newwwwwws.

  (Yeah, those filthy hands brother!)

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuuues.