Johnny Nightbird

No one had seen or heard from Jonathan in months. Everyone at the Daily Grind loved him, and his singing guitar. He played there almost every night for five months straight.

He was one of those people that if you looked him in the eye, you were a friend for life. He had talent, good looks, and the sweetest heart, but he was constantly looking for something. No one understood what.

You could sit and talk to him for hours. He was a charmer, and the girls would just melt over him and his voice. He could’ve taken advantage of that, but he would never take it any further than talking. He only wanted a conversation…

Most musicians would’ve jumped on the chance (literally), but he didn’t like that side of being a musician. He wasn’t the “ROCK STAR” type. He treated every one with respect, and gave anyone the time if they wanted it.

The thing about Jonathan was if you didn’t strike up a conversation with him he pretty much kept to himself. As a matter of fact, I don’t ever remember him talking to anybody without that guitar on his lap. He always played – even while he was talking.

He’d have a conversation with anybody, still no one could say that they really knew him. He was one of those ‘mysterious musicians, right? They’re always moody. They never let anyone into their brain… but there was a little more to it.

 

I run the coffeehouse. I used to talk to Jonathan a lot, especially after- hours when I closed the place up. We would gab until 2 a.m. sometimes. I probably knew him better than anyone.

I remember when he first came here… Tall guy, long, dark hair, guitar strapped to his back. He reached out to shake my hand and I remember the sound of his voice was very distinctive. He had a slow smile, kind of from the side of his mouth, but not quite an Elvis thing.

He claimed that his real name was Jonathan Nightbird– half-Indian he said.

“My mother was Cherokee, she said her grandfather was a Shaman. An old medicine man, a spiritual leader. She used to say the name was fitting for me though, because I’m usually up all hours of the night, talking, writing songs… She’d also say I had some of the old man in me.”

“That’s beautiful.” I said, “We’ll see how you can handle this bunch.”

He asked if he could play a couple nights a week. I asked why he should get two, and he didn’t say a word. He just sat down and played the most beautiful guitar I ever heard. And his voice… incredible… I gave him THREE nights, and soon he was playing five.

 

People that were regulars here listened to him, and loved him. The regulars started telling their friends about him, and they were telling their friends, and their friends… soon the place was packed almost every night. He made me some money, but the money wasn’t the only thing, I just loved having him around.

He would talk to the audience in-between songs. It was an intimate setting, that’s what he liked. He loved being close to everyone physically, but mentally you really had to dig…

He would talk about his favorite music, his favorite books, the state of the world, but if you asked him something too personal he’d kind of shy away and change the subject.

After about a month it became a ritual that after I closed for the night we would sit down with a cup of coffee (or five) and have our 2 a.m. talks…

One night we had a particularly interesting conversation. He always had sort of a far away stare, and I remember asking him exactly what he was searching for. He mentioned something about the Eternal Note. I asked him what he meant…

“Listen Chris,” he replied, “ you can turn every feeling, every fear, everyday into something beautiful… Music makes me feel like I’m in love, and it never goes away. It gives me something to wrap my arms around twenty- four seven.

“Why don’t you find a girlfriend?” I asked him.

“I love women,” he said, “but I’ve had such bad luck. They don’t seem to understand, they get jealous of my music. It just means so much to me. I know it sounds strange… my music is my first love, and it’s always been there for me. It’s different, it’s more than physical, more than emotional… it’s almost spiritual. It can be light, dark, and multi-faceted, it can be anything and everything you want it to be. Love is my favorite thing in the world. I play music to obtain love.”

“So if you ever loved a woman, she would have to be like your music.”

“Exactly, maybe I’ll find a woman like Grandma one day… Now SHE was a woman of music.” he said, “I loved her. She was a woman of the earth, with long, dark hair, blue eyes that spoke to you when she didn’t. She had a beautiful voice…” He just left it like that, changing the subject like he always did.

He stuck around for a few more weeks…

After that night he would barely talk to me. He would just say hello, and then leave with everyone else at the end of the night. When he played he looked right at me, singing his songs like I now knew something everyone else didn’t.

One night, after his set, he walked up to me and said, “Thanks for listening, and understanding when no one else would.”

I welcomed him, and told him I was glad to talk to him. Before he left that night he didn’t even say goodbye. As he went out the door he just gave me a wink, and he disappeared. No one’s seen him since…

Well, that’s a lie… I have, but I never told anyone about it. What they don’t know is Johnny had one last performance… for an audience of one.

 

One night about a month ago, I locked the place up, and was walking out to my car, and I saw Jonathan outside, sitting on the hood of his car, playing guitar with his eyes closed. I was going to ask why he hadn’t been around, but he looked so engulfed in what he was playing. I thought maybe he was writing a new song or something… maybe… it was kind of strange, but not as strange as what I saw next.

It’s true that Jonathan always had a certain aura about him, but as I watched his fingers dancing like bell-toed gypsies I realized there was a light emanating from the middle of the guitar. It seemed to be circling around him, and moving with the rhythm of the music. It was taking on a life of it’s own.

As the music got louder, the glow got bright as day, it flooded the parking lot, and felt as if it would fill the sky and it started to change shape. Soon it shrunk and twisted, and it resembled the form of a woman…

She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Her hair was raven-like, her eyes a radiant blue, her extravagance was supernatural… angel-like. She must have been straight out of Johnny’s dream.

As he played, she began to dance herself along with the lights and the music, twirling and twisting and glowing. Then she opened her mouth, and began to sing… amazingly… even more amazing than Johnny.

The music took over and filled the parking lot and probably the whole town. I’m surprised that no one heard the ruckus. It was the greatest sound I ever heard in my lifetime, so large that Johnny stopped playing and didn’t falter one beat.

He started to dance with the Muse, both singing together, a heavenly duet, and then everything got blurry. Street-lights began to flicker and dim, and the glow got so bright that I could no longer see… they kept dancing away, and finally they just disappeared with the echo of a song ringing through the night…

 

Needless to say, I never told anyone about that. They’d think I was crazy! I swear to God I saw it with my own two eyes though. I kept it a secret this whole time. It’s been so hard not to say anything about it. I want to shout out to everyone that Johnny’s o.k. That I understood what he was talking about, and he found what he mysteriously searched for so passionately.

I mean, some people think he moved, or died, or just got tired of playing at the coffeehouse. They talk about him still, and say they wonder if he ever ‘made it’. I believe he did.

I’ve had other people play here, and they were good, some of them played the same style, and some of them even sounded like him, but of course, not the same.

You can tell he’s missed… I know I miss him, and other musicians talk about him like he was a star. They don’t know how he really was, he’s become almost like a legend. He’s still misunderstood after all this time. To most of the world he’s still an unknown…

But I knew him, and I know that he’s finally happy now wherever he is. I DID understand what he was talking about, and he finally did it… He found what he was searching for… the woman of music, his Muse… the only one he could ever really love.

Author's Note

This is one in a collection of short stories I'm working on.

Reviews

[Drea]

Well after all the down time with the cafe and my down time with a seven year old computer; it had a permanent technical coma and has since been replaced. I have had the pleasure of revisiting Johnny; about time!

So glad you got the kinks shaken out of the ending Christopher. What a great story!

I still say I'd like to hear more about Johnny and any other places he may have visited in his travels or any other characters that the Daily Grind may attract. Perhaps IT has a certain other wordly magnetism to it?

[Drea]

That was a fantastic story! Great detail and you kept me interested in the characters. I love that you write about the metaphysical; coming from a long bloodline infused with Irish tinkers and a bit of Cree.
One thing that threw me was the ending to this piece. It reads as though you meant to end it with the paragraph spoken by the owner of the Daily Grind confessing he never told anyone about what he saw the last night when Johnny found his muse; but then it goes on into references of Johnny on the hood of his car playing guitar and people coming to see him play as if in a flashback. Was this an editing goof or intentional?
Otherwise a fantastic piece that gets me interested in Johnny and gives you a jump point for more tales of him or other characters at the Daily Grind.