tricks of the moon tossing shadows across it.
Billy said, “Out here color fades when night comes. But up there on the screen, color stays sharp and clear.” He motioned for Dinah.
She gave Billy her hand. Let him lead her to the cement footing where the concession stand once stood, the smell of popcorn and hotdogs and teenage lust lingering in her memory. Billy stood with her in front of the blackened fire ring. He took a cigarette from beneath his black leather jacket. Lit it and tossed the match in among the ashes. He took a deep drag. Held it in and brought his lips to hers. Exhaled into her mouth. She sucked it in hungrily, filling her lungs with it, letting it sit there as long as she could before it seeped out through her nostrils.
Billy tossed the burning cigarette into the ashes. Stepped into the fire ring. The ashes swirled around him. They traveled up his body in a small tornado.
Then he was gone.
Dinah peered into the fire ring. Could see nothing but the still burning cigarette. She heard the motorcycle rev from far away — a growl of lust and need.
Ironic, she thought, that the thing she had been longing for, the love she thought she could never have, was centered within a crude circle of ash and blackened beer cans, cigarette butts and fire charred wood.
She stepped inside. A sharp pain shot through her leg. She shut her eyes.
Ash swirled around her, traveling up her hips, her breasts, her head. It shot up her nose, filled her mouth and ears. She felt herself sinking. The cement base had turned into something wet and pulpy. She gagged, trying to spit out the ash. A multitude of hands grabbed at her from below. The ash filled her, the spent cigarettes of a thousand outcasts, loners, the neglected and abused. Her whole body stung and she felt herself melt into unconsciousness.
But all the while, there was that part of her that remained filled with hope and longing. The memory-feel of Billy’s kiss remained on her lips, the smell of him trapped in her clogged nostrils.
When she came to, she found herself looking out over the overgrown lot of the drive-in. No.
Wait.
That wasn’t right.
Something was different. There were different trees. Sycamores instead of pine and birch. And beyond, she recognized the tufts of cotton plants instead of withered stalks of corn.
She heard the roar of a motorcycle. Her heart filled with joy when she saw him. Riding circles down below. Looking up at her and smiling.
But there was another sound. She thought it was a generator at first. A low hum barely heard over the motorcycle’s engine. It was coming from each side of her, from above and below. She tried to turn her head, but it felt as if it was encased in quicksand. She forced it to turn. Slowly. Painfully. And when she saw them, all the joy leapt from her heart as if forced out by the blast of a shotgun. There were hundreds of them. All of them women. All moaning. All mourning. A collective hum of loss, their faces painted in agony pressed against the remnants of a tattered movie screen, looking out.
Billy revved his engine. Stood up, straddling his bike. Another smile. Another wink and wave.
The groans grew louder.
Billy turned. Rode away into the night, his taillight disappearing.
It was at least an hour before the three teenagers came. She felt all the trapped faces watching apprehensively. The teenagers sat around a fire. Dropped broken up palettes onto it. Smoked cigarettes. Drank beer. Again, Dinah slowly, painfully turned to look at the others. One by one, their mouths opened in screams.
Even before opening her own mouth, Dinah knew that the teenagers below would not hear her.
Soft Notes From a Hard Guitar
John Baxter was a skinny man with hunched shoulders and a large protruding Adam’s apple. A dark purple birthmark stretched across his throat from the tip of his chin to the top of his chest. Random patches of black hair bristled from his forearms like weeds.
But goddamn could he play the guitar.
Up there on the small stage with a row of red lights making his sweat look like blood, he was a temporary god that made people stare at their beer and contemplate their fucked-up lives.
As he neared the end of a love song, the chords creeping like poisonous snakes into the hearts of the bar’s patrons, he looked up and saw her sitting on the edge of the stage. Three hundred fifty odd pounds squeezed into black leather pants and jacket, her hair dyed just as black, staring up at him. She was hard to miss. Her chin quivered with the music.
John caressed the twelve strings of his Gibson hungrily. The woman swooned. John thought she was going to flop over in a faint, but just as her body teetered forward, she forced herself back. Forward and back. Forward and back. Like a life buoy bobbing in the ocean.
He’d never seen her before. The Slaughterville Roadhouse was a place of regulars, the same farmers, bikers, mechanics, and antique-shop owners night after night. It was rare to see a fresh face. Rarer yet to see a woman watching him without staring at his birthmark. Without that look in her eyes of pity or disgust.
He dove straight into a fast, lively instrumental before the last one sunk in too far to ever get out. There was clapping and whistling. Beer bottles and shot glasses clanked on chipped pine tables in rhythm. The large woman on the edge of the stage swayed back and forth. Forward and back. Hypnotic. Her own special rhythm pulling at John, and he caught himself staring at her. Caught himself altering his tempo slightly to match hers. The large woman’s eyes slowly opened and a smile journeyed across her face.
John finished his set a few songs early. Took a sip of tequila from the bottle kept behind his amp to calm his nerves, then moved his equipment aside to make room for the next band.
The bartender handed John a twenty dollar bill, payment for the gig. “Everything okay?”
“Sure. Just got a headache is all.” John felt the woman’s eyes on his back.
The bartender nodded toward her. “You watch out for her. She looks like trouble to me.” He winked.
John grinned. Rapped his knuckles on the bar. “See you tomorrow.”
He followed her out the door, carrying his guitar with one hand, an old leather hat in the other. In the gravel parking lot, she stopped. Turned. John swallowed. Nodded toward his pick-up. She squeezed in without a word.
The life of a musician, John thought.
He’d had groupies before. Lost, wayward women who became a bright shining light for a few brief moments. But they were few and far between. And he learned long ago to grab hold of that brightness when he could.
The truck bounced on the washboard surface of the dirt road, leaving a flurry of dust and dead autumn leaves in its wake.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Chryse,” she said.
John’s eyes darted briefly to her reflection in the rearview mirror. The dashboard lights spun a green aura around her.
“You’re an angel,” John said.
Chryse smiled. “I’m no angel. I like musicians.” She put her hand on his thigh. He flinched
John slowed down. Heard a branch scrape across the shell of his truck. He wanted to ask her what pain, but knew it would come out sounding like a kid trying to lie.
Instead, he cleared his throat. Said, “My place is a mess.”
“I don’t mind. Life’s a mess.”
“You like beer?” He pulled to a stop in front of his trailer home.
