Jennifer S.Tem
Enter Decatur Street, downtown, ancient New Orleans. Time has not changed the area much. See the cracked street before you, torn and worn with 300 years of wear. It’s late. Dawn is still a few hours away. But the street is not quiet. In a corner a man sleeps, his face curled in his arm, turned away so you cannot see. His dog, a shepherd, watches you with soft eyes as you pass. You make eye contact with him and he seems more human to you than anyone you have met tonight. There is sorrow in his eyes that disturbs you behind the numbness you feel. You’ve been drinking for hours, and the street is a mellow haze. Strangers pass you, their footsteps hard against the ground. Stumbling along, “there” but not, you almost pass it up. A dingy yellow sign hides it in plain sight. Before you knew it existed, you walked pass it many times. Someone had to bring you there to make you aware. There is no door, only dirty plastic strips that hang down in your face. You push them out of the way and make your way inside. It is always the same. Behind the bar is the most beautiful boy you have ever seen. His golden hair and light eyes smile into yours as you enter. “Hey!” he calls out, welcoming you into the indoor night. Now take a seat at the bar. It’s long and you sit next to a man in a black shirt and beard. He turns to you with interest. “Come down in time” he reads off your back. You nod. You are still waiting to meet the person who knows that phrase and with it, you. It won’t be him.
You turn around in your seat to make sure everything is the same. The Beatles poster hangs upside down and once again you wish it were in the back so you could put it in your purse and take it home. You love it, and you don’t love most things. In your bag you still have the book you found that a leprechaun-man gave you that night your best friend turned 21. The whole series once graced the shelves of the bar but over time you and your friends, and random strangers, have picked their favorite pieces. You chose The Thrall of Hypno. Number 20. Running your fingers over the remaining books makes you feel lonely. Number 11 is leaning next to Number 56, its cover bending away from 56 as if it knows it’s not in the right place. You want to move it but there is no other place for you---it---to go.
Making your way toward the jukebox changes your mood. Turning the page of the cds brings your friends closer to you. Elton John. Push. Queen. Push. Mika. Push. Three 1.75 dollar Paps Blue Ribbons later you hear Grace Kelly and feel at home. Once upon a time you would write here, with your best friend, both of you with laptops open on the tall tables next to the red leather sofa, writing about the people around you, most of them wearing black and beards and boots. Giggling at each other over one too many beers. But that was a time before you betrayed her for a boy you didn’t even love. Now you are here alone with the bearded men and the dark bathrooms that don’t lock. If you really hit bottom there is coke available there if you let a fat man kiss your breasts. But you aren’t there tonight. Tonight you are on a dark wooden stool with a cheap beer and a man behind a bar that lets you believe, for a small price, that you could be his. He’s selling the dream in sleeveless shirts and you are buying it from him in tips larger than you can afford. It’s a balance that only works if you let yourself lie at a timeless bar with a jukebox you can control. This is what’s for sale; control.
Control. This makes you remember the night you watched a boy rejected by girl after girl through quiet dark eyes. Then, when it was over, you took his hand and led him to the jukebox where you paid for him to play whatever he liked. He chose every Michael Jackson song available. And together you danced and discovered his talents, while the same girls looked on, jealous, wondering how you could be so free. You weren’t about to tell them the simple answer; that all it takes is a heart that says yes instead of no. For a while he had the control you bought with your money and love. For a while he was invincible.
But back in this hour the sun shines through the plastic, barely penetrating the darkness inside. Inside it is eternally 3 am. By now you’ve sworn your love over sticky bar counters to whatever bearded person was “kind” enough to buy your drinks. By now you’ve danced to every song you spent your last dollars on while jocks and freaks alike have moved stools out your way and twirled you around their fingers. “I want to see you kiss” they say. You laugh and turn away. Not tonight. Tonight is for counting the fake spiders hanging from the ceiling and tonight is for the shadowed benches in the back to stay empty of entwined bodies with no names. Tonight you know your name.
