Red Hot Blues

by Rachel Dunning

  (Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh—Hot!)

  He looked forlorn. Damn right he should.

  Because a...woman scorned, just ain’t NO good!

  He begged forgiveness, got down on his knees.

  I said, “Honey, you better start beggin, ‘Oh lawd god help me PLEASE!’”

  (Male vocals join in.)

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuues.

  (Please, baby! You better beg!)

  Quick. Shot. Boooooooze.

  (I don’t want yo booze, yo blues, yo ugly news!)

  Big. Spot. Newwwwwws.

  (Oh you think you big?)

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuuues.

  (Crowd cheering. Going nuts.)

  I’ll tell you how this story ends: boy got down on his knees.

  He begged with all his heart, said he wanted me to be his main squeeze.

  I said, “Honey-bunny, you ain’t learned the first damn lesson about wooing a woman, now have you?”

  “And what is that lesson baby? Tell me!”

  (Pause. Pause. Pause.)

  “Yo sorry ass ain’t good enough to be down to my knees!”

  (The crowd erupts, laughing, cheering, clapping.)

  (Male vocals join in.)

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuues.

  (Damn straight, brother, get down and kiss those feet!)

  Quick. Shot. Boooooooze.

  (You had enough booze. Now you need to schmooze!)

  Big. Spot. Newwwwwws.

  (You old news. I want me a man with a Cadillac, some style, a three-piece. You old news!)

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuuues.

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuuues.

  Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuues.

  (Crash. Bam. Slam! Final solo. And it’s over.)

  -28-

  The place implodes. People start yelling for an encore. I’ve got more material, but it’s rare that you ever hit that sweet-spot again after a good song, unless you’ve planned for it.

  Ace and I hit that sweet spot last Tuesday, in the third song.

  He’s on his feet, cheering, clapping. Clapping wildly, forcefully, his guitar dangling behind him. His chest looks so strong. His arms so powerful, like he’s worked in a field or lifting things all his life.

  Is there a swelling under his eye?

  I let myself imagine that he’s mine, that he’s my boyfriend. A light imagination. I know it’s not real. But sometimes all a girl has is her dreams. And her dreams keep her warm at night.

  He hollers, shouts, cheers. So does everyone else. A few other people stand. Not all of them. But enough of them. It doesn’t go to my head. I love the blues. And I can write the blues. It’s one of the few things—that and my voice—that I’m completely confident about. And that I don’t need to be modest about.

  Ace is shaking his head, that shake that musicians do which looks like “No” but actually means, “Damn, yes!”

  I curtsy, as a joke. People like it. They shout some more.

  The sexiest thing about me is my voice. I love my voice. And I love music. And if it weren’t for these moments in my life, I think I would have never made it this far.

  Layna’s in the back, behind the bar, cheering. When I look over at her, she points at Ace, then at the stage, then at Ace again. Get him up there with you!

  I don’t think. I act. I ask the lead guitarist if it would be OK. He starts putting his guitar down but I tell him, no, I’d like both of them up here. It’s just the right thing to do. He says no. I insist. And he stays.

  I ask Max if it’d be OK if Ace got up here, two leads, one vocalist.

  Max says it’s cool. He doesn’t smile or anything, because he’s always a little stressed out on Open Jam night. It’s hard to match people up and keep it all rolling on schedule.

  I call up to Ace with my hand. He looks over at Max as if for approval, but Max is too busy looking down at the notepad, organizing the acts that are still coming up.

  Ace gets up, and the roars of the crowd get even louder. Some of the folks here were also here last week. They remember us.

  Ace is so tall next to me. So tall! And hard, and solid.

  I suddenly realize how out of my league I am. But it doesn’t bother me right now. Right now, nothing bothers me. Right now, I’m in the moment.

  We hit it.

  And. We. Rock. The. House.

  They ask for an encore.

  And another.

  When we finally walk off stage, people are clapping and flinging crumpled-up dollar bills our way (again!)

  Max tries to get us all off stage as quickly as possible. He looks even more stressed out. We’ve delayed the evening’s schedule.

  Ace and I sit down, next to each other, not even thinking about it.

  He puts his hand on my leg—

  For a moment everything stops. I have that very female reaction again, a sting, a burn, a warmth. And there’s nothing. A sense that I can’t breathe. No sound. Just my breath. And heat.

  —and then the sound returns to the room and I see him smiling. People pat his shoulders. A girl screams out, “Ace, you’re so sexy!” (Bitch.) He laughs.

  And then I see the cut, and the bruise, just under his left eye. I’d been right. I didn’t see it on stage because I was on the other side of him. It looks fresh, like he got it tonight, or last night...

  I get worried.

  I see him grimace a little, and the smile fades eventually.

  I say nothing, but we stay sitting together there for at least the next set. I offer him a drink but he ends up paying for it himself, and for mine. He buys me another one.

  As a joke I say, “You trying to get me drunk?”

  He laughs, and sings, “Quick. Shot. Boooooooze.”

  That just makes me laugh so much my stomach eventually hurts.

  I accept the drink; we toast. He keeps it light, keeps laughing, but every now and then I see the light grimace of pain. I suddenly want to rub away that pain. I want to put my hand over it and spread salve on it. I want to hold it close to my bosom and make it all go away.

  I know the feeling of pain. And I know the need to have someone wash it away.

  I watch the rest of the set, but suddenly I feel like Ace and I have shared a moment. One where nothing is said but everything is said.

  Like last week.

  I know, right now, that I’m starting to like him. I know. I know. It’s dumb. I hardly know him. And maybe it’s because he’s the only dude who’s ever approached me at this bar that doesn’t seem to want to get into my pants and who seems genuinely interested in just hanging out with me. That makes me comfortable around him.

  But it doesn’t change the facts.

  There are perceptions that go beyond the eyes, the ears, the nose, touch, taste. There are moments when things are understood, appreciated, grasped. Without words.

  This is one of those moments.

  And I want to know what’s hurting him.

  It’s an all-engulfing thought right now.

  It’s all I want to know.

  -29-

  At the end of the set, he grabs my elbow and starts getting up. He says, “Come outside with me.”

  His eyes quiver. They shake. There’s an intensity in the way he asks (commands?) me to do it and I find myself complying immediately.

  But there’s no fear on my side. Only a burning to find out what’s behind those eyes tonight. Last week as well. I knew there’d been something there! This week it’s more pronounced. Black, hurting eyes. A dark, stormy look.

  And the cut...

  His tee is shorter this time. His arms bulge snugly under it. And I can make out a little more of the tat. It seems like the bottom of a shield. And the tip of a sword? A dress?

  When we get outside, three other people are standing there. Smoking. Ace pulls me over to where he’d stood just a week ago, wearing a cowboy hat, under the wrought-iron balcony of the New Orleans style apartment.

  He stops, looks down at me with quivering eyes. I can see the swell under his
left eye clearly now. Someone hit him there. Recently. Probably even today.

  He pulls a smoke out. Says nothing.

  The temperature has dropped about ten degrees. And a wind has picked up. It’s pleasant now, not nearly as hot. But when this happens it means it’s gonna storm. And when it storms in Tennessee, it storms.

  He tries to light his cigarette, but fails twice. His hands are shaking. Eventually he gets it on. “Smoke?” he asks me again, just like last week, and holds it out to me.

  “I told you I don’t smoke, remember?”

  He looks embarrassed for a second. “Shit, sorry. My head is elsewhere.” He looks beyond me, behind me, at nothing. Which is not too difficult seeing as his chin reaches the top of my head! “Don’t smoke...anymore...if I recall correctly.”

  I smile. Nice detail for him to remember. “Yeah,” I say softly.

  The other people outside have left. My eyes are glued to the glowing part of his skin, under his eye, and the cut underneath that.

  He catches me staring at it, looks away, shuffles his feet.

  He’s shivering. But it’s not cold enough to shiver.

  “What happened to you?” I raise my fingers and just lightly touch the swell.

  He flinches away, grimaces.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Does it hurt?”

  “It does when you touch it.”

  He turns so that the side of his body is facing me, the side without the swelling.

  “Sorry, my hand just went there. Like it had a mind of its own for a second.”

  Silence, then he looks at me. “No, it’s cool. It’s cool for you to touch it.”

  “What happened?”

  He says nothing, but lightning-pain shoots through his eyes. Deep pain. Sorrowful pain. The type of pain a person could weep about.

  He clenches his teeth.

  “That’s OK, you don’t have to talk about it,” I say.

  He nods tightly, and I can see him fighting for stability, for strength, clenching his jaw, looking at the ground. Staring at the burning cigarette in his fingers.

  He chucks it away, half-smoked, says nothing more.

  I suddenly feel unwelcomed. He kept his promise to me, but I think he wants me to go. He’s saying nothing. Not looking at me. Not talking to me.

  Just like Brett did on that day after.

  I have too much pride to go through that shit again.

  I take a step away.

  But my foot doesn’t even land on the ground before I feel his hand gripping my elbow. For dear life. Gripping it like there’s nothing left to hold on to.

  When I turn to face him, his eyes shatter. Tears sneak out of them, even though he fights them. He fights them with all he has. His jaw works, pulls, moves. And tears pour. His chest starts to shudder. He gasps once.

  I grab him, pull him to the side, away from Printers Alley, around the corner, near the parking lot. He doesn’t need to attract attention to himself. This is deep. This is personal. Other people don’t need to see it.

  When we get around the corner, he yanks me toward him, and he holds me. Like I’m the last thing left to hold on to in the world.

  And he breaks apart.

  -30-

  I’m not quite sure how to act, what to say. So I don’t say anything. I hold him, and feel his body convulse and break while he holds back the torrential rain which is his uncried tears.

  I want to let him know it’s OK to let it out, because I can tell he’s fighting them, but I say nothing. I just let him hold on to me.

  I want to tell him he’s fine, that the pain will go away, but I don’t know that it will. Some pain lasts forever.

  I want to bury my lips on his chest, be engulfed in the musk of his body, and kiss the ache better. But I’ll never do that. Because that’s not my place.

  How much time goes by? It doesn’t matter. But eventually he settles. He lets me go, straightens, rubs his red eyes. And then laughs.

  A good cry can do that to a person.

  Trust me, I would know.

  The swelling under his left eye is bigger, getting bluer. The cut is redder. But his face is cleaner, more relieved. That’s the problem with dudes, they don’t cry often enough. It helps.

  “What’s so funny?” I ask him.

  He’s smiling, wiping his tears away. “The fact that I just cried my ass off in front of a girl I don’t even know?”

  I tilt my head. “Yeah, that is pretty funny.”

  He laughs again, pure mirth. I like his laugh. It’s welcoming, effusive. His dimples come out beautifully. His brown eyes shine like a setting sun in a dark desert.

  I don’t ask him why he was crying, or why he’s got that cut under his eye again. Because that means we’d return to that dark place we’ve just left, that dark place when he held me here, near this parking lot. Let’s not go to that place again tonight. Let’s not go to that place again, ever, if we don’t need to.

  “You came,” I say.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Tonight. You came. Like you said you would.”

  He frowns. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

  I shrug. “It crossed my mind. There was no reason for you to come back.”

  “There was a reason.”

  I raise an eyebrow. This is a little intense. He doesn’t even know me.

  “I wanted to hear you sing again. I think...I could hear you sing every day for the rest of my life and I’d be OK.”

  Wow.

  I try think of something to say to that. I can’t.

  My mouth goes dry. And I realize I’m staring at him.

  “You should cut a record,” he says.

  “So should you. You play real old school, like old Memphis stuff.”

  He shrugs. “I was taught by the best.”

  Silence. He digs in his jeans pockets. Pulls out a box of American Spirit.

  “You smoke too much.”

  “Only when I’m nervous.”

  I don’t ask him if he’s nervous now, because if it has something to do with me, I don’t want to know about it. Because that would make me nervous.

  I bring up the courage to ask him the next thing: “You leaving again tonight?” I swallow hard, dreading the answer.

  He waits. Then: “You want me to?”

  A lump forms in my throat. This is it. This is the moment. This is the moment I screw it up or take the jump.

  Something happening here. Something. Chemistry. Something. Something...I’ve avoided...forever.

  I could let it happen, or I could let it slide. What do I do? What do I do?

  “OK,” I say.

  He’s confused. “OK what?”

  I swallow a dry lump. “Stay. I’d...like you to...stay.”

  His lip twitches up on the right, just minutely. I don’t like it. Don’t like this. These little things happening. This...chemistry. I don’t like it. It makes me nervous. Makes me scared. I don’t know this guy.

  But isn’t that the point? If he stays, I’ll get to know him.

  And then you’ll fall for him...

  “Ace.” I shake my head. I want to tell him I’m fragile, that I’m confused. That I don’t know if there are truly sparks flying or if I’m just imagining them.

  But I can’t. If it’s all in my head, I won’t embarrass myself by saying it.

  “Yeah?” he prompts.

  I shake my head, look at my pumps. Black. Sexy.

  I catch a glance of my cleavage. Yikes! I really went all out tonight. “Nothing,” I say.

  I hear the gravel under his boots as he shuffles his feet once. “You look hot tonight.”

  The world stops. My heart stops. All sound stops. “Thank you.” I’m looking down.

  “Does that make you nervous? Me saying that?”

  I stare at the ground, hoping he didn’t just ask me that. I feel the tears slamming against the back of my eyes, just like they slammed last week when Layna held me outside the bar and told me something similar.

  �
�Ginger?”

  “Gin. You can call me Gin.” Nice, safe thing to say.

  “OK. Gin. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  I am. I look to my right, catch the entrance to the Blues Bar just around the corner.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t be. I like that you said it.” I’m still not looking at him. Still fighting the dam behind my eyes; and my tear-ducts are the dam walls. Closed, but feeling the unrelenting pressure as the water pushes against them.

  He sighs loudly. Then he drops a bomb on me: “My father’s in the hospital with four bullet wounds in his body. So is my best friend, the man who raised me. And I’m only rooting for one of them to make it, and it isn’t my dad. I couldn’t stay to see the outcome. So I ran. I drove straight here, non-stop, from Virginia. I haven’t slept for two nights. That’s why I was late.”

  Oh. My. God.

  Dry mouth. Thinking of something to say to that. Something.

  But sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all.

  I can tell it took a lot of courage for him to say it to me. I can tell that he’s showing me he trusts me.

  And that I should trust him back.

  You look hot tonight. For a moment, I actually believe him.

  “Did you shoot them?”

  He’s a little stunned for a moment. “No! Of course not!”

  “OK, I just had to ask. Not that I suddenly become the shoulder to cry on for an axe murderer.”

  He laughs joyfully, mirth dancing in his irises. “Good point.”

  I won’t ask more about what he just said to me. That dark place...

  Not tonight. When he’s ready, he’ll tell me. I can sense that. “OK,” I say. “Thanks for telling me.”

  He nods tightly. “No sweat.”

  “And, uhm, thanks for telling me that”—I scratch my nose—“that, er, I look...y’know.” I fight off a smile.

  “Hot?”

  I look down again, embarrassment burning hot on my cheeks. I croak, “Yeah.”

  “It’ a pleasure.”

  Damn, your accent is sexy!

  He pulls on his cigarette. “So what does one do in Nashville during the daytime?” New subject.