The Brooklyn Bluegrass Kid. Face not ready enough to shave. Eyes small, larger like fish in his glasses. Jumping out. Violin under the chin bow under the nose everything is moving everything is moving. Yee haw.

I have come in search of the Sunday night jazz. I have found something else.


There is an honesty that hits the faces of those performing. Of those truly performing, creating. I had never noticed it before. Their skin becomes loose, their eyes fire wildly, freely bending the light, the people, they smile, they are there, they are there. I look around the bar, the tables, faces making conversation, chewing truths. These faces are hard, static. They do not open, they watch. If we are lucky, they will stretch spandex-like by the end of the evening. Great show man, great show.

In the corner of the bar where the piano is parked, there is none of that. There are more like him. The other three: a minuscule woman, black jeans and a banjo. The banjo covers most of her torso. She has no make up. Her hair is grey. She floats her eyebrows as the melody picks up.. moving, moving.. another woman, a full southern body in a Texan hat. A maternal version of Janice. She sings. The microphone, there is none. She sings. There is a bassist. He has grey hair too. It is long, he waves it around, he sticks out his lips, he sings wolf-like from the gut. Somehow, he reminds me of our president. I laugh. Simplicity.

I watch their faces move. They are naive and clear. GET A MIKE someone yells from the back but nobody notices. My eyes come back to the kid. He's making the show, making the evening. He takes off on a solo and his lips curl, the two of them jump to the corner of his mouth, his eyes sway without effort, he is not trying but he is doing. so. much.

I tell myself to stay just for a song. The drink is already here, bluegrass is not my thing. I stay for the set. They take a break and I stay for the second one. I can't get enough.

In the second set the waitress puts up a microphone. Their voices are clearer now. They wash everything down. I watch their faces, I cannot take my eyes off them. Child-like, they smile, they create. They create, they move air, they vibrate it, they hug it they twirl it. I watch them and find myself smiling. Smiling and wondering: when the music stops, will these faces fade, will the world re-apply its make-up over them? Will they walk out of here returning to their cell phones, appointments, slapping smiles and post-its, shaking hands they do not want to shake? I do not know. I shudder at the thought. I step out for a cigarette.


Outside, I draw my shoulders together to light. The air turned cold lately out of nowhere. In this crazy climate it could snap to snow in a minute. I stand with my back to the glass. I still feel the music here.

Outside, the music and the wine in me, I look at the university buildings, the skyscrapers. They are everywhere. Proportional, rational and rectangular canisters of waiting. Everybody is waiting. For the year to end, for the vacation, the job, the promotion the degree the blowjob the movie to come out, the snow to come, the rain to end. I see this. I know this. I was there. Suddenly I smile. I say it again. I was there. I was there. It feels good to say it. To do a little more and wait a little less. I was there. I muse about the infinity of past tense. A tense within a tense within a tense. I juggle the cold from shoulder to shoulder. After one and a half cigarettes I go back in.

When I return the base-wolf is unwiring his equipment. The show is over. I stand for a moment and then make my way back to my chair. I slide in.  

By the bar, the Bluegrass Kid is making the tables. Shaking a hand, smiling coyly. He still has his violin and plucks away at it. I think of BB King, on a stage, telling that either he speaks or Lucille speaks, they never speak together. The kid utters a word and plucks. Utters a word and plucks. And when he reaches my table, in a self-noted surprise of the century, I speak to him. And I ask him. About his story.

And to my surprise - he tells me.