Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter Six, Part IV

Attack of the Elizabethans

When I return, it’s much too quiet, but perhaps this is a consequence of my ruse. The suicide gang is constructively ignoring me, replaying the cross-gender comedies of their little game. I’m stuck by the vision of Harry, my least adventurous singer, mimicking Shania Twain. What’s gotten into everybody? I load up the Sheryl Crow that I was going to sing before, and I work through it carefully, tiptoeing the higher passages lest they trip a lever.

Singers talk about a “break” in the voice. This is where the point of production, the spot through which the tone resonates, switches from the throat to the sinal cavity (you’ll hear the phrases “chest voice” and “head voice,” but the former is more metaphorical than accurate). The break is a real trouble spot – a choral reef, difficult to navigate. A singer is likely to have a harder time with a melody that hovers along her break than one that operates a third or even a fifth above it.

But there’s a second break point – an emotional break point. This one hovers near the top – the highest note you can sing without feeling undue stress on your throat. This places you in such a free, untethered stratosphere that it leaves you vulnerable, literally sticking your neck out. Given the right lilt, the right set of heartbreaking lyrics (anything by Patsy Cline), the proper minor-chord progression, this note will yank a wire in your lachrymal glands, and there you are, Pagliacci, mid-aria. Singing is either speech emancipated or sobbing controlled.

Fortunately, “Every Day is a Winding Road” is no “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” so I’m safe. Harry follows with “You Make Me So Very Happy,” and we’re back to a normal evening.

Two rounds later, still an hour from closing, we’re joined by a band of 16th century villagers. I am back to my thin grasp on reality until I flash on a poster at Susanne’s Bakery: the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, just over the hill at somebody’s farm. Damsels with bubbly cleavage and raucous hairy men in pantaloons dive into my songbooks. This could be very good for my tip jar.

“Zounds!” I say. It’s the only bit of archaic English I can muster. “What’s going… on here, fellows? What… say you?”

A young man in hunting leathers and a Robin Hood cap is about to produce a snappy Shakespearean reply when he meets my eyes.

“Channy?”

I’m back at the wheel of my pickup. I ease myself to the mic, and when I speak I feel an odd vibration at the back of my throat.

“Hey, um… Since we’ve been fooling around tonight, and the, um, revelers need some time to pick out their songs, I’ve always wanted to try something. I’m going to put on “Miss American Pie,” and I’d like my regulars to do the whole thing, one singer to a verse.

At eight minutes, 37 seconds, Don McLean’s epic tune is the longest selection in the catalog, and I keep it in a special slot in my CD case for just such an occasion. I slip it out, jam it on the changer and hit play. Harry’s already there, ready for the first verse.

I hop off the stage and meet Kai near the entrance. He goes to hug me but I grab his arm, pulling him through the front door and into the parking lot. The first thing I see is the Thunderbird, license plate STRYKER2. I brace myself and turn around.

“Channy!” he says. “God! I heard you went back to Alaska. I was just… well, I guess it’s obvious what I was doing. For God’s sake, don’t tell the guys about this or I’m dead meat. I can’t tell you how much grief I would catch for the tights alone! But I was heavy into theater back in high school and…”

Bunches of Kai are coming back to me as I try to follow his chirpy, mile-a-minute digressions. The burnt brown sheen of his skin, the fierce beauty of his white teeth, cheekbones like Mayan carvings. He’s a Sherpa – the tribe, not the occupation, though I have a hard time not picturing him on a snowy peak somewhere, one hand on a flagpole. He’s second-generation American, and his parents have taken great pains to remove him from the stereotype. In fact, that’s what he’s talking about.

“…and I thought, first thing back in the States, I’m climbing Rainier. That’ll cheese ‘em off. I mean, we’re the greatest climbers in the world, born and raised at ten thousand feet! Is that something to be ashamed of?” He laughs, and then pauses. “God, Channy.”

Uh-oh. He’s giving me that look.

“Are you okay? Are you doing all right?”

At which point, voice control once more becomes an issue.

“Just okay. Nothing special.”

He grips my shoulder, a clumsy attempt at reassurance.

“I understand. I’ve got some things in my head right now that I’d rather… weren’t there.”

He seems to recover, and his eyes flash.

“Channy! My God! I’ve got something for you. I’ve been saving it like, forever. Ya got two minutes?”

I cock an ear toward the bar. They haven’t hit the slow part yet.

“Yes. But hurry.”

He jogs to the T-bird, then reaches in and shuffles a hand under the passenger seat. The car is one of those new retro models, more bulk in front than the back, like a cross-section of a wing. A gift from his parents for graduating college. He paces back and hands me an aluminum box, one of those little cash boxes you might see at a bake sale. I accept it, but I hold it at arm’s length. Kai looks fidgety, un-Sherpa-like.

“I’m thinking you shouldn’t open it… until I’m gone,” he says. “I’m thinking that would be best.”

My voice is a whisper: “Okay.”

“I’m… I’m really sorry, Channy. And I’m sorry if my being here, well, you know…”

He looks inside, where Shari is handling the final verse – naturally, the one about Janis.

“I better let you get back,” says Kai. “But, I’m in the book, okay? Spanaway. Look me up.”

I pat him on the shoulder, one awkward gesture for another.

“You’re a dashing Robin Hood.”

“Thanks!” And the shocking white smile.

We break through the doors just as the choral ending is trailing away. The Elizabethans have littered my tray with song-slips.



Next: The Elizabethans Get Drunk


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Image: Ellen Lee Gibson. Photo by MJV.

Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter Six, Part III

Alphabet Suicide


Punishment number two is low attendance. My only regulars are Harry, Shari and Caroleen, although they’re sitting with a couple, Mark and Sandra, who turn out to be good singers. Harry tells me they’re dedicated karaokephiles, friends from Boise. Mark is partial to sixties rock: Doors, Who, Kinks. Sandra is entrenched in the sub-category of feminist disco: “I Will Survive,” “She Works Hard for the Money,” “Gloria.”

We’re speeding into round three, each of us pulling heavy duty, when I hear these words: “Wanna try some suicide?”

It’s Harry. His meaning escapes me.

“Well, since it’s kinda slow,” he continues, “we thought it would be fun to… You do know suicide, right?”

I’ve got nothing. Harry seems to read my silence as disapproval. He’s fidgeting.

“Everybody puts a song into the hat, and you take one out, and you have to sing whatever you get.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Cool! You’ll play too, right?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Mark’s got a baseball cap, so we dump in the song slips and go by the order we’ve already established. Which means I’m first. I draw “Only the Lonely,” one of my favorite songs and (thanks to Roy’s supernatural pipes) directly in my range. Not very challenging, but amusement is right on my heels, as Harry pulls out “I Feel Like a Woman,” by Shania Twain.

“Caroleen!” he complains. “This has your fingerprints all over it.”

Caroleen confesses her guilt by giggling, but Harry hams it up nonetheless, playing the a capella hook as gayly as possible. Then it’s Caroleen’s turn: “It’s Now or Never,” which comes out more spoken than sung. I help her out by loaning her my Elvis sideburn sunglasses. Sandra pulls out her own song, so she has to put it back. She gets “My Sharona” instead, another guy song in a girl range, and does pretty well, especially with the jungle screams.

Mark seems real hesitant, and I think it’s because he’s done the math. The only slips remaining are his and Sandra’s, so feminist disco it is: “What a Feelin’,” from the movie Flashdance. He gets a little lost picking an octave – trying and failing with a Mickey Mouse falsetto – but for a Boise boy he certainly shakes that booty. Sandra gets up at the instrumental break and threatens him with a glass of water, but the dangers of electrocution hold her back.

“Sha-ree,” I say, tauntingly. “Only one slip leh-eft.”

Shari takes a look at the slip and smiles. “No sweat.”

She hands it to me. “All Along the Watchtower.” My hand tightens up. Mark is leaning over the soundboard, holding a CD.

“I didn’t see it in your book, but I had one in my personal stash. Track seven.”

I take it, praying for Dylan, but the silver surface is etched with a ‘fro and a buccaneer headband. Hendrix. I manage to center it on the changer, and bring up the track, but then I’m stuck. Shari looks up from the lyric screen, puzzled. The pearl-white bumper charges me like a rhino.

I step to the stage, take Shari’s mic and pretend to inspect the battery as I speak sotto voce.

“Feminine difficulties. Need a bathroom break. Could you wait ten seconds, and then press play?”

“Sure, hon. I gotcha.”

I hand her the mic and hurry off, afraid to look up lest I meet someone’s eyes. When I get to the restroom, I head for a stall and start flushing. Jimi’s guitar finds a seam in the rushing water, crackling through like a roadside bomb. So I flush with one hand, clap the other over my left ear, and press my right ear to the side of the tank. The car was a Thunderbird.


Next: Attack of the Elizabethans

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter Six, Part II

The Tardy Student

She enters the bar, plagued by shame (referring to herself in third person). When she apologizes to Hamster, he erupts in laughter.

“Ten minutes late, once every six months. What do you want me to do – send you to the principal’s office? Besides…” he nods at the big-screen TV. “The Seahawks got the Sunday night game. I was going to ask you to wait, anyway.”

She doesn’t feel right, getting away with things. She retreats to the corner and lines up her song-slip holders with extra precision, soldiers in their ranks, hoping to atone for her pedestrian sins. (The words atone and atonal mix unexpectedly in her head.) The Orange Blossom Special chugs into her personal siding with a brown drink on ice. The note says, Drink first, then read other side.

The taste is purely awful. She flips the card.

Root beer and gin. What do you think?

She turns to the bar and forces herself to smile. Hamster gives a USO salute, then she takes a boisterous swig and chokes it down.

This, she thinks, will be punishment enough.


Next: Karaoke Suicide

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter Six, Part I

Near Accidents

The signals get too heavy. The circuits overload.

I’m descending the long pitch of Pioneer, a steady drizzle, eight o’clock. Exactly the time my first singer should be picking up the mic. The traffic on Highway 16 backed up like a sewer, splattering refuse into my path. The Narrows Bridge is a fragile conduit – one stalled Mini Cooper and you’ve got a parking lot all the way back to Bremerton. (I have always feared being the cog in this deviltry, the object of so much hatred. I spend each crossing holding my breath, casting prayers to the mystic regions beneath my hood.)

Nevertheless. Punctuality is the one absolute I demand of myself, and I have committed a sin against karaoke. In my frantic state, I become absolutely convinced that I have forgotten something. My brain, having turned into a shit-seeking missile, latches onto the worst of all possibilities: my CDs. If I have forgotten those, I may as well call it a night, because I would be forced to penetrate that 16 backup twice more. And I wouldn’t get paid. And my rent is due.

I steal a glance at the cab space behind me, and there’s the big silver case, swaddled in beach towels. Of course it’s there. Would the third king forget the myrrh? I bring my eyes forward to find a pearl-white bumper rearing up at me like a Hitchcock quick-zoom: brass trim, multicolored magnetic ribbons, personalized Washington license plate with a red registration sticker.

The last thing I see is a pair of brake lights. I don’t know when it is that I became a Hollywood stunt driver, but my extremities have taken over, fluxing into a ballet of navigational logic that simply should not be there. I tap the brakes, veer right as much as I dare, dodging the pearl-white bumper by three inches. My poor pickup is then forced to gallop the water-puddle ridges of the roadside, steamroller a couple of squat bushes and plunge into the Key Bank parking lot. When I spy level asphalt, I hit the brakes, bringing us to a skidding, hydroplaning halt.

For a half-minute, I am content to breathe heavily. Then I look around, and there’s just no one. I’m out here performing feats of Nobel Prize-winning proportions, and not a single eyewitness. I peer to the left and find the pearl-white car, shape of a wing, as it rolls to the intersection and turns.

For a second, I can recall the letters on the license plate. Then I cough, and they’re gone.

Next: The Tardy Student

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Chapter Five

Landing on Mt. Rainier

Channy

My proscription of improper behavior barely made it out of Canada. Taking my first-ever step into the lower 48, the aura of adventure lit me up like a Roman candle. We booked a motel in Bellingham, Washington, and I just plain jumped him.

This I was used to. I had made a high school career of being the aggressor, the stealth riot grrrl. But this time, the boy aggressed right back. The meeting of two such electric forces sent me to place I didn’t know existed. Animal places. It was true: sex in the contiguous United States was much better.

At the denouement of our third mutual assault, I found myself in a position better suited to Cirque de Soleil, not certain which limbs were mine. When I located Harvey’s face, somewhere near my left foot, we both burst out laughing, which caused intense pain in my left elbow. It was true: sex was better with Boys Who Got Laid.

The next morning, I drove us toward Seattle, enjoying all the little scratches and bruises that tickled when I moved. As we approached the center of town, I thought there must be some mistake – I-5 was headed directly into a huddle of skyscrapers. What a trip when it shot beneath them, a mile-long stretch ceilinged by a web of city streets and overpasses. I felt like a space probe digging into a concrete planet, and I kept having to merge left in order to keep going south. I was thinking, also, that I should wake Harvey, but when I looked over he was up, dark eyes reaching into the vista.

“Is this it?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Way too much. We need to do this ‘civilization’ thing a little bit at a time. Keep going.”

“Are you going… the same place I’m going?”

He smiled and put a hand on my knee. “I guess so.”

That was our big talk – and, as it turns out, the offramp to the rest of my life. Soon after came the tiny alchemies that turn sex into love. He started to call me darlin and honey, took my hand as we walked into a restaurant, rested an arm on my shoulder as I slipped a hand into his back pocket. Our momentum was building.

But first, we climbed a long hill, bore to the right, and discovered a luminescent presence.

“There,” said Harvey. “Let’s go there.”

Such was our youth and alien status that we didn’t know what this presence was. But we trusted in signs. Rolling past a roadside amusement park, we saw the words Enchanted Parkway/Mt. Rainier and exclaimed the last word in unison.

A half hour later, we were headed right for it, splitting a long, semi-peopled valley bracketed by high treepicket ridges. We were nearing the foot of one of these ridges when Harvey slapped the dash and said, “Hey! Pull over. Take this ramp.”

I was looking forward to an explanation, but getting only directions. Left under the freeway. Left at the light. Left into a turnout. He got out and beckoned me to follow. I caught up to him at a tall wire fence and followed his gaze to the center of a wide pasture, where stood two haystacks with legs.

“Bessie and Ben,” said Harvey.

“Bison?”

“Brown, boisterous bison. Bessie and Ben.”

“You know their names?”

He took my hand and guided it, as you would a blind person’s, to the sign against which we were leaning. The one that said, Bessie and Ben Bison – Please Do Not Feed.

Once we had enough of watching two bison who refused to move, I turned and saw another sign, For Rent, in front of a small clapboard house across the street.

“There,” I said. “Let’s go there.”

Two days later, we were in. I yanked open the chimney flue and brought in some logs from a woodpile behind the house. As I wadded up pieces of newspaper and stuffed them under the grate, I spotted an article.

“Hey, honey!” I said (enjoying the sound of honey in my mouth).

He called from the next room: “What?!”

“We’re on a mudflow!”

He peered around the corner. “What?”

“The last time the mountain collapsed, it left a mudflow that was thirty feet thick. And we are sitting right on top of it.”

“Well thanks!” he said. “I feel much safer now.”

“Says if we live here thirty years, there’s a one-in-seven chance we’ll be buried alive.”

Soon after the word “alive,” I found myself drifting over the earth. Piecing it together afterward, it appears that Harvey hit me with a flying tackle, wrapped his arms around my midsection, then spun himself beneath me so he could take the brunt of the impact. I landed on top of him and went about reinitiating my lungs to the concept of taking in oxygen. Then I swatted him on the head.

“Are you nuts?”

He spoke between snorts of laughter. “A demonstration… of the everpresent dangers… of living.”

I straddled him and delivered a theatrical kiss. (Why was I rewarding bad behavior?)

“So when are you going to play for me?”

“Play what?”

“Guitar, silly.”

“Guitar?” A cloud of puzzlement passed over his face. “Oh! Guitar!”

He rolled me to the floor (gently this time) and dashed into the bedroom, then returned with his guitar case. He opened it to reveal rubber-banded bundles of plastic cassettes, padded at the perimeters by rolled-up socks.

“Video games,” he said. “I figured I would get the console once I settled someplace. But these… these are a major investment.”

As much as I tried to hide it, I couldn’t help feeling deceived. Harvey wasn’t one of my nice nerd-boys at all – he had proved that much in Bellingham. And now he wasn’t a musician. I pictured the molten vaults of magma miles beneath us, ready to break enormous chunks of Rainier and hurl them down the slope. Then I lit a match.

Next: Near Accidents

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter Four, Part III

Harry Meets Java

Despite a later-morning drizzle, I am out on the back deck with Java and a cup of same. We’re playing fetch, but with Java it’s never that simple. He fancies himself a wide receiver, and is ruthlessly devoted to the offsides rule, refusing to leave my side until the “ball” (a bone-shaped pillow) has departed the quarterback’s hand. This leaves me with two options: lift a lame popup, giving him a chance to run beneath it; or give him the classic pump-fake, wait till he runs ten feet and looks back, then left a pass further downfield. The latter is much more satisfying, much more You, too, can be Peyton Manning.

Sadly, he only buys this trick a handful of times. Then he stays there on his haunches, giving me a look that says, Come on! I’m a poodle, remember? I’m not that dumb. So now I’m standing, hoping to add some leverage to my popups, while my coffee sits on a statue of Artemis, going cold. From this new vantage, I can see the distinct track that Java has burned into my lawn. Perhaps I spend too much time at this.

I reach way back for a good, high throw, but I louse up the release, sending the bone pillow too far. I fear that Java will end up in the brambles, but instead he veers right and bullets the passionflower archway, barking like crazy. I can swear I hear another dog barking back – and I’m close. Harry Baritone steps up the trail, Java leaping at him with joyous abandon. Once they clear the archway, Harry grabs him around the chest, leaving his head and front legs squirting out the other side of Harry’s looped arms.

“I remember this one,” he says. “Loves to wrassle.” He lets Java go and thumps him on the back. “Macho poodle.” Java’s all worked up now, panting in a half-growl, but Harry grabs his collar and smooths his mop-top. “There now, Mister LeBark. Settle down. Mom and Harry need to talk.”

I’m suddenly self-conscious, hoping my lounging clothes don’t look as grubby as they feel. “Wow, Harry. So weird, seeing you out of context. Um… want some coffee?”

“Yeah. That would be great.”

“Have a seat. I mean, an edge of the deck. Dangle your feet.”

I cheat my grubbiness by trading my sweatshirt for a clean windbreaker. I return to find Harry and Java playing tug-of-war with the bone pillow.

“This dog is tenacious.”

“Yep. And if you like your coffee warm, you’ll just have to give up.”

Harry looses his grip. Java takes his pillow to the lawn for a light-but-thorough chewing.

“I hope I’m not being invasive,” says Harry. “But I had an hour’s break – and I remembered your house from that tow I gave you last spring.”

“No, not at all. I was just easing into my morning lollygag.”

“I hate to butt in on people. But I thought I owed you an explanation.”

My own response surprises me: “Why?”

“Well, because it was nice, what you were trying to do for me. And I’m assuming it turned out a little differently than you expected.”

“Oh yeah.”

“But here’s why. And you’re a singer, so I think you’ll understand this. If you take ‘Boots’ literally, it looked like Sheila was rubbing it in my face – especially the way she was putting the goods on display with that getup. But what you don’t know is this: the first time I ever saw Sheila – in a Mexican restaurant in Tacoma – she was singing ‘Boots.’ And she sang it every single time we went out for karaoke.”

“I know.”

“Well, look at it this way. ‘Mack the Knife’ – song about a homicidal thief, right? But how much you wanna bet that some couple, somewhere, thinks of it as ‘their song’?”

“So Sheila’s message wasn’t ‘Fuck you…’”

“It was ‘Fuck me.’ Less crudely, it was ‘I miss you and I’m lonely.’”

I’m feeling overexposed and awkward, so I get up and practice some evasive pacing. Harry’s not letting me; he stands to join me, forcing me to stop.

“Look. I’ve already told you too much. But what you did last night… it was the nicest damn thing anyone’s ever done for me, and I didn’t want you to think I was ungrateful. In fact, this morning, when Sheila started spinning all this shit about us getting back together, it was you who gave me the power to say no.”

I turn, and he’s smiling. With his blue service shirt, he looks like one of those over-happy plumbers in a commercial for drain opener.

“Go Harry!” I say quietly.

He kisses me on the cheek; the whiskers tickle.

“I gotta go.”

Harry bounds off the deck and through the archway, shouting over his shoulder.

“See you tonight!”

Java runs after, barking. I pick up Harry’s coffee, barely touched, and give it a slow sip.


Next: Heading for Rainier

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Outro: The Serial Novel

Chapter Four, Part II

Sheila does Nancy

Which leaves me standing here, looking up that familiar disc as Shari Blues masticates a Stevie Ray tune (this is my only complaint about Shari: she needs to occasionally sing something as if her life doesn’t depend on it).

I do not, as a rule, dislike “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’.” In fact, I like it quite a lot. With its low range and half-spoken lines, it’s a great beginner piece, and its vengeful, kiss-my-ass lyrics carry a special appeal for the bitterly divorced female market (the one that keeps karaoke bars in business). But Sheila ruined it for me, by singing it night after night, and then ruthlessly acting it out, leaving my favorite singer in its wake.

At the moment, I’m not even sure where she is. She came in early to sign up, swore me to secrecy, and went off to hide in some corner booth. I put in a mental order for Harry to arrive with the waitstaff from the local Hooters, but no such luck; he waltzed in stag, a half hour after Sheila. I’ve been too busy with microphone batteries and needy singers to send him a warning. What’s worse, it’s really busy, which means that Little Miss Bitch will have a huge audience.

The moment is here – the fifth singer on my list. I am condemned by the KJ code to shoot down one of my best friends. I hate this job.

“All right. We’ve got a little surprise for you. Would you please welcome our next singer: Nancy!”

I start the disc, per instructions, and Sheila vamps across the dance floor. I recognize the outfit immediately. It’s the very getup from Nancy Sinatra’s album cover: the ribbed black-and-gray hose, the tight gray sweater, the blood-red go-go boots and miniskirt. She whips the microphone from the stand, right on time, and punches the first line. I remember why the song is such a good match. Sheila’s voice is no prizewinner, but the girl can act – and that’s what the song is about. I can’t see Harry, but I know where he is – sitting in a booth with Shari and Caroleen – and that’s precisely where Sheila is aiming her words.

I’m trying to stay cool, but I’m also wondering, What is the fucking message here? I dumped your sorry ass, and now I’ve come back to pound my go-go boots into your testicles?

There are women, I know, who are capable of carrying their spite this far. Who are bent on destruction. But this is vulgar, and I’m pissed. I need to do something to save Harry, but nothing that makes it look like he needs saving. I’m running my hands along the gain levels (Sheila’s close enough to swallow the mic – insert your own joke here), when I spot my team of second-hand mics, lined up in an old wine box.

The horns kick into their groovy finish – sounding all the world like a surf band – and Sheila does the Pony all the way across the floor. Those who don’t know any better give a rousing applause; those who do give a polite applause. I try to lend a gracious commentary as I polish the plan in my head.

“That is Nancy! Also known as Sheila, to you Karz Bar veterans. And you know what this means. From now on, I will expect thematic attire from everyone. Dark glasses for Roy Orbison songs. A Burmese python for Alice Cooper. Miscolored eyeballs for Marilyn Manson. But seriously, I don’t know how late Sheila will be here tonight, so I wanted her to see one of our new traditions. Harry, get up here and lead us.”

Harry heads across, looking like a high wind has blown out most of his brain cells. But the music seems to kick him into focus. He gears into the first verse of “Drift Away” as I dole out mics to the Korale. I flip on all my tracks, and the singalong chorus comes off with nary a hitch.

During the second verse, however, something unexpected. People are coming to join us who don’t usually sing: talky barfly Bob, Alex and his latest Ginger Rogers, a sultry Irish redhead – and, unless I’m hallucinating, Hamster, who has never shown the least interest in singing. This motivates a second wave, folks who have no idea what’s going on but can’t resist the gravitational pull: a yachtload of Norwegians from Port Angeles, a trio of seminarring lawyers from Seattle, and some guy who was just delivering a load of Budweisers. Just guessing, I’d say we’ve got forty singers. It’s like a friggin’ “We Are the World.”

Come the repeat, Harry’s in top form, throwing a Tom Jones ripple, busting a porkchop growl at the lower end. I am mighty proud. As we near the fadeout, I snatch a conductor’s baton from my prop box and race out in front to pull us into the final chord. There’s really no audience left, so we content ourselves with hoots and backslaps as we migrate back to our places. Harry’s getting high fives all around, working the crowd like a politician. A minute later, I’m finally back at my station, throwing switches, harvesting microphones, getting back to business.

“Wow! Was that a trip, or was that a trip? I…”

I can usually talk my way through anything – but not the ghost of Nancy Sinatra, standing on my dance floor, streams of mascara tracking either cheek. She holds her arms out to her sides like a condemned woman pleading with her captors. I assume that it’s me – that she’s read the bitchslap intentions behind my little show – but then I see Harry, still on stage, frozen by the sight of her.

I’m feeling the need to break up this little melodrama, but I know what the next song is, and it’s killing me. Still, I have to do something, so I return to the mic and speak in a half-voice: “Doc? It’s your turn.”

Doc Mendelssohn comes to the mic, nudging his way past Harry, who still doesn’t know what to do. The music begins. Nancy raises her arms, beckoning Harry forward, and forward he comes. They begin to dance, cutting slow circles in the half-light as Doc sings “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You.” Alex brings out his redhead, perhaps to siphon off some of Harry’s embarrassment, but it doesn’t matter, because a second later he and Sheila cross the floor, stop at Sheila’s table to collect her purse, and slip out the back door.

A minute later, as Doc takes his applause from a distracted audience, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo pulls in with a ginger ale and vodka. Hamster’s note reads, You know I’m not one to traffic in gossip, but I’m dying to know what just happened.


Next: Harry meets Java

Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1

Hear the audio podcast at: http://www.gcast.com/user/michaeljvaughn/podcast/main?nr=1&&s=198404806

Image: The author at his March 13 book release party, Books Inc. in Mountain View, CA. Photo by Cicily Otis.