Free Red Hot Blues by Rachel Dunning

actually here tonight, that it
wasn’t all a ruse. That he wasn’t just talking shit and that now I
got my hopes up and dressed up and made a fool of myself and, after
all that, he doesn’t arrive.
    As I walk into the bar, I’m immediately
accosted by the sudden fifteen degree drop in temperature compared
to outside. Black light shines, making the alligator above the
“laissez le bon temps rouler” (Let the Good Times Roll) sign at the
back of the stage, glow. Above me is a poster for the Mardi Gras.
Somebody whistles in my direction. Jackson. He’s a regular.
“Looking good, honey!” he cries out.
    I smile. Jackson’s cool. All seventy-two
years of him.
    Ace is not here. I expected to feel bad about
it. But I don’t. Nobody here knows I went the extra mile tonight.
Except Layna. And she’s cool. She won’t even mention it. And if she
does, it’ll be to tell me he’s an asshole and that she was wrong
about him.
    I can have that.
    The blues get going, Max T and Vince Summers
do a set, one hour long. They’re good. They’re regulars on a
Tuesday night. I forget to put my name on the roster, and Max comes
up to me during the intermission and asks me about it. I tell him
it slipped my mind. And he adds it.
    I’m distracted.
    He pairs me up with four other guys, a
keyboard player, drums, lead guitarist, a bass player.
    Suddenly it hits me. He really isn’t here.
And he’s not gonna be here. And I don’t care that I dressed up. I
like dressing up. I like making myself look stylish. But I wanted
to speak to him. Because he seemed cool. I wanted to chill out with
him outside, maybe even sip on a whiskey with him before two a.m.,
before every bar in Nashville closes and kicks you out.
    I wanted to talk, to get to know him, to ask
him about his guitar playing.
    But that didn’t happen. That’s not gonna
happen.
    I can’t help wonder if something went wrong,
because...I trusted him. I think I’m a good judge of character. I
know I’ve made mistakes, but those mistakes have made me
sharper.
    So the fact that he’s not here is weird. It’s
strange. And I find myself worrying about him suddenly. Is he OK?
Did he have a bike accident?
    Two more motley crew bands go on. Another
hour flies by.
    It’s me now. A few men whistle as I walk up.
They know my voice. This is my favorite part of singing, going on
the stage, and then that moment of silence just before...
    But I’m feeling lonely, heavy, a little
sad.
    My set begins. I start singing. And halfway
through it, Ace storms in the door like a man from a windstorm in
the middle of the desert. I half expect leaves and rolling
tumbleweed to blow in after him, followed by that classic Clint
Eastwood whistling music.
    He bumps into the ATM machine he walked in so
fast. People’s heads turn. I only notice after a moment of silence
that I’ve stopped singing!
    The mike screeches.
    Ace relaxes, says out loud, “Sorry, folks! As
you were.”
    I find my voice again, only now I’m singing to him . Now the song I’m singing is about him. And I’m in
full sway, feeling it, rolling with it, letting the good times roll
and being that Big Diva, the Fat Lady who sings before it’s
over.
    And I can’t stop myself from smiling, or my
cheeks from going red. You can always blame it on the lights
here.
    People start clapping, cheering, getting into
the beat. The drums go on behind me, I’m moving my body like I’m
sexy, like I’m hot, like nothing is wrong in this moment because
the lights are on me and the boy that I like is sitting right in
front of me, grinning, clapping, and looking so damn gawjuss that I can’t make the grin disappear from my face.
    The last song we do is a lustful song, a hot
song. It’s a song that I wrote.
    And it goes like this:
     
    Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuues.
    Quick. Shot. Boooooooze.
    Big. Spot. Newwwwwws.
    Red. Hot. Bluuuuuuuues.
     
    I met my baby on a Saturday night.
    I said no honey don’t you put up a
fight.
    I tried to teach him that his way