Fantasy is so easily spoiled by action and I spoiled a lot of fantasies by rambling around Facebook with the taste of pureed chickpeas in my mouth.
This particular 'First Message' was from someone not on my Friends List. I didn't recognise her either. It was a girl and she was certainly a stranger to me.
"Hi. I'm ----. How's your Friday?"
That is what the message said.
I didn't know anyone by the name ----. Over on her profile page, there wasn't that much to see. Maybe half a dozen photos. They were all close ups, with the camera angle pushing up from below her neck. It looked like the photos were taken from the little camera lens the sits above most laptop screens. I think that is exactly how those few photos were taken - seated at a desk, with her screen tilted back and her face pushed down at it. There were long, dark shapes of shadow, mixed in with a flat, mellow light. Through all that, I could tell she had shiny black hair, a sharp chin and thin arms. That was about all I could see from the images.
I responded - of course I did - and we got to chatting.
Turns out she was a friend of a friend and had seen my picture on the friend's page or something and now she was messaging me. A friend from down South once told me it is easy to talk candidly to strangers. No judgement or expectations. Just be loose and free. No consequence. We progressed quickly to some pretty bold flirtations. I mean, maybe not for you. Maybe not for me now. But for me at that time, it all felt pretty bold.
We organised to meet up the next night. Saturday night. I'd be finished working at the Italian place around 11pm. Some friends had a pretty hot swing band playing at a rooftop bar in the city. They'd kick things off late and fill that half outdoor spot with loose, lewd and soulful Blues. Music that could beat a rhythm and flow into even the most tepid first date. Perfect spot to take someone I ain't even spoken to yet. Well, not properly spoken too yet anyways.
****
My taxi from work pulled up to the southern end of Princes Bridge. If you've never been to Melbourne, Princes Bridge is the short bridge that hangs over the Yarra River and leads up to the intersection that is the central entrance point to the downtown area. On one side of that intersection is the ambling, sandstone and steel town square. Opposite that is the yellowed and domed (not to be confused with 'doomed') central train station.
The bridge is not much to remember and most don't. The view off it - in both directions - is such a dense full picture in the daylight and so romantic and distracting at night, that this is what people take away with them. Not me, though. What I often recall are the ornate, gothic, cast-iron street lamps that dot across it.
There's a cliche edge to antique street-lamps like that. It seems every subtitled, black and white film you have ever seen has a scene with a petite girl and a worn down man standing under one of them lamps on a bridge in some European city. A slouched hat hangs onto his head and a thick cigarette hangs from his mouth. She talks and he doesn't. And then he talks - for much longer than her - and then there's a quiet bit and then the camera pans up to that street-lamp and then the movie ends. Or something.
Anyways, I got out of the cab and she was standing under one of those lamps - all lit up in shadows of black and white. This was no movie, but I'm straight-up tellin' it to you just like it happened. Sometimes, when a girl wears a white, collared shirt and stands out on a bridge under a street-lamp, she can remind you of Godard or Antonioni. Or even make you forget, if that's what you'd prefer.
This was not a great start. The key point of a first meeting like this, is when you suspend all the imaginations and projections in your heart and mind and just deal with the actual, real person in front of you. Except here and now I was looking out at her like she was a character in a movie that had never actually been made. And whoever she turned out to be was always gonna fall short of that. Like I said - not a great start.
I said hello and kissed her on the cheek. She was more nervous than me. That made me feel more confident. She was also taller - much taller - than her pictures seemed to indicate. She was nearly as tall as me. This made me a little disappointed. Only a little, though.
I pointed up to rooftop bar on the edge of the town square and we headed for it. She pointed out to me where she had parked her car. During our back and forth messaging, she had told me she lived on a beach on the far edges of town. At the time, I hadn't fully considered the consequence of that information. When she was just a stranger sending me strange messages on Facebook, there was nothing to it. Now standing in front of me as a person I had now met, all that effort she had gone to see a guy just before midnight on a Saturday night....well....pressure and expectation and delivery.... and consequence.
****
The line up on the stage is one of drums, double bass, piano and sax. The volume is up loud and it forces its way upon every person and group milling around - both inside and outside. People talk, but they do so by leaning into the other person's ear and shouting. The music style is late 50's Vegas Side-Room and you can hear the booze-soak in every goddamn note and tone. Everyone - those in the inside part and those out on the open air part - sways in some way to the beat and the tune. Even if it is just a toe tap, the music's got a grip of them
I turn to catch Miss ----'s first reaction to the whole scene. She nods and grimaces. I'm a little confused by the response. Is she into it or not? I lead her over to the bar and she asks for a white wine and I buy a bottle. The song ends and applause breaks out. I point towards one of the empty Chesterfields and we sidestep across the crowd in front of the stage and head our way towards it. The members of the band notice me as I pass and all nod a little greeting. We sit down and The Saxophonist steps to the microphone.
"Well, ladies and gentleman..."
He sounds drunk. I've known him for years and he sounds pretty drunk. He takes a pull from the beer bottle in his hand and continues.
"There comes a time in every band's career when the drummer's desire to sing a particular song, finally triumphs. And you can protest and say it's too obvious - too obvious a song choice. Too easy. Too done to death. And that it shouldn't be done. And you don't wanna play it. But he insists and keeps pitching and insisting. And sometimes, the drummer just wins out. So... the drummer is now gonna sing this song and I'm now not gonna participate."
And as the rest of the band leans into a smoothed out version of the Louis Armstrong standard "What a Wonderful World", The Saxophonist, his saxophone and his beer bottle step off the stage and all three of those things make their way towards us.
"Hey!" he shouts his greeting and sits down on the sofa opposite.
The band is playing this contentious number at a softer and spacier volume than the last one. His shouted greeting to us seems to be despite that - not because. He goes on in the same raised voice:
"Man, we haven't seen you forever. Where have you been?"
"Oh, you know....work and shit...that Italian place is keeping my time pretty busy and full." That wasn't entirely true. It had more to do with The Ex and those fantasies and hiding out from a real world that contained neither.
"And where are you from?" he asks, turning to my date.
She laughs "Where? The beach! Just outside of town...".
"Well, isn't that something?? We were out there today! We had a gig during the day. There was a wedding on some vineyard. Beautiful day. A shitload of drinking...."
"Oh really? You don't say...?" Now it's my turn to laugh.
"Yeah...." The Saxophonist trails off his words for a few moments. He silently looks back at the rest of the band and turns back to us with a sad look. "It took us a while to get The Swing. To get The Blues. I don't think the people noticed at first, but then I think they slowly started to. It's hard with these daytime gigs. Hard to get into it with the sun out and shining down and all. So we hit the vodkas pretty hard and then everything began to slip into place. We were shit-faced by the end, but we sounded great. We were still pretty mangled by the time we got in here."
He looks back around to the band and then continues:
"Those guys.... Sometimes.....I don't know...Their Blues is still The Blues. It's just that sometimes they forget how to get back on board. How to turn it back on. That's what Dad says about them too. Like, what the fuck is this song??"
He suddenly springs up off the couch and pushes his way back onto the stage, adjusting his saxophone and strap as he goes. He grabs the microphone, tilts it down to the opening of his horn and blows like there's a raging enemy inside of him, attacking the fuck outta his own body. He blows louder and then softer and then louder again. He leads the rest of the band through changes of tempo and attack. He plays a couple of the sweet notes and whole bunch of the filthy ones. He is at the same time grotesque and transcendent and I'm sure everyone in the entire bar - for he has now commanded everyone's attention - is either repelled by him or jealous of him. He is creating repulsion and envy all at the same time and all with just a bit of brass in his hand and whole lot of booze in his belly.
And then he stops. Abruptly. There's maybe a elegant and gentle little wind down, but I don't notice cause I'm too fired up by it all. He leaves me - nay, all of us - in that fire and pulls the instrument away from his mouth and off the strap around his neck and drops it down right in front of the drummer's kit. He grabs back at the beer he'd put down on top of the piano before his furious solo and stomps off the stage and out onto the cooling, night air of the rooftop.
And the drummer picks up the final verse of the song and croons on.
Look.....
The point is this:
If you don't like the songs your band plays, then walk away.
And if you can't do that, take out what you got and blow it all up - just make sure you've had your fill of vodka and beer when you do.
