Birdie Loves the Blues
The blaring sound of a Coco Montoya number pushed its way out the open door of the bar and into the early summer night. The slightly built young woman in a black dress just smiled at the bouncer at the door and he waved her in. The long-haired guy standing by the door with him questioned, "Man, aren't you gonna card her? She looks 16."
"Nah, that's Birdie. Celebrated her 21
st
birthday here last summer. She's a regular."
"Shit, she could regularly sit on my face," the guy said, swilling the last of his beer.
"You stay away from her," the bouncer warned. "She don't like to be bothered. She just comes here for the music. She's a sweet kid, and we all kinda look out for her."
"I can see why," beer guy muttered. "That's walkin' sugar right there."
The bouncer gave him a little "get outta here" shove, and then turned to watch the little one walk toward the bar. Damn, she was wearing those shoes again! The "come fuck me" shoes—all red straps and spiked heels. In this place, she should really be more careful. She was quite a specimen, but the folks who worked at the bar all thought of her as a little sister. Well, except for Ben, who worshipped her.
"Tequila with an ice water chaser, as always, Madam?" joked Ben the bartender, hollering to be heard over the music. He grinned as she slid onto her usual bar stool. Unless it was really busy, or they knew she wasn't coming, the bartenders usually managed to keep that seat free for her.
"Yep." Birdie flashed him a smile with her painted blood red lips and surveyed the crowd. She didn't see anyone she knew. Good.
"Hair's growin' out fast," he shouted, as he handed her the tall glass of ice water and then the tequila shot with the little plate.
A couple months ago she'd hacked off her black hair when she saw a cute picture of Ginnifer Goodwin's punky pixie. But Birdie's hair was thick and coarse, and didn't lay nicely like the actress's. Truth be told, she'd ended up looking like her namesake, with a crest like a cardinal or blue jay. So she'd plastered it down with super-hold gel and had worn her black NY Yankees ball cap most of the time. Now it was about four inches long and had started to settle down some. To celebrate, she'd dyed several big chunks flame red.
"Thanks, Ben!" she called out, nearly shrieking over the music. She loved that she could once again run her hand through her hair. She liked it to look nicely messy.
Then she turned her attention to her drink and the ritual that went with it. She was completely unaware that every time she did this, the regulars around the bar stopped to watch. She closed her eyes, licked the salt, tossed back the tequila and bit into the lemon. The cute part was the way her face puckered up, eyes still closed, and she shivered, shaking her head slightly. Ah, the joys of watching a not-yet-jaded fresh young face discovering the wonders of alcohol.
She took a couple of big gulps of water, then let out an audible sigh, finally relaxing and opening her eyes. What they focused on was the band playing on the tiny stage at the back of the bar. She had heard them a few weeks ago—they were good. Played a lot of classics, like B.B. King, Muddy Waters, some Clapton, even some Mississippi John Hurt. And some of the newer, Chicago-style blues, with the screaming, weeping, wailing electric guitars. Their guitarist could handle that stuff, and the singer had just enough whiskey and gravel in his voice to sound like he'd been there.
Jimmi's Juke Joint was a legend in this college town. It had been around for more than 30 years, and many of the greats had passed through, on their way up or on their way down. A few even in their prime. The walls of the small grimy bar were painted all black, and wallpapered with posters for shows over the last 30 years.
No windows except the big one right by the door, looking out on the sidewalk where smokers went to indulge their habit. Birdie was glad that bars didn't allow smoking indoors now. Some of the older regulars had told her that back in the day, a haze of smoke hung over the place, and if you weren't a smoker, you could usually only stay for the first set before your eyes and lungs were burning and your clothes stunk.
But Birdie was a rarity among kids her age. Most of her friends were deep into heavy metal and industrial. The average college students she knew listened to whatever crap was on the radio, or (after all this was a farm state) modern country. Blues was universal—everyone could relate to sad times, bad times, hard times. Even if you were a fresh-faced middle-class kid raised by your two original parents in the safety of a nice small city. Didn't matter that your fresh face was framed by punky hair, with smudgy black around the eyes and dark red lipstick. Birdie could FEEL the blues, deep down.
Of course, everyone in the bar could feel the music—it was that loud. The bass thumped in your heart and the screaming guitars seared your brain. And if you decided to dance, you risked future hearing loss because you were right next to the speakers. What passed for a dance floor was a 10 by 10 foot square of ancient wood that was NOT painted black. Jimmi's was a place where you could dance with anyone of any gender, orientation, race or age, in a group, or even by yourself, if you wanted. That made Birdie happy. She liked being in her own little world, swaying to the music, shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip and sweat-to-sweat with this writhing hunk of humanity.
Birdie took another couple gulps of water, then gestured to Ben to watch her glass. Then she set about worming her way through the crowd toward the dance floor. Sometimes, by the time you got there, the song you wanted to dance to was over. That's NOT because it was such a long way. It couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 feet. It was that crowded. With a good band, by about 11 p.m. there was no place to stand, let alone try to sit.
This was the time when Birdie felt lucky to be so small. Even in heels she wasn't much more than 5'5", and couldn't remember ever weighing more than 120 pounds. Her mother had baptized her Bernadette, for god's sake, but at least it had got shortened to Bernie. By high school, when it was clear she wasn't going to grow any bigger, everyone started calling her Birdie—tiny, energetic, ready to fly off at any minute. She liked it. It was different, but a lot easier to spell than trendy names like "Ma'Kennah" or "Kaytlinne." It was a comfortable name to wear—it just seemed to fit.
Now Birdie had reached the dance floor. She just shimmied her way in until she found a spot her size. As with the tequila, she closed her eyes. But now, she let the music take her. She swayed her body to the rhythm and rolled her hips slowly, back and forth, side to side, around in a circle, whatever the music (and the size of the crowd) moved her to do. If she swayed into other bodies, they didn't seem to care. There was no room to avoid that in any case. And being part of the seething mass of bodies was something she liked.
She liked being anonymous, but that didn't necessarily mean she liked to be alone. Sometimes, some guy would wedge himself in behind her and carefully move his body against her back. Sometimes, if the music and the mood took her, she would wiggle back against his hardening cock, and let him put his hands on her hips, moving with her. Sometimes, she would let him kiss the back of her neck.
And sometimes she would leave with him. Birdie wasn't a virgin—that had been taken care of the night of Senior Prom, with Joey Mangiotti. And a girl had her needs, after all. Listening to, and especially dancing to, the blues often was erotic. The singer growling and the guitar crying, the bass you could feel in your bones, with some bands, even a bari sax to up the sexiness level or a horn to up the excitement level.
So she would bump and grind with the guy for two or three songs, maybe exchange names, maybe not. Then he would follow her back to her seat at the bar, and usually buy her another tequila, along with his shot of preference.
Depending on how horny she was, she might stay and dance with him a few more songs. She might do it right there by her seat at the bar, because it was way too crowded for two people to make it to the dance floor. And then, she would lead him out the door.
As the bouncer had said earlier, the staff all looked after her. If he didn't like the way the guy looked, he'd casually engage him in conversation. If the guy seemed violent or crazy or just too drunk, he could usually push him off with a, "Time to move along, my friend." You didn't argue with Eugene. He had played football at the U, and now he ran a boxing gym. This was his weekend gig because, like Birdie, he loved the blues.
Then he would hug her, and walk her down two doors, to where she lived above It's Still Vinyl, the used record store where she worked. She didn't argue either. Even if she was pretty drunk and pretty horny, she trusted Eugene to do the screening for her. If it was obvious the guy was a small-town college boy, he'd give him a pass. Same with someone he already knew and trusted, or someone he knew Birdie had taken home before. But Birdie didn't take home the same guy very often.
She was an independent woman, and that was important to her. She'd grown up in a solid, middle-class, Catholic family who lived in the nice area, over by the Cathedral. She'd gone to Cathedral grade school and high school. She didn't have any gripe with her family, but with four kids still at home, she didn't have any privacy. Not that she did anything sinister which would require privacy. She just liked living on her own.
So after high school, she moved out as soon as she could find a job and a place that job would pay for. Of course, it was only natural for it to be the used record store.
There's no such thing as a "music store" anymore,
she thought,
even like there was when I was in 8
th
grade. It's all on line now.
Her boss was an old hippie, and he was kind and fair, and paid her enough to rent the apartment above his shop. He was another one who looked out for her.
Tonight, she managed to shimmy her way to the front of the crowd, right in front of the stage. She looked over the guitar player as he launched into a wailing solo.
Nice body
, she thought. Any guitar player who was any good had to have strong arms, she knew.
And talented hands,
she thought. That went without saying. His legs looked pretty good in his tight jeans, too, though she hadn't had a chance to see his ass.
He had wavy golden-blonde hair down to his collar, and a sexy, naughty smile, that he now turned on her as he finished his solo and began playing with the rest of the band again.
Sweet little thing,
he thought.
She has to be legal if they let her in the bar, right?
He looked her over, from the punk-looking hair to a pretty little face with small features. Her body looked small but pretty average, in a black tank dress that hugged her modest curves. It was short, but not too short. And then he noticed the shoes and almost missed a chord change. "Come fuck me" red with spiked heels and straps up to her ankles.
EEYYOW!
he thought.
But it was the way she moved. He'd never seen a skinny girl work her body like that. It flowed like molten metal with the music. Her movements seemed to embody the music, to take on the sad slow blues but also the rollicking, raging modern blues numbers. (She owed a lot of that to the dance classes she'd taken from 1
st
grade through high school.)
"We're gonna take a short break, but we'll be back with ya in a few," announced the singer.
The crowd now all started moving as one toward the bathrooms, for which the lines were about as crowded as the dance floor had been a few minutes ago. Ah, but Jimmi's had by far the best bathroom wall graffiti of anyplace in town.
Birdie was still a little absorbed in the music when the guitar player dropped down right in front of her. "Well, hello, pretty lady," he flirted. "You look like someone who's really into the music."
"Well, yeah," she sassed, "or why else would I come here?" She gave him a sneaky little smile.
"Listen, I need a beer. Can I buy you a drink?" he asked, innocently enough.
"Yeah, but we'd never make it back to the bar before you had to go back on," she chuckled. "Follow me—I know the shortcut."
She led him out the back door of the bar into the alley, where his bandmates were standing around enjoying a little "herbal refreshment." One offered him a joint, but he waved it off as he had to jog to keep up with Birdie.
How the fuck can a woman walk that fast in those shoes? It's a wonder they don't rule the world already.
He caught up just as she took a right into another alley. "This runs along the side of the bar," she called. "Pretty soon we'll be to the front door."
