Every once in a while, a gig like this happened. Walking through the door, the place was already busy with drinkers, families eating dinner, and people who had actually turned up to hear the music.
The barmaid who’d served him a couple of nights earlier was on-shift again. Rufus stepped up to the bar. She smiled as she saw him approach the bar.
“Well, hello there!” she greeted him.
“Hi,” Rufus smiled, “busy tonight.”
“All for you, my dear, all for you.”
“Very cool.”
Rufus leaned his guitar on the bar and boosted himself onto a stool; surveyed the crowd.
“Drink?” the barmaid asked from behind him. He swiveled to face her.
“Sure, I’ll take a beer,” he answered.
“Running a tab?”
“I guess,” he considered.
“Name?”
“Rufus,” he replied.
She offered an unexpected hand across the bar.
“Well, good evening Rufus. I’m Julie.”
He shook her hand and couldn’t fight the broad grin that consumed his face. He was suddenly very grateful for a friendly face, smile and care. He didn’t know why; something sitting deep in his gut, that he couldn’t quite bring to focus, just an uneasy, baseless, grinding…
“You were on Guinness the other night; same tonight?”
Rufus snapped back to the moment, and felt that unfocused churning ease backwards, fading to little more than a cypher.
“Yeah, that’ll be great,” he said, allowing himself to fall into Julie’s smile, “I’ll be back in a minute, just want to get set up.”
* * *
When the house provided a PA, setup was a breeze. Microphone, guitar, DI box and cables. Easy.
As always, he used the time spent plugging in cables and adjusting the mic-stand to watch the crowd, sense the energy of the place. It felt pretty good in The Loaded Barrel, more smiles than frowns, more interested conversation than heated debates. Every so often, from the tables, a peal of laughter from some kid out with their family cut through the general buzz.
This is a good place, Rufus thought, good vibes.
He wasn’t even really aware that he was scanning the crowd for those faces, those melting, freak-show masks. An eye misplaced, a mouth that didn’t quite work.
Mac’s people. The doctors.
He sat cross-legged on the stage, tuning his guitar, the wood warm and comfortable in his hands. Satisfied, he strummed a few chords. Even without amplification, he could hear the acoustics of the room warming the tone of his guitar; tonight would be a good gig, he knew. He sang a couple of lines quietly and, sure enough the balance was just right, mellow and accepting.
He plugged his guitar into the PA and stood to the microphone; clicked his tongue to check it was on.
He didn’t count one-two… one-two.
Strummed a chord.
Sang the same lines he had done a moment earlier, accompanying himself on the guitar.
It all sounded great.
At that moment, the last gig he’d played couldn’t have been further from his mind. If he’d stopped to think, he might even have found it hard to recall the old man telling him to go on, the distorted deputy cruising the street, stopping to speak with a kid that Rufus was now pretty sure had gone missing.
Those memories had left him.
Rufus was focused only upon his debut at The Loaded Barrel.
* * *
His Guinness was waiting for him when he got back to the bar, a clover-leaf inscribed in the creamy foam; pretzels in a little dish.
“Thanks much,” he said to Julie.
“No problem.”
“How much?”
She waved a hand.
“First couple on the house,” she smiled, “after that we’d need to talk!”
Rufus dipped his head.
“Well, in that case, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” Julie replied, turning her back on him for a moment; busy at the back counter.
He sipped at the Guinness; cold, welcome.
“Good crowd tonight,” he said.
Julie turned back and barked a short, sharp laugh.
“What?” Rufus asked.
“You’ve got an Irish lip,” Julie nodded.
Smiling, Rufus wiped at his top lip to remove his foamy moustache. Took a look around the room.
“It’s not like other bars.”
“Huh?”
“There’s a good vibe here,” he explained, turning back to her, “good energy.”
“Oh.”
She was looking at him oddly.
“What?”
It took a moment for her to answer.
“It is,” she said. “Different, I mean. We… Good people come here, they hang out. They’re nice to each other.”
He nodded.
“Welcoming, you know?”
The word was like a sunburst in Rufus’ head.
“Welcoming,” he whispered, and a momentary image of the distorted deputy’s face flickered through his hindsight.
“Are you OK?” Julie asked, concerned by his reaction.
“I’m fine…”
But am I? Am I really?
He thought of a tree, a hole beneath its roots; material that felt reptilian to the touch, cold, inhuman. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed.
Julie was still looking at him.
“Well,” he shrugged, “that passed.”
Julie looked up, over his left shoulder.
“Good evening,” she welcomed, “what’ll it be?”
“I’ll take a Diet Coke,” Danni said.
And all of a sudden, her arms were looping around his shoulders and chest, hugging him tight in welcome.
“Hey you,” she breathed in his ear before kissing him on the cheek, “ready to sing for me?”
He felt the flush rising to his cheeks, felt like looking around the bar to see who was watching. When he glanced back to the bar, he was relieved that Julie was off getting the drink and hadn’t noticed his embarrassment.
Danni released him and stepped to sit on the stool next to his.
Sat looking at him.
Staring.
His embarrassment grew with each moment.
Finally, he blew.
“What? What are you looking at?”
Danni smiled.
“You,” she said, “I’m just checking you’re still alive in there.”
“Oh, I’m still here,” Rufus smiled, “can’t keep a good man down.”
“Is that what you are? A good man?”
Danni smiled at Rufus, but he found he couldn’t look her in the eye. His throat clenched and he stared resolutely at his beer.
“I…” he began but choked on the words. “I’m trying. I really am.”
Danni reached out, stroked the back of his hand.
“It’s a start, Rufus,” she said quietly. “That’s a good thing.”
When he looked up at Danni, he was surprised to find her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“What?” he asked, and she shook her head slightly.
“It’s what you do next,” she said, “that’s what matters. That’s what really counts.”
Silence stretched between them, flooding with the noise of the bar, the murmur of his audience-to-be.
“Now, why don’t you go sing for me,” Danni said, forcing a smile to her face.
* * *
The Loaded Barrel was large enough that he couldn’t take in the whole audience at once, catching glimpses in those few moments when he opened his eyes.
He saw families sat in booths, fathers tapping on smartphones, kids lost to games units, mothers looking tired of the whole charabanc.
He saw young bucks at the bar, making moves on Julie; her practiced, perfect rebuff, declining only to persuade them another drink would help.
He saw business meetings, contracts concluded over chicken wings and margaritas.
He saw the old lady from the coffee shop, too much make-up, a dress-up doll gone bad.
He closed his eyes.
He sang.
He saw candles in a back yard, felt the thrum of low bass through his stomach and groin.
Opened.
Saw Danni, at the bar, an island amid the throngs. Smiling. Ever smiling.
He closed his eyes.
Saw a tree.
A crow.
A hole so black it might engulf.
Opened.
Sang, picking melody and counterpoint on six strings.
Moving to the beat of his thumb and forefinger.
At the other end of The Loaded Barrel, he saw the old guy from the bookstore, listening, nodding.
Closed his eyes; heard that expectant cough, go on.
Opened his eyes; fixed on Danni, felt himself pulled by the music, much like he had been in her backyard.
She grew out of focus, the music swelling in colours before him. Vibrating, pulsing.
A slight movement in the throbbing colourscape; a young buck turning behind Danni, facing the stage, facing her back, shifting the energy field.
Rufus blinked, pushed the music back from himself, into that autopilot mode he’d learned across the years.
Harder this time, he thought, as the music resisted.
The young guy behind Danni, wearing a Budweiser t-shirt, nursed a cold beer. It was difficult to tell quite where he was looking. It might have been the back of Danni’s head, it might have been the stage, it might have been the dark window off to one side behind Rufus. Outlined by the neon lights of the bar, the diffuse glow of the room, his face was all crags and hollows.
Budweiser Boy, Rufus thought, his face doesn’t work either.
Like the captain of a jetliner, Rufus disengaged autopilot as he came in to land, bringing the song to a calm, unremarkable end.
Applause rippled through the bar.
Budweiser Boy drank long and hard from his beer, then turned back to face the bar.
“Why thank you,” Rufus said to no-one in particular, to everyone at once, “you’re making me feel very good up here!”
The applause continued for a few seconds.
Danni smiled up at him.
Whatever unease he’d held left him as he glanced down at his setlist.
He shifted his capo, checked his tuning, and started the next song.
* * *
Floating, deep in the song, deep in the harmony, resonance and tune, deep in the words flowing one to the next, stringing like pearls, ancient wisdom handed down and down, on and on into common acceptance, rendered natural, rendered beautiful, fine oils, brushstrokes and belief.
Rufus played on, bringing the people to unity within his song.
RUFUS – A NOVEL is a novel-in-progress by Vincent Tuckwood, a Brit author living and working in Waterford, Connecticut, USA. Read more by Vincent Tuckwood.
