“Give it up for Rosa, people. Great stuff. Thank you.” He checks his clipboard. “Okay, next we have Polly. Get ready for something edgy, folks.”
Polly jumps up on the stage then pulls a medium-size amp up, then an electric guitar. Craig asks if she needs help, and she hands him the plug for the amp. He jumps off the stage, grabs an idle extension cord, plugs the amp in, and gives her the thumbs-up. She thanks him with a nearly imperceptible nod. She stands and pushes Rosa’s stool aside. She’s tall, perhaps even taller than Craig. She readjusts the high mike stand and lowers the short one to the level of her amp. She looks fully ready to rock — an all-black Fender Stratocaster, Marshall amp, an indigo tank top one size too small and indigo leather pants, the pattern on which, I realize as she stands up there knock-kneed, form the stars and bars of the Confederate flag. She hits a chord, loud and distorted, shakes the silver bangles on her wrists out of the way, down her forearms, and hits two chords this time. Someone lets out a whoop, then there’s a whistle, finally a rebel yell, which is echoed by another.
“How y’all doin’ out there?” She has bright red hair that even I in these conditions can tell is dyed. It’s cut short and frozen stiff by some beauty aid. Her eyes are heavily penciled — black. She stomps a motorcycle boot on the hollow plywood platform, rips off a loud lick, another chord. “How ’bout some Jimi?” The audience responds with an affirmative roar. She counts off to herself—“. . two and. .” Ascending notes — bom bom bomp — bom bom bomp. She sings, “Manic Depression.” Her voice is thin, but she tries to pretend that she can bark and snarl. I squeeze into the little space between the big window and the turn of the bar. Craig hasn’t returned to his post. He’s up front, sitting at the first table with Rosa. She watches Polly while he watches her, checking to see if she likes it or not — so that he can wear the appropriate face. Ed talks to Peter across the next table. I can’t see either face, but Ed’s head occasionally jumps forward. Peter nods and turns every so often to Polly, who’s now into an extended, bombastic solo. The bartender taps next to my hand. I come up out of watching.
“Need anything, brother?”
“I’m good, thanks.” He winks at me, takes his drink from beneath the bar, and kills it. I grab a napkin and dab at it with my pen in hopes of coming up with a song list. “Everybody Is a Star”—I cross it out.
Polly breaks into “What a Wonderful World.” Playing it hard like the Ramones did, but she spit-snarls the lyrics, force-feeding us the irony of her performance. Perhaps she’s only heard the punked-out version and never consulted Satchmo. I go back to my doodling on the napkin. Nothing comes of it save for the growing apprehension that I’m about to make a complete ass of myself — standing up there without a damn thing to play.
Polly hits a last chord, yanks her guitar off, and, holding it by the neck, jams it into the amp. The sound feeds back, turning from rough and low to a high wail that makes people reach for their ears. She shakes the guitar, trying to coax more wailing, but the sound fades. Craig jumps up to keep her from continuing. He unplugs the amp and lowers it onto the floor for her. She shoulders her guitar and stands grinning at the crowd — triumphant. I don’t, however, remember hearing any applause.
“You’re up, brother,” says Mountain Man.
“Thank you.”
I begin to make my way to the front. Craig looks for then finds me in the crowd. He waves to me, causing people to look back. The nerves come — like I’ve swallowed several whole spastic moths washed down by too many cups of coffee. My guts are an ugly place, and I don’t want to know what goes on in them. I feel myself disassociate, lose focus on my insides and then what exists out in the bar. I blur the faces until I find myself at the bandstand trying to figure out how not to trip.
Polly steps off the stage and gives me a pinched grin as we pass. I catch a whiff of her hair products and dense French cigarettes — maybe some BO. “Hey, darlings!” I hear them move the furniture to make way for her.
“You need anything, man?” asks Craig, pushing the stool at me.
I go to say, “Yes, the stool,” but all I manage to do is point weakly at it. He sets it up in front of the mikes, takes another look at me, and readjusts their positions. I keep my back to the crowd, set my case down, and open it. I expect my guitar to be grounding, but it isn’t. It looks plastic, beat, incapable of resonance. I pick it up, and it feels that way, too.
I strum a chord. It’s out of tune.
“Here, dude.” Craig hands me a small device that I don’t recognize. “Clip it on to your headstock.” I do. It’s a tuner. “It’s for tuning up in noisy places.” I tune up, strum a chord to check it. It sounds tinny, but in tune.
“Thank you.”
He beams at me like he’s never heard the expression.
“Cool. Ready?”
I nod. He straightens up to the mike. “Folks, we got some new blood here tonight. Please give a warm welcome to um — let’s see. Teddy Ball-en-game.” He bends to me, whispers, “I fucked up your name, huh?”
“Close enough.”
“Give ’em hell, dude.” He bounds off the stage, letting out another rebel yell as he does. A few in the crowd reply.
I hang my harmonica around my neck, stand up, and turn around. I don’t have a strap. My legs start trembling, then my arms do, too. I remember the stool and try to drag it forward without dropping my guitar. I sit and the trembling stops, but the microphones are too low. Craig bounds back up, resets them. The crowd’s quiet now, watching. Someone snuck a capo onto my guitar, fifth fret. I blur my eyes again to avoid seeing their faces — to make them one big whole. Craig leans out of the mass and nods for me to begin.
I start, a cappella, the words like a grace note—“Lord I’m. .”—B-flat—“. . broke, I’m hungry, ragged and dirty too.” Slide up the neck for a fill — slide down. Repeat. Then, “If I clean up sweet mama can I stay all night with you?” Fill. I look up the neck at the headstock while I play, but I don’t really see anything — not the strings or my fingers, not the frets, where my hands go on the fills and changes. Even though they’re a blur, I don’t look at the audience. “You shouldn’t mistreat me baby, because I’m young and wild.”
When it’s over they clap — loudly — there are even scattered whistles. No bar noise. Perhaps it’s because I’m down here in the mix that it seems so much louder. Perhaps they actually like me. I still won’t look at them. I go right into the second song—“If You Want Me to Stay. .” I drag it down, take whatever rhythm there was out, and drag it through the blues — my specific funk.
“Seawrack” and “seatangle.” These are the blues: coinage upon contact with the air. Traces of hope and joy from the fusion flash in my head. I like what I hear — the wordless neologisms created with voice, guitar, and air. I don’t look up, I won’t break the spell. A glance would sever the atmosphere—“seawrack” and “seatangle.” That isn’t what comes out. Strummed chords. An inexorable internal rhythm. Not a train, but something coming down the track under its own unconscious locomotion. “Seawrack” and “seatangle”—I’ve always loved those words, never knew what they were, but they behaved in my mind like multifaceted jewels — so many illuminations — so open and so bright. There is no sorrow in this room because it is filled with song—and—“Hey, Mr. Tambourine man. .”