Red Hot Blues (8 page)

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.

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...

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 my 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.

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.

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.

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 myself 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.