Dark End of the Street

A girl wanders into a bar.

We rarely got strangers in The Lounge. It was a hard to find the place. You only seemed to know where it was if you needed it, and rarely did anyone fall to such a low that they happened upon the dingy building that was tucked away on the dark end of a nameless grimy street. I was always early to arrive, compared to the other regulars, so I was in time to see the stranger when she strolled through door. She was a young thing; she couldn’t have been very far into her twenties. It was weird to see one as young as her in that place. It had apparently found her and drawn her in, our recorded music wailing into the night while we awaited the true music that would feel the tiny building later.

            The girl’s clothes were rumpled and wrinkled as if she had slept in them for at least a week or more. Her sunken eyes stared into the dark atmosphere of The Lounge, squinting through the permanent cloud of cigarette smoke. She probably saw me watching her from the bar while I puffed away on one of my last few cigarettes. Hell, there were even a few others staring at the child. She was a rare sight. Her stupor seemed to break and she started forward from her spot in the doorway. She swiveled her head left and right to get her bearings before she made her way to the bar. She twitched her dead blue eyes in my direction as she settled the seat of her worn blue jeans upon and equally worn bar stool. I averted mine, and tared off at the small stage along the back wall, wondering when the light would come into this place. It was hard to tell without any clocks around.

            “Why were you staring at me?” the new girl asked. Even her voice had lost its luster. Perhaps she really did need this place. It was sad, in a way. A way that makes a guy want to tear his f*****g eyes out.

            I was tempted to ignore her. She had nothing to do with me. Not a damn thing. Yet, part of me still felt obliged to respond in some sort of way, so I took another puff on my cigarette and expelled the smoke in her direction as I spoke. “It’s strange.”

            “What do you mean?” There was indignation in her response. She really didn’t have a clue, did she?

            I felt myself chuckle and the corners of my lip stretched a bit into a smirk around my dying cigarette. “You came in here. It’s strange.”

            I think she frowned at me. It was hard to tell what with the way she had her face hidden behind the long, dry hair. For a moment I found myself seeing the contrast between this girl and the one other female that graced The Lounge. Funny. Just hilarious.

            “I have nowhere else to be. This is as good as any,” she answered at long last. Her voice carried a slight edge to it, a defensive tone that I was surprised could still exist. Seemed like one as flat and rumpled as her wouldn’t be able to manage anything other than a toneless drone.

            “Well, little lady, it’s the same for us all,” I retorted. I figured that the conversation was done at this point and turned back the drink I had been nursing for a bit at the bar in between cigarettes.  “Only this, is the best place,” I added on whim. Damn my need to tack on useless comments.

            I felt her eyes scrutinizing me, and could see the bartender keeping an eye on us both as well. It irritated me more than just a little to be considered a pervert in this situation. Robbing the cradle was never my thing and never would be. I only had eyes for one woman this night, and all nights, and she hadn’t come out to shine just yet. Any longer and I’d be forced to have a real conversation with the new kid.

            “Why is it the best?”

            Goddamn it. I knew that was coming. I should’ve just kept my trap shut. I downed the rest of my whiskey and swiveled on the old bar stool to face her again. It made an unpleasant, crunching sound, cloth rubbing against leather. “The music.”

            She looked up and wrinkled her nose. “What music? This s**t y‘all‘ve got playing?”

            I glared at her. Yet, instead of growling at her like I wanted to, I dug in my pocket for another cigarette and my friendly lighter. I wiggled my glass at the bartender with the other hand. Keep that liquor flowing, buddy.

            “I asked you, what music? You can‘t mean this,” she said again with a gesture to the air at the recorded stuff we had going...country something.  Boy was she impatient.

            I snickered at her. “Kid, why did you come in here?” A subject change was needed. I couldn’t answer the question about the music. She’d get her answer once the recorded s**t was cut off and the real music filled the air. Then she’d be as stuck to that place as the rest of us were.

            She didn’t seem to like the newest subject matter all that much. She turned to stare at the back of the bar at all the alcohol longingly rather than stare at my old face.      “That’s none of your business,” she huffed at long last.

            “Fine.”

            I didn’t really care. She had her reasons, and I had mine. There was no point in pushing a point she was all uppity about. Still, looking at her I had to wonder just how old she really was. It was so very sad for someone like her to have ended up in a place like The Lounge. We were quiet for awhile until she spoke up again. I didn’t have a clue as to why she kept talking to me and me alone. There were other locale in there; the place was filling up as it was probably getting around time for our bird to be let out of her cage for her show, so it wasn't as if I was the only guy in the joint.

            “What’s your name?” she asked.

            I grunted and sipped my newly refilled drink. The liquor burned as it went down, a satisfying sensation. At least, as satisfying as anything was anymore. The liquor, the smoke, and The Lounge. My world, our world. All that we needed was our singer and the night would be complete, even with the addition of this new child.

            I could see her looking around again after my refusal to give out my name, trying to make out the other hunched shapes in the dim lighting. Maybe searching out someone else to go bother that might be up to answering her questions for nothing in return. Yet, to no avail she stayed perched on the stool right next to me. I would be so damn lucky.

            “They all look like they’re waiting,” she commented, giving up on getting my name. I hoped.

            “Not much else to do.” I took another drag on my cigarette. Stating the obvious wasn’t my cup of tea normally, but there you had it.

            “Why?”

            “It’s the music. They’re waitin’ for the music. I told ya’ before ,” I sighed, smoke billowing out from my mouth.
            “The music again…but there’s music playing.”

            I had to laugh. “Then it ain’t the right kind. You’ll see, kid.”

            “I’m not a kid,” she snapped.

            I laughed at her. “You’re still a kid to me an‘ most of the people here…kid.” I wanted to ask her again why she was here, and perhaps tell her to go home. Maybe if she left then, she wouldn’t get tied down. The music wouldn’t be able become a drug to her, an intoxicating thing that would sink it’s claws into her very soul if she stayed. She'd be free again if she left.

            But…for some reason, I remained silent on the issue.

            The dim lights and recorded s**t-music snapped off, and I felt the shudder that ran through the crowd. It was time. I slid off my barstool like clockwork and could hear the girl following me. Why was she so goddamn attached to me?

            It didn’t take long to bump through the crowd in the dark, to muscle my way up to the front. It was my normal spot and anyone that dared raise a complaint got smacked hard enough to shut them up. There were a few newcomers in that evening, people that had been once or twice. That had to be it. The rest of the group, those that had been coming to The Lounge as long as I have, knew better than to deny me my rightful spot. I had a reputation in the place.

            ‘Course the girl stuck close and fed off my rep to get a front row seat. So be it. If she wasn’t going to leave, then fine. Not that it was important anymore. Our singer, our goddess, and our captor was about to take the stage.

            “Is this what you meant?” the girl asked in a whisper.

            I didn’t answer her. If she couldn’t guess by now, then it wasn’t worth it.

            “Hey!” she insisted, elbowing me.

            “Just shut up and watch and listen, goddamn it,” I snarled back.

            What noise there was dissipated the moment she finally took the small stage. She could work that stage like it was in one of the big, fancy theaters. The cramped stage along that back wall was perfect. Perfect for us, yet not good enough for her. The spotlight snapped on and she was bathed in glorious light.

            That single spotlight was all the place had, but it was enough. Every night was a different dress, but they all sparkled under the golden glow. She glittered with a diamond quality. The accompanying band hidden somewhere off to the dark sides of the stage was just a backdrop to this gleaming goddess of days gone by. Her creamy skin glowed in the night, and her dark eyes reeled in the crowd crowd in that short, endless moment before those crimson lips parted to let her voice burst forth.

            When that voice filled the room, soft and sultry, perfection embodied as sound waves through the air, the world felt at ease, if but for a moment. That’s why she drew the crowd, the same crowd, night after night. We all had reasons to despair, but she could make it all go away, even if it was but for an hour or two in the dark of night.

            Her croons shattered the outside world, and there was nothing but the glittering goddess upon the stage. Her body curved gracefully under the long, shimmering silver dress she wore, weaving in time with her words�"music and body were one and the same.  I was caught. We were all caught. Woven deeper into the cracks of The Lounge by the temptress on the stage. We were tied down more to that horrible place, and we loved every minute of it as we had for many, many years.

            “You shouldn’t be here,” she crooned. She flowed to the front of the stage, so close to me, and even closer to the stranger. She was still humming into the microphone, a new song, something different.

            I felt my old heart hammer in my chest. I could smell her perfume now that she was closer than before. For a moment one of those dark eyes shifted over to me, or so I’d like to think, and she winked as she sank into a graceful crouch there on the stage. Right. There.

            It didn’t matter that her attention had shifted away from me.

            In the course of the song the songbird crooned again, “You don’t belong here, child…”

            The reverie upon me shattered. I couldn’t help but look at the two of them then. The warden of this jail, glittering and vibrant, and the girl with the dead eyes and dry everything. Such a sin for those dead eyes to be so focused upon those that glittered on the stage.

            They stared at each other for what seemed like a painful eternity to the rest of us that yearned for such attention from the goddess, our captor.

            “Go home, child…”

            It was haunting the way she sang those words for the new girl, who didn’t move from her rigid position. I think I saw her lips form the words “I can’t.” It was almost impossible to tell in the dark, but that had to be it. The whole situation screamed of deja vu. I think I might have been in the same situation, once.

            “It’s sad…” the singer crooned in answer. The “conversation” blended perfectly into the music. It was part of the spell she cast over us all.

            Yet, still the difference was still there. I dared to look into the goddess’s eyes. There was sadness in those pools of dark perfection. I wondered if it had always been there. Had she always looked so sad behind the perfect face and hair?  Was it worse now that there was a new person added to her audience?

            The music grabbed hold of me again and wiped my thoughts back into oblivion. There was no hope anymore for the new girl anyway. She was stuck, rooted, unable to leave as the singer had told her to. The act went on and we all stared and listened….and were consumed….

            Until we knew nothing else.

            That’s how it always was in The Lounge.

 

            We rarely got strangers in The Lounge. It was a hard to find the place. You only seemed to know where it was if you needed it, and rarely did anyone fall to such a low that they happened upon the dingy building that was tucked away on the dark end of a nameless street. I was always early to arrive, compared to the other regulars, so I was in time to see the new girl walk in again. The night was the same. It always was the same. Only this time, we knew each other and she was no longer a stranger. She was just new, not strange.

            Her hair was the same, her clothes the same. She was a rumpled person, a tattered example of what she might once have been. I was perched upon the same bar stool and she joined me again on the stool next to mine, the stool that was now hers. I noticed that her eyes had changed. There was a slight spark in their dead depths. We all carried that false light. 

            I lit one of my last few cigarettes. I was stuck in an eternity with so few of them left. It got annoying each night.

            “It’s the same,” she said with no further introduction.

            “Every time it’s a little different. You notice small things. Or big things,” I replied immediately. I sucked down my whiskey. “This conversation is different. You’re different. Even if the change stops here, it is still change.”

            She hung her head and rested her elbows upon the bar. “Yes…but the music. I need it. I need her. Her voice…”

            I smiled. There was bitterness in my mind, bitterness in my voice as I went on. Bitterness that had long since consumed me body and soul. “We all do. It’s the same. The same.”

            “She tried to get me to leave.”

            “But you were already stuck.”

            “I don’t even know how I got here…”

            “Most of us don’t know that. Hell, it’s been…sixty years for me, I think. Maybe more since that songbird bound me to this place,” I sighed. I puffed on the cigarette and exhaled the smoke. “And it’ll be longer, for you as well.”

            “I suppose so…”

            “Understand now?” I asked. I hoped she got the clue. I didn’t want to come out and say it. It would sound stupid if I did.

            From the corner of my eye I saw her nod slowly. She was down about it, but acceptance would come later.

            Other than that, there was nothing to do until the goddess’s music filled the night again and we could forget about our pitiful afterlife.

           

           

Author's Note

This is a story that is constantly undergoing maintenance. The most recent version posted here is from March of 2009. I am always looking for constructive tips. I especially want to know how, well, "obvious" it is.