Chez Lucien, Sunday night
Overhead fans are rotating at different speeds and a 65 year-old man, looking for friends, wanders from bar stool to stool.
He’s holding a pint of beer and telling jokes that he memorized 40 years earlier. He puts a song on the jukebox and goes over a couple sitting at the bar.
They’re both in their mid-50’s, and have likely been driven indoors by the rain that’s plaguing the jazz festival. The old man puts his hands on their shoulders–a beneficent presence– and begins to sing along to the jukebox—It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s a serenade, a gift to the lovers.
The woman wears a t-shirt the colour of jewelry, of perfume. The man drinks from a rock glass, the festival pass swinging from around his neck. They’re happy with themselves, that they were selected for a song, that they were cool and charitable enough to indulge the old man as he teetered around them. The old man slaps them on the back, releasing a smoker’s laugh, and moves on to the next person.
They both watch him as he leaves. The man puts down his rock glass and runs the back of his hand over her cheek, down the side of her neck, his fingernails lingering on the spot where skin meets shirt and her cleavage disappears into suggestion. She’s staring into him, exactly like she’s supposed to.
A younger couple, but not that much younger, come arm and arm into the bar. Dripping wet, they shoot tequila, swagger like cowboys back into the night, the sounds of jazz echoing through the parking garage across the street.
Michael Murray also blogs at: http://www.michaelmurray.ca/blog/
Tags: Chez Lucien, Michael Murray
