#ready...

Your eyes give up blinking off the fatigue and parch, and you roll over and let the lids droop, and droop, and, drop. The next thing you know, your eyes open and your vision clears to find yourself just outside a familiar door. It’s obvious what’s expected, so you push. (“It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. I missed it.” I can’t have you missing out on anything. I thought I’d see if I could still manage to make it work. “I have confidence.” Well, there’s one of us.) The bouncer checks your ID and waves you in. “What about the cover?” “You’re on the list. No cover for you.” On the list, geez, that takes you back,… but,… “How’d I get on the list?” “Beats me, your written right here at the end, in a different handwriting. Weird big loopy caps in a thick line. That’s why I recognized your name. You don’t know? Maybe I should be asking you? No, don’t worry about it, relax and go on in. Enjoy the show.” The club is bigger than you remember – maybe it just seems smaller on open mic night. Or maybe they’ve redone it. The stage lights are on, the bar lights are on, and the strings of LED lights up in the beams are on, that’s enough to see your way around. It’s pretty full, especially for a Tuesday night. They’re playing O’ Be Joyful over the sound system while waiting for the show to start. You wonder if the club chooses that or if the artist does. Between the size of the crowd and this selection, you start thinking it could be a good show. You remember seeing the name on the poster over the bouncer’s shoulder, and you remember the graphic of the person and the balloon, but it didn’t matter to you who was playing then, and now you can’t get the name to focus in your mind’s eye.

Everyone here is possibly recognizable in this light, but no one compelling, no one yet clearly the person you’re expected to find here. Maybe they’re not here yet. A man crossing the room towards the restroom stops to introduce himself. “Hey there sweetie, I’m ____. Am I wrong or…” The tone is vapid and self-indulgent, so you’ve quit listening before he can finish trying out his line on you. He scowls and shrugs, and continues on his way. You’ve gone back to looking around. You can’t shake the feeling that you’re being looked for also, or,… watched. Scanning the bar for a second time, you notice one silhouette that hasn’t changed. Initially you thought it was turned toward the bar, but this time it’s apparent that they’re facing away and leaning back onto it. The shape raises its glass to you, golden and radiant from the bar light filtering through it. The glass is brought back down and you see the oblique glint off its side as the shadow tips it back to drain it. The light reflected back off the brim of the glass momentarily crosses and lights smiling eyes. As you move closer, the features form out of the shadow, and the smile itself becomes visible and unmistakable, and comfortable. “I can’t believe I didn’t see you right away.” “Well,… I blend in.” You just laugh. “How long have you been watching me?” “Not sure. How long have you been here? I’ve been keeping an eye on the door since I got here to see if you’d show up.” (“Why wouldn’t I show up?” Like I said, I haven’t done one of these in a while, and I guess I wasn’t confident I had the chops. “These aren’t totally up to you. I see you just finished your drink. Let me get you another one?” Yeah, that’d be great, if you’d join me.) You wave at the bartender, and she waves back with a wink. You hold two fingers up, then point to yourself and me. She gives you the thumbs-up. (Or, wait, did she give me the thumbs-up? “Not sure what you mean?” I mean, did the bartender just give me a sign of approval to you? How do you know her anyway? “You’ve got a lot of questions.” Just,… wait, am I writing this one, or are you? “Hmm, good question.”) Our drinks arrive, and the bartender sets them down on the bar in front of us, then leans her elbows on the bar, holding her chin between her hands with a big grin. “This is him? Seems promising.” (Hold on a second. “Just let it go. Does it matter?” You have a good point there. Never mind.)

The singer is moving up to the stage and bantering with the crowd as he makes a few final adjustments. The person next to me at the bar gets up to move closer, and you take the open stool. “I think this is going to be a good show.” “You’ve seen him play before?” “I’ve got a few things on my iPod, but never heard him live until sound check tonight. Before that he was here sitting where you are and I said “Hey”. We talked a little bit about the DC area. He seemed pretty cool.” “What’s the music like?” (You know I suck at answering that. “I think some of it is you listen to things that make it hard to answer.” Maybe we could just listen and find out? “Sure, here he goes.”) He’s done getting ready, and we adjust to be able to see the stage, reach our drinks, and talk closely and quietly. He introduces the first song, Hymn #101, and starts picking it out, stops, shifts his feet and guitar and starts in again. You get out your phone and open the browser, pulling up the lyrics. “I know this one. There’s a part of it I’ve heard sung in the background of a dream I’ve had recently.” You skip down and point to a verse, and then point to me. When it comes up in the song I lean in and sing along so that only you can hear, and your dream comes to you in waking.