Post by John Gone on Jun 26, 2008 2:32:29 GMT -5
Near blackness. Only a vague black shape is visible, backlit against a dingy, yellow background. With a click a spotlight illuminates and shows the piano and the curtain behind it. A faint, muted hissing sound permeates across the stage. John Gone, in somber black three-piece suit and fedora, walks to the piano as the sounds of crowd murmurings rise. He sits down and opens the piano. The song is slow and contemplative, almost sad. But with an air of casualty that allows the mood to remain constant even as John begins to speak.
I, ah…I didn’t come with anything prepared. To say, that is. I like to go off the cuff, so to speak, but as I sit here, I find myself at a loss for words. Heh. Not a good thing to start off with, is it? There’s a smattering of laughter from the audience. The clinging of drinks. The barely audible sparks of matches and lighters. So…what? Go with what you know, right? He looks down. The backs of his hands are still marked from wire digging into them. He smiles. Ok. He clears his throat.
I choked the life out of a man. Not two weeks ago. He fought, desperately, violently. But I could feel him slipping the whole time. The wire digging into his neck, into my hands, the rasping gasps for air, in my head I could see his eyes bugging out, watering, red. I stopped just short. I listened to them resuscitating him, the coughing, I listened to his girl crying over him. And when I finished… He smirks. And believe me, I did finish… I had this calm, warm sensation go through me. I’d considered letting it be the end of the matter between the two of us. But… now I can’t let it end there. In that brief moment of afterglow, I knew this had to keep going.
The audience is quiet now. The piano goes on. But I’m not a violent man. He shakes his head. No. Or…at least I try. I mean, it’s usually the easiest way, and so few times are there someone really deserving of the effort. But there are times… He stares off for a moment, the song filling the silence. There was this girl…heh. Isn’t there always… He snaps out of his semi-trance and looks back out to the seats. She was a, uh…she worked the streets. Now, mind you, I wasn’t a customer. It’s not that kind of story. We struck up conversation. Eventually the topic turned to her, why she was where she was. He smiles reminiscently.
You should’ve seen her when she started in with the crying. And I hadn’t lifted a finger. She was one of those people- He laughs. People. She was the type that cried with her whole body. Just bawling. And heaving. It’s not something you see much anymore, the ones who cry so much they get sick from it, but she did. It was probably the only time she ever talked about any of it. I won’t bore you with the details of what she said. I didn’t care much myself, all of their stories are the same anyways. But once she set in crying I was in rapt attention. I wanted to… He fights with the words, digging for the right one. Squeeze her. It’s impossible to explain unless you’ve felt it, that mixture of distain and joy. To get such absolute pleasure from someone’s pain that you, for that moment, couldn’t possibly love them more. He half-smirks. I wanted to snap her neck. End it. Then. At her absolute lowest.
He smirks. But at least she worked for a living. There are those who don’t. Where I came from is full of them. These middle aged widows of dead husbands. Husbands who spent their lives making money by working and working. Hard work. Then they die, and they leave their money to their wives. He shakes his head. Their silly wives. And what do they do with the money, these...wives, these girls? There’s an unintelligible shout from the audience. Heh. Not far off. You’d see them in hotels- the best ones- every day. Drinking the money, eating the money. Losing the money in card games. Smelling of money…stinking of money. Proud of their jewelry but nothing else. Horrible… A sour note juts out into the air. Faded, fat, greedy things. He stares off into the distance, stone faced.
* * *
The song winds down. There’s a lull where there’s no piano and no crowd. John Gone walks away from the piano for a moment. He returns with a cigarette in his hands and a lighter as the audience begins to stir again. While I have a moment… Gone lights his cigarette and puts the lighter back in his pocket. He takes a long drag and sets it in an ash tray on top of the piano. His hands return to the keys. The song resumes. Right. Where was I? No call backs from the audience. Gone shrugs.
Well, I think that’s enough for now anyways. I’m not going to go on about the match or anything. There’s another shout from the audience. Hm? No, I’m not playing Free Bird. The audience laughs. But, ah… He looks down at the keys. Yeah. I think I’m done here. If there was a point to be made, I think I’ve made it well enough by now. And if there was no point, he shrugs no sense in dragging it out any further, right?
With a sigh, he shuts the piano and stands up. He walks across the stage as the song plays on, the audience buzzing. Gone walks to a record player and pulls the needle off of the turntable. The record stops spinning, the song stops playing, and the audience stops buzzing. He shuts the record player and hops down from the stage onto the floor. He crosses the floor to the back of the room to leave, the room empty save a few tables, vacant except the up-turned chairs collecting dust.
