CW 30: Everyday Magic

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. If you would like something written especially for you, please consider sponsoring me.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

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Everyday Magic

For Jon Anastasio. Thank you for your friendship and support.

Serena loved Open Mike nights: the everyday magic of music on the tiny stage of her sidestreet neighborhood joint, the way people settled in over beer and brats and cheered each other on. Her regulars were folks on their way home from the jay-oh-bee, community college study groups, young marrieds whose date-night budgets didn’t stretch to taxi fares, old-timers whose wives were dead or fled. A lot of them couldn’t sing worth a damn, which they’d all learned the hard way during the six-month stint of Karoake Hell before Serena sold the gear on eBay. But that wasn’t the same as making music together.

And tonight it looked like they might have some new voices. The couple at table five who were on their second round of vodka slammers, both wearing the classic Open Mike look, the mix of I cannot wait to blow you all away and Oh jesus fuck please someone shoot me now. The man in his seventies at the bar who put his name down when he thought no one was watching. And maybe the guy at table two. He wasn’t an easy read: the well-traveled guitar case against the wall didn’t jibe with the fresh careful haircut, or the boxed-in look in his eye. He drank his beer slowly, and by the time he was was near the bottom he still hadn’t put his name on the list. He looked like he was so far down his own rabbit hole that he might not even remember it was Open Mike, in spite of the banners over the stage and the adrenaline in the air.

When it was time, Serena stepped up on stage to applause and a wolf whistle from Bernie Ellison, who was still trying to get lucky one day. “Welcome to Open Mike at Layla’s,” she said. “All performers get a round on the house. One song to a customer. Let’s make some real music tonight!”

First up was Lamont Miller, freshly-showered from his construction job, his guitar like a toy in his big hands, singing another one of his unexpectedly delicate folk songs. This one was about a green river in a canyon, an eagle overhead. Lamont, soaring.

As the applause was dying, Bernie called from the back, “That was real good, Lamont, especially the part about the fish.” The couple at five looked startled, and then peered at Serena as if they expected her to shut Bernie down. She gave them a reassuring smile: it always took new folks a while to figure out that audience was a verb at Layla’s.

“Lamont, come on over and get yourself a beer,” she said. “You did good.”

Billie Mae Turcott stepped up with her ever-more-buzzy electric guitar. Punk wasn’t really Serena’s thing, but Billie was so passionate, and she was getting better at staying on the beat; and with every song, she brought a little more Billie Mae and a little less recycled Siouxsie Sioux. She took a Cosmo from Serena and high-fived her way back to her seat. Serena saw the guy at two frown a little: but she wasn’t that good.

The couple climbed on stage. “We’re real excited to be at Layla’s,” the woman said, as she checked the tuning on her acoustic. They called themselves Spider Bob and TJ, and they fulfilled the terrible promise of their names with squeaky voices and off-key harmonies. But theirs was a love song, and their glow touched everyone in the room. “Y’all just married?” someone called from the back, and Spider Bob blushed desperately and nodded while everybody cheered.

The old man was next. “I’ve heard about this place,” he said in a low and fragile voice: then he sang an aching a capella rendition of “Danny Boy” that had them all in tears, and Serena knew without being told, the way she sometimes did when the music and musician were particularly true to each other, that his wife had died in his arms in Intensive Care two nights before. It was all there in his music. He got a hug from everyone between him and the Jack Daniels that Serena had waiting on the bar.

She felt a touch at her elbow. The guy from table two said, “Can I still sign up?”

“You’re next,” she said, and waved him up to the stage.

As soon as his fingers touched the strings, as soon as he opened his mouth, Serena knew he and music were in one of those passionate long-term relationships, that they rode and rolled each other like a rollercoaster. He played clear and strong and true, and what he played made Serena shake her head as she drew a beer: a heartbroken it’s-all-over song. A breakup song. By the time he finished, Spider Bob and TJ were clutching each other’s hands and sniffling. He let the last chord die. He gave the crowd a thousand-yard stare. He said, “Thank you very much,” held his guitar for a moment, and then leaned over to put it away.

“Don’t you dare,” Serena said. He jerked, and blinked in her direction. “Don’t you dare come to my Open Mike with all that music inside you and then tell it goodbye. Not on our watch. Oh, please,” she added at his look of shock, and jerked her chin at the haircut. “What, you got a real job?”

He nodded slowly.

“Well, boohoo for you, big guy. All these people have real jobs, and they still make real music.”

“I just–”

“You just nothing,” she said. “You promise me right now that you are getting your ass back here next Tuesday to play, and nobody gives a damn about your presentation deadlines. You got that?”

He stared at her. Finally he said, “What is this place?”

“This is Layla’s,” she said. “Open Mike, every Tuesday. Come make music.”

“Shit,” he said. “Okay.” And Serena handed him the beer, and everyone cheered. He nodded, and drank, and she knew he felt it. They all did. A little everyday magic.