gulf

So it sort of goes like this. My name is Conor. I just moved here from Madisonville, Louisiana, which means I’m from New Orleans, because no one has ever heard of any other city in that state. Not even Baton Rouge, which is the capital. Everyone here thinks New Orleans is the capital. I am pretty small and skinny, and I tend to let my hair grow into my eyes, which was kind of my thing in Madisonville, but out here there is a whole scene of guys that look like me. I haven’t figured out if I like that or not. It’s nice not to be quite as weird, but apparently, I do need something that stands out, to feel all right. So I got this black cord necklace that has St. Christopher on it, and started wearing it all the time. I found it in the bottom of my bag from home – I think my mom slipped it in, for safe travel. I don’t tend to travel safe.

I work at a café down the street from my residency at The Cat Club. Every Thursday, I play guitar and sing for a handful of people, usually about what I like to call the general disconnect. Funny how people can all relate to that. But they still can’t connect with each other. Playing The Cat Club is quite different from the bar on the Pontchartrain where I used to play. After a show there, I could go outside, cross the street, and stand there looking out over the lake. Everything dark and flat out in front of me, the whole world dark except for the lights from the bar behind me, and the end of my cigarette. When I leave the Cat Club here, I walk out and find myself on Sunset Blvd, and I find it a bit hard to maintain soul out here. It comes off like you’re trying too hard.

So this one night, I swear my guitar started playing itself. I was lying in bed, reading, and I had overdone it on the whiskey, which is generally how I spend my nights. During the day, I like to overdo it on coffee, until I feel like I can take on anything, and start talking like Jack Kerouac, and then get the shakes. But anyway, I heard my guitar being strummed and I jerked my head up, but it was just lying there where I left it, lying on the floor. I never use a stand. I got up and realized my hands and my feet were numb from the whiskey, so I turned off the lights and got back in bed.

Then it happened a few nights later, and now it’s a couple nights every week. And I’ve started to think maybe I am irrelevant here. Maybe the damn guitar doesn’t need me. It makes me feel generally, very alone. I spend a lot of time walking around at night, smoking, and trying to get a feel of the place. Whatever place I’m in. And I look at girls. But none of them look quite like what I pictured, none of them seem quite right. I work with a girl named Carla who has really sad eyes. I’ve written some songs about her. That’s probably as far as it will go.

So this is how it goes, I get a few free drinks at my shows, so I hang out and watch the other guys that go on after me. But I think I’m better than them. My friend Jonathan hangs out with me and agrees, the two of us leaning against the bar, watching all the nightbirds coming and going. Each singer/songwriter goes up there, with his or her small group of friends cheering. Jonathan likes to describe them as “earnest.” He works as a bartender at his parents’ restaurant in Chinatown, and otherwise generally likes to sleep a lot and watch movies. Sometimes I go to his bar and listen to all the Chinese and Korean being spoken around me, and sometimes we go out to see foreign films.

“What do you think it means if you start hearing things, Jon?” I ask him, one night, after my show.

“I think it depends on what you hear,” he says, and downs his drink. “As long as you don’t hear ‘Kill ‘em, kill ‘em all,’ then everything is ohhhkay.”

“What if you hear your guitar playing? Late at night?”

“Then you’re dreaming.”

“No, I’m up,” I say. “Drunk, but always up.”

He thinks about this one for a minute and crosses his arms and squints at me. It’s funny when he does that - he somehow looks like a cartoon character. “Maybe you shouldn’t listen,” he says. “Maybe it’s like a siren, calling out to guys on boats and making them crash.”

“I can’t listen much, it stops right away,” I tell him, and finish the rest of my beer. “Besides,” I say, “I’m not on a boat.”

“You’re right,” he says. “You’re not going anywhere.”

In Madisonville, I was in love with two girls, and now I’m not in love with anybody. I just feel pulled this way and that, and pick up on random signals from every girl I meet. It makes me feel lonelier than you would think. One night Jon takes me to a bar called The Red Lion, which looks like a German bar, and I meet a girl named Jannie who is hitting the cigarette machine, and crying a little, with mascara starting to run.

“Is it broken?” I ask her, and she flings herself around, staring at me with wide blue eyes.

“No, it works fuckin’ brilliantly! It helps you quit smoking!” She sobs and starts digging in her bag. She has on a white top with black horizontal stripes like a sailor, and it is the third girl at this bar I have seen wearing it. I dig out the pack in my pocket and hold it out to her. She stops and then looks embarrassed, and takes one.

“I’m a fucking mess, aren’t I? Why are you being nice to me?”

“I can’t stand to see anyone cry,” I say, shifting my feet. I need another whiskey before I can really consider talking to a girl. She smiles and puts the cigarette in her mouth and scratches her head, messing up a whole mass of dark hair.

“I’m not really crying, I’m just leaking a little bit,” she says. “I can be patched up.”

“That’s good,” I say. “I’m going to the bar, do you want a drink?”

At the bar, she says, “Don’t you ever eat? You’re so thin,” and “New Orleans? Oh my god, that’s fucking brilliant! Why did you come here?” and “I knew you were a musician, you have that look,” and “Are you going to see The Fruitbats? You know they’re playing at The Echo?” And when Jon wants to go, and I can tell he can’t stand her, and I have drunk so much whiskey that my hands are numb again, I give her a hug and she kisses my ear. I feel like every part of me flushes, and I kiss her back and remember two girls in Madisonville, and Carla at work, and I think yes, this is it, this is the right thing, this is what I’m looking for, this is it.

Until we are at The Echo the next week and the band playing is terrible, and contrite, and Jon keeps swearing that if Jannie says “brilliant” one more time, like she’s British, then he is never going to speak to me again. Everything is different out here.

In Madisonville, there used to be a girl named Whitney, who could make me laugh like I have never laughed in my life. It took me right out of myself, which is good, because I tend to wrap around and around myself, real tight. But she moved away. I think there’s still an emptiness there, from when she left. And then after her, there was a girl named Domonique, who was so beautiful, she made me nervous and dizzy, whenever she stood nearby. But she couldn’t stand how much I drank, and wandered around at night. I think it was more the wandering around, the thinking and smoking, that she didn’t like. Maybe they are all sirens.

Jon and I take the subway home in silence, and we both have smokes in our mouths even though we can’t light them. Across from us, an old black woman with grizzled hair sits staring at us, frowning. We are obviously drunk and I realize suddenly I am wearing mismatched socks. She looks overworked and tired, and like she is coming a long way back from visiting someone who doesn’t deserve it. I think about the nonsense she would slap out the back of my head, if I told her my guitar plays by itself, and I feel really tired. She is still staring. Jonathan clears his throat and looks at me.

“Who gave you that necklace?” the old woman snaps, and I put my hand up to the cord around my throat, that I tend to forget is there. “You even know who that is?”

“Yes ma’am,” I say, automatically. “St. Christopher.”

“You know he the patron saint of travel? You know why?” she demands. “You know he carried Jesus across the river? That mean somebody cares about you,” she adds sharply. “That mean you better straighten up.”

Jon starts to laugh and crosses his long arms over his head. “He’s not a bad kid, lady,” he says, smiling. “He’s just an artist.”

“Oh, lord, lord, he’s an artist,” she says, shaking her crazy old head. And I feel like I am looking at her from across the Pontchartrain, a dark, yawning gulf. “An artist!” she says. “You got to be taken care of, don't you? For the rest of your life!” Jon starts laughing harder, covering his face and really cracking up. I hold onto the pendant on my necklace and imagine the songs that could be poring out, right now, through the crack under the door of my small apartment, from my guitar lying on the floor, waiting for me. And I am grateful for St. Christopher, who will get me home safe.

-L2T
*Re-edited a bit, 2/11/06.