A man has only one love in his life
She sticks beside him through all joys and strifes
All his days he can be sure that he belongs to her
“You can’t dream of strangers, you know.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Any soul you meet in dreams has to be made of faces you’ve seen somewhere once upon a time.”
We sat beside each other at the stuffy, weary bar. I, a young journalist tasked with a profile and he, an octogenarian lounge singer whose prime had long ago passed him by. The day was slowly waning and the gray-haired bartender milled about across from us, busying herself with the task of caring for patrons who would never appear, the low lounge lights dimly illuminating the dusty bottles behind her.
We both had exchanged pleasantries as we’d taken our places but fell silent when we received our drinks. It was my job to make a connection…to find some common ground with this old, irrelevant entertainer who had lacked a crowd to entertain for many, many seasons now.
He brushed a wisp of dust from the sleeve of his pinstriped suit and lifted his glass of dark brown poison to his lips. His worn features hung beneath a black fedora surely older than I.
“Is there a particular someone you dreamed about last night?” I asked.
He stared straight ahead.
“No. I simply find it curious. The infinite power of the human imagination…and yet we can’t dream of something we’ve never seen.”
He returned his glass to the bar and turned his eyes to meet mine.
“Why do you want to tell my story?” he asked. “No one wants to hear from an old crooner anymore.”
“You’re emblematic of a lost art from a forgotten age. I think that’s fascinating.”
“Don’t start this off by bullshitting me, kid.”
I looked down at my drink. “I go where the magazine tells me.”
“Don’t we all.”
He spoke in a deep, graveled growl, his voice weighed down by an age of his art, and in his words you could hear the cadence of music, as if after so many years song was simply a more natural state than speech.
The soul should always stand ajar
So when she enters, she knows who you are
All your days you can be sure that you belong to her
The club was plain, to say the least. In its heyday it probably bustled with men in crisp tailored suits and dames in glamorous dresses, while smoke and stories swirled between its walls and around its tables and filled the room to its rafters. Now a dingy joint off a forgotten road, it was inhabited by ghosts of a forsaken era.
“Why do you still sing?”
“It’s the only thing I know.”
“But you’re certainly not performing for crowds anymore. Do you do it because you still have a great love for music, or are you just afraid of losing the thing you’ve held on to for so long?”
He cracked a sly smile at my confrontational tone, barely more than a twitch. He hid it well, but he betrayed a spark of life that lingered beneath his stoic visage.
“Ain’t no difference in the two. The things we’ve lost stick with us like the things we’ve loved.”
“What is it that you’ve lost?”
“A great many things in my time. They slowly weather us down like the wind does the rocks. A man’s great losses make him what he is.”
“And what’s the one that’s made you?”
He turned back to his drink but simply swirled the liquid and stared into it. “Sylvia.”
“Who is she?”
“She was.”
There ain’t no God in heaven, no hell below, I know
There’s just a man’s one love to hold him as he goes
All his days he can be sure that he belongs to her
“So you truly believe that there’s only one woman out there for every man, like you sing in your songs? I tend to err on the side of skepticism when it comes to this shit.” He cocked his head slightly and tapped his glass. “I mean…when it comes to the hyperboles in most forms of art,” I corrected. “But my question still stands. Do you really believe this stuff you sing?”
“I might not always believe my songs anymore…but I believe in them. Everyone leaves you, one way or another. Adoration’s just a construct, and the things a man builds are destined to be destroyed.”
“How can you feel that way? As men, our every instinct is to create something that will outlast us…make us feel as though our time on this planet was worth more than just its years. It’s why we start businesses, have families, build monuments.”
“Destruction is just a form of creation.”
“That’s an awfully cynical view, don’t you think?
“Well I’ve got a scar for every song.”
The bartender brought another round, and he flashed her a grin. “Thanks, sweetheart.” He turned back to me. “Rhetta here is the only one who ain’t ever left. She and I share one soul.” He paused a moment and chewed on the inside of his cheek, as if collecting his words. “It’s my last ride, you know.”
“You’re not…going to do something to yourself…are you?”
At this, he let out a great laugh – a single, short burst that seemed to rattle his ancient windpipes. It was the first time he had reacted without control, and it comforted me to see his humanity emerge so spontaneously. “You don’t make it as long as I have without being in tune with these things. Sometimes you know.”
“How can you be so sure of something like your own mortality?”
“We’re all just notes in the margin of some much denser work. You know when yours is written.”
“But aren’t you afraid?”
“Bah. Dying is easy…it’s living ’s so goddamn hard. All our days, we obsess about what to eat, what to wear, who to fuck. But through all our choices, our loves, our pains…we earn the right to die.” He took a deep drink that polished off his glass and left the ice cubes to slowly melt away. “We’re all born murderers. It’s just ourselves we’re meant to kill.”
We share our chemistry with the stars, so I’ve heard
Like the planets in orbit, he can’t be torn from her
All his days he can be sure that he belongs to her
“Well it’s about my time,” he said as he slowly rose from his chair and eyed the lonely stage. “It’s been fun…I hope you got what you were looking for outta me.”
“I did. It’s been a genuine honor speaking with you.”
“I hope you enjoy the show.”
“Wait. Before you go up there…” He looked at me over his shoulder, but didn’t turn toward me entirely. “…I want you to know that I believe in your song. The world hasn’t forgotten you yet, and it won’t,” I said with a tap on my notebook.
“Never lose your words, kid,” he said with a little laugh. “Rhetta, I think it’s about time we settle my tab.”
She smiled knowingly. “We’ll take care of it tomorrow, Jerry.”
He smiled back and shook his head and smoothed his faded suit. He walked onto the stage, looked out over a crowd that at its most generous could be described as “sparse,” and his eyes lit up brighter than the solitary stage light that hung above. The band began its count, and the Crooner began his song.
When a man at long last is erased
In my love’s sweet chords, I find one last embrace
And all my days I was sure that I belonged to her
Becoming Writer 2016 Anniversary Contest 