© copyright 1999, Lee Smith , all rights reserved
| Why do you keep him some say. He'll never
survive, man alive. Sings songs and plays a mean guitar to medium sized bar rooms. Dark and smoke filled. Smells of beer, cheap perfume, and the restroom door slams loud. He sings "Anywhere You Are" for one. He sings now, a victim of some degeneration. He walked and jumped once years ago, some good, some bad. A face, old, smoke tanned and whisky folded, sees dreams and weaves words from overcast memories. Sometimes a little sweet-weed to kill the pain. The crowd wants fast to dance to, but he sings them love songs too. And he sings them deep and honey sweet. Ernie's wine and Leventine while the girls go soft and still. Some spend their money just to listen. An eight-dollar cover charge. Anywhere you are. Some say that in the drowsy dregs before closing time when the smoke hangs low, if you squint your eyes her face painted out of smoke looks smiling down, but who's to say in the witching hours? Who's to say? Tasting the same warm wine he sits small on misty lips. Nodding, smiling, picking slow, seeing things from long ago. Milk filled eyes. Some said they loved one year before the war. Some said she took away his pain. Some said she lived only in his dreams and yet he left us in the middle of a song wrapped in veils to hide the embarrassment of it all we suppose. A swirl of pink and pale at Pattie Joe's whispering, whispering him away. The End. |