He heard her singing like a ghost.
There was something familiar about the way she shied up to the mic. Mumbled just enough to get the words through a crooked smile. Acting innocent, and good enough to even make you believe it.
He ached to confuse the two girls. The one he had known, ages ago, another world away. Back when he was young. There was a lot to forget, but she was a pearl. He remembered her laugh in the darkness. The way she snuggled up to him and her frizzy hair getting in his mouth. That was when she was more experienced than he was, in everything, it seemed.
Here, in the present, he had an instant of what she felt like in his arms. A flash of memory. The smell of dust burning in the spotlights. The stage carpet feeling soggy with rain, booze and sick.
He was startled by how sharp and clear the memory was. That night, where they went back to her place together. She wanted to show him something in her home studio. (Boy, did she show him). She came out with a guitar and nothing else. But he had suddenly gone soft and she was wonderful about it. She whispered, "It's not your prick girls want. It's your eyes." Her expression turned warm and she touched his face, his eyebrows, nose, freckles and dimple. The phrase haunted him into many one night stands in the future. That night they fell asleep making love, tangled in covers and clothes, tired and wrestling and laughing.
In the morning, they did it properly, fiercely. He tried so carefully, probably came off like a puppy who could't stop licking her. She stopped him. Explained about going slowly, taught him what she meant. He took direction easily in those days.
The part of the story he would always leave out was the look on her face as the clock got closer to 9, when his driver was going to pick him up. How cold she got, how disappointed. He'd see The Face over and over on women. He kissed her and they talked about getting together again. A polite line, but he had meant it at the time.
Instead, she made the next move. A year or so later, her laughing face next to her death date on the newspapers. He had known by then how bad things were getting. Told her the story about the bass player who passed out during the session. Maybe he would have gotten her to stop, or pulled the pills from her hand. It could have been him. He didn't know why it wasn't.
In the present, in the dive, in the lonely lights, the young band just fooling around. He sat exactly where he was blinded, where the young singer's face was in shadow, and he kept trying to play the trick of switching back in time.
Back to a world where she was still alive in the same room with him.
*"Me and Bobby McGee" sung by Janis Joplin
There was something familiar about the way she shied up to the mic. Mumbled just enough to get the words through a crooked smile. Acting innocent, and good enough to even make you believe it.
He ached to confuse the two girls. The one he had known, ages ago, another world away. Back when he was young. There was a lot to forget, but she was a pearl. He remembered her laugh in the darkness. The way she snuggled up to him and her frizzy hair getting in his mouth. That was when she was more experienced than he was, in everything, it seemed.
Here, in the present, he had an instant of what she felt like in his arms. A flash of memory. The smell of dust burning in the spotlights. The stage carpet feeling soggy with rain, booze and sick.
He was startled by how sharp and clear the memory was. That night, where they went back to her place together. She wanted to show him something in her home studio. (Boy, did she show him). She came out with a guitar and nothing else. But he had suddenly gone soft and she was wonderful about it. She whispered, "It's not your prick girls want. It's your eyes." Her expression turned warm and she touched his face, his eyebrows, nose, freckles and dimple. The phrase haunted him into many one night stands in the future. That night they fell asleep making love, tangled in covers and clothes, tired and wrestling and laughing.
In the morning, they did it properly, fiercely. He tried so carefully, probably came off like a puppy who could't stop licking her. She stopped him. Explained about going slowly, taught him what she meant. He took direction easily in those days.
The part of the story he would always leave out was the look on her face as the clock got closer to 9, when his driver was going to pick him up. How cold she got, how disappointed. He'd see The Face over and over on women. He kissed her and they talked about getting together again. A polite line, but he had meant it at the time.
Instead, she made the next move. A year or so later, her laughing face next to her death date on the newspapers. He had known by then how bad things were getting. Told her the story about the bass player who passed out during the session. Maybe he would have gotten her to stop, or pulled the pills from her hand. It could have been him. He didn't know why it wasn't.
In the present, in the dive, in the lonely lights, the young band just fooling around. He sat exactly where he was blinded, where the young singer's face was in shadow, and he kept trying to play the trick of switching back in time.
Back to a world where she was still alive in the same room with him.
*"Me and Bobby McGee" sung by Janis Joplin
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