Sneak Peak

Tommy felt good. All the jitters were gone. Regardless of how many times he played and sung, there were always some pre-game nerves. It was more than a bit intoxicating to have gotten over the ones he had dreaded in this perfomance for so long. Hell, he had lost hours of his life the past few months, staying awake at night and worrying about this very moment. Staring out into a sea of faces, strangers faces, but faces that represent a part of his life that he had done nothing but run from. Run from for all of his adult life. Kept repeating over and over in his head, “It's been forever and no one cares, It's been forever and no one cares”. The Usher thing is something he's done many times before, kind of just to let the crowd know that this isn't gonna be just another wannabe country crooner doing an hour set of karaoke. A guy in jeans and a cowboy hat with an acoustic guitar that busts out in “Hey DJ”, usually accomplishes just that. Like a marathon runner, Tommy had gotten to that first checkpoint and he felt good. Really good. He could do this on autopilot, which he never would do, but he knew these songs like the back of his hand. He was very good with a crowd. Not being cocky, but he was a good judge of all the little things. There were so many subtle clues in a crowd, or a group of people, listening to music, and Tommy had become adept at absorbing these clues and using them on the fly. He had initially been surprised at just how open his eyes had become at it. Far from big enough to adhere to a strict set list, except in those rare cases where he did a festival or something that required a submission of the song order. Those he didn't fuck with. But, all the rest? He would write something out, but it was open for quick change. Which he did all the time. Step one was to identify the characters in the audience. Determine who was there for the music. Who was just there for the social atmosphere. Who was there to get bombed. Who was there out of sheer curiosity. That usually took a couple of songs at the most, and then it was easy. It was just a matter of which character group he wanted to pacify or appease with the next song. On nights when he was on, and the shit was just clicking, then it was all groups being pacified at once. The smaller the act, the harder this was to pull off. And, he was certainly small. The really epic shows? Those just flowed like an electrical current. Not much thought, and he was in tune with all the energy being exchanged with the crowd. Epic shows didn't require much if any help from him. If Tommy had to try and shift something from stagnant or from mundane, then epic was out of the question. He had surmised before striking a chord or singing a note that tonight was going to be a workman like gig, give a little, take a little, easy on the banter and just take her out for a spin. After dropping Usher on them and following it with some generic and multi genre crossing modern country tunes on them, Tommy decided to test his luck.

“Hey everyone. Thanks for giving me access to your ears, and hopefully you'll find me and my songs pleasing.” There was a polite round of applause from the room. “I've give you a bit of hip hop, and then a bit of the twang. I mean, I figure if I come out wearing this hat, you all would be disappointed if I didn't sing at least a little bit of the good old country and western, am I right?” Again, the smattering of hands clapping. The crowd, a few drinks in, were warming. “Any Irish in the crowd?” There were a couple of yells back, something along the lines of “hell yeah”, or just a drink induced response. “Good, good, I wasn't gonna do this, but I'm gonna share an Irish folk song with you guys. As long as I've got some Irish blood out there, feel free to helpyour neighbors out with the words.” Now, curiosity had pulled many away from the conversations and the hilarity of a night out with the mates. He didn't smile outwardly, but inside, Tommy was grinning from ear to ear. Ha, St. Louis was his bitch. “This is a Gaelic tune, handed down from generation to generation, a bit of a love song, if you will. I hope you enjoy it, and like I said, you Irish out there, jump on in.” And then, before starting, after somewhat of an awkward pause, which jolted him instantly and with force, he added “The first time I heard this tune, I was a wee lad it was playing in this skating rink back home.” Another awkward pause, and then one more word. “Home?” And with that, Tommy's fingers took over and ever so gently began strumming his strings until the all too familiar sounds were produced. He realized that he may have waded out too far.

Of course Lucy was hinging on every word. Tommy's verbal banter was like water, and she was the one crawling on hands and knees, scorching sand underneath her, as she begged for some kind of an oasis. There was always one off in the distance if you looked hard enough. A shimmering, and almost mythical patch of blue, drawing you in, As soon as the previous song stopped and her one time boy ambled to the mic and started talking, thirst ravaged her. Something about Irish folk song, and blah, blah, blah, Just sing. Sing to me, Tommy. And then, what? Almost as if he was unsure or had forgotten how to start the song, but he definitely seemed at least a bit off, and all of a sudden. And then her tears started. Skating rink. Goosebumps raced up one arm and down the next. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck began to feel as if they were on fire. A lump in her throat and a tingling in all extremities. Past and present were about to be cascaded down upon her and Lucy honestly had no idea of how she might react. She was perched on the outer edge of her booth, the reddish and crackling vinyl underneath now feeling sticky as if her pores were weeping. She tried to scoot as far inside of the booth as possible, huddled down into a ball with hands to face. Some part of her, some deep and private part knew and yet didn't want to know. Tommy tapped the base of his guitar before doing anything with the strings. A silent beat. One that felt as if thunder were going off inside Lucy. A storm of Biblical proportions, rocking her senses to the point where she didn't know exactly where she was. Or was it, where she had been? The room, once a jumbled mess of noises, beer bottles opening and being discarded, voices rising and falling, laughter and the sounds of dining from the next room over, was eerily silent as this stranger to most tapped his acoustic guitar. Lucy sat, shivering, even shaking. And then Tommy struck the first chord, and then another. And, with delicate grace and ever so slowly, moved his mouth towards the microphone and began to sing.

“See the stone set in your eyes, See the thorn twist in your side, I wait for you. Sleight of hand and twist of fate, on a bed of nails she makes me wait. And I wait, without you. With or without you...With or without you. Through the storm, we reach the shore, You gave it all but I want more, and I'm waiting for you”

The crowd had reacted. Tommy was singing with such passion and the restraint he had demonstrated up till that point vanished. He became the song, became the music. His eyes closed, his face bore the mask of a pained and tortured soul. He sang as if he was singing to some unseen and distant memory. The crowd moved with him, the familiar and iconic notes of the U2 classic resonating within the gathered. It wasn't a young crowd, so the song was known. And Tommy was in his own world and with each verse, the internal struggle crept more and more to the forefront. He wasn't just singing some random song etched into a set list. He was crying this song. He was revealing way more than he had set out to. But, the few souls hearing and watching it were entranced. Who the hell was this stranger and what of this unbridled emotion. People were singing along, and for the first time this young evening were swaying and dancing. A chord had been more than struck, it had been delivered a body blow and Tommy was the heavyweight champion, and as the song ran its coarse, singer and fans kept going harder, louder and with more power than had ever been seen by anyone ever at this out of the way and off the radar hole in the wall.

“And you give yourself away, and you give yourself away, and you give, and you give, and you give yourself away. With or without you, with or without you, I cant live, with or without you”

Tommy and the patrons were screaming the part where Bono yells to the heavens. And, at the very crescendo, the plateau where he was taking them, to the fiery, orgasmic end, Tommy took them down again, teasing a peaceful and calm reentry, perhaps even an ending to the song. But he had different ideas. A few of the fans, obvious fans of the uber band, started yelling at Tommy to go just a step further, complete the copulation. And he obliged.

“And we'll shine like stars in the summer night, we'll shine like stars in the winter night, one heart, one hope, one love...”

Old man Bartolino came running. Bands and artists were a constant nearly every weekend. The thunderous applause generated by the fifty or sixty people listening to Tommy was unlike anything he had heard before, and his first instinct was that something dreadful had happened. Upon sprinting into his quaint and cozy little bar, he was surprised to see no uprisings, no fights, just everyone crowded around the stage area and loudly voicing what seemed to be mass approval. So, a good thing. These young folk and their music. Didn't do a damn thing for him, so he turned around and headed back to the important stuff, good Italian gravy and Canoli. As he walked out of the bar, it was impossible not to take note of the lone woman sitting in the very back booth, all by herself with hardly another soul within ten feet of her, they were all gathered up by the stage. He wondered what could be wrong with this fare little thing, to cause her to weep so.