Friday Blasts and Other Things

You think Lupita Nyong’o was the biggest thing that happened this year, don’t you? And what else? Her brother photo bombing a selfie at the Oscars? Mhhhh [clears throat. Adjusts self on the seat. Nails you with a glance]. I have a surprise for you [lowers voice]. Forget Lupita (though she is devilishly cool). Forget the selfie, will you? I present to you Jimmy and Nora [pauses]. They are my friends. You’ve got to meet them, because nothing I say here can possibly do justice to the awesomeness that they are. It will fall painfully short, what I say. And I will blame myself. I will call myself vain for thinking I could summon the wherewithal to narrate The Great Friendship Story.

They have quite a story. They left the drowsy streets of Teulon, these two, because they could not stand their mayor, Mr. Benninger. The mayor was applying a bit too much make-up on Teulon, a little town in the armpits of Quebec, a province in Canada. He was hoping to present Teulon to the world as a lady but Teulon was just a girl still. Teulon could not cross her legs yet much less carry a purse. Or wear mascara. And all that make-up, all those buildings replacing forests and farmlands, was hiding her real beauty. So Jimmy and Nora, keen on conserving the innocence of Teulon, stopped and talked with friends about the issue. Then with the mayor. They pushed for a change of policy, perhaps. Nothing gave. They grew angry. They got angrier, and agitated. At some point they caused ruckus and protested bitterly. Still nothing. At last when it dawned on them that they could not change a thing they showed Mr. Benninger the middle finger. The glorious middle finger. Told him he could kiss their ass. They packed their bags and left. And spent the next several months combing the Caribbean – farming, making friends, attending concerts, bonding, fighting, making up, laughing, making love, living their fantasies. I wrote about them here after I met them the first time. Lovely people; really lovely, the kind that girls see and gasp, “Awww, they’re so cute together, oh my gosh!!!”

I thought I wasn’t going to see them again. Ever. Drifters like them cross paths with you just once. You are lucky if you meet them again. They disappear, like fog. But they linger in your mind long after you part, and rush at you at unexpected moments. You could be walking down a crowded street someday several months or even years later and you catch, within earshot, someone call their name. And you hear a response, a familiar voice. And you turn to look but you cannot tell who responded or who called. The street is crowded and everyone's on the move. You wait a second time but the voice doesn’t call again. And memories of them come rushing back, flooding your mind.

Jimmy wrote me an email recently. It looked more like a note, you know, the sort that you scribble and slide under the door when you visit but no one’s home. There was no salutation, and he did not sign off either. Looked like he scribbled it then took off after his point was made. Or maybe a gust of wind blew him off, like a fly, before he could finish. He’s so skinny, you know, and so there’s always that danger. His point was made, though. He was inviting me to join them again. He said they would be in town.

Later that week I find myself seated at the end of a long dinner table, which is basically three or so tables rammed end to end to create that Romanian effect. The restaurant is Italian-owned, am told -  a cute little spoon with candles burning inside colored holders on every table, and soft fluty music oozing from overhead speakers. And a pretty cool retro décor. It's a quiet, mellow place. It feels almost lonesome for me – the long drawn out flute chords, the candles, the frozen pictures on the wall. Add to that the fact that waiters at this restaurant almost tiptoe around the room when they take orders or deliver them or refill glasses… I guess it’s the kind of dinner setting they call highbrow in the hospitality circles. Big shots come here to get a peace of mind. How elegantly highbrow. How stiff. To their credit, however, the food really comes through. It’s worth the hype.

Within minutes am so bored ideas start frothing in my mind. The rascal in my head tells me to get up and step on the table, and walk end to end peeing on the candles while swaying my waist and singing that funky Bob Marley song Caution the road is wet/ Black soul is black jet…/When you wet it slippery yeah/When you dump it crumpy… I have not seen Jimmy yet. Nora either. Apparently they’d said they were running late and had left word for the “host” – a young cool stylish guy with a ghoulish sense of humor – to see to it that am well received. He speaks quietly, this guy, like someone who's sure of what he's saying. Says his name is Paul (I forget his second name). I can pick from his accent that he’s Brit (or maybe he’s lived there). He looks exactly like the latest Batman, Ben Affleck, I mean exactly. When I first met him - outside the restaurant – I mentioned that to him and he had growled, “Innit?” I bet that night he stood before his bathroom mirror and muttered, “Stirred or shaken? Do I look like I give a shit?” He is seated across the table from me.

To his left sits Ben Affleck’s lovely girlfriend. Clear blue eyes. Amazing tan. Brilliant conversationalist. Down to earth. Gracious. Oh, so damned gracious. She has a face right out of film noir, a face meant to be shot in black and white. She keeps blushing, though…but I think that’s because some guys in the table behind me are pouting at her, blowing her kisses in the air. She is training to be a nurse. She’s also mad about animal rights and volunteers at an animal orphanage. She turned 24 a few days ago and the dinner is in her honor.

To my right, scattered in six or so seats are a bunch of their friends and their girlfriends or boyfriends. Not everybody here knows the other and so there’s a lot of “nice to meet you” talk going. There’s the silent Arab-looking guy a few seats away, with a puff of hair spilling from under his gray hat. He has a beard, giving him the look of a prophet. Next to him is his girl, sitting with one leg folded under her. She keeps rubbing herself on the guy, touching his beard. And prophet doesn’t seem to mind, who would? There's something I find oddly funny about this girl and those beards but I can't tell what it is. Next to the prophet and miss prophet (or is it prophetess) is a dreadlocked guy. You know the odiero dreads that hippies wear? He’s quiet now but as the evening wears on he evolves into a potty mouth. He is funny as hell. Next to him is an arty looking black guy in spectacles (Albert) who I later learn is from Haiti. And I was right; he paints! Next to him too, as seems the rule, is his girlfriend. As we go round the table introducing ourselves and her turn comes, Albert steps up and says that she speaks very little English, very rudimentary. So he comes to her aid. She’s called Myou (hehehe). I don’t believe that name. Even if you pay me I wouldn't; she doesn’t look like a Myou. I think he made it up. Goodness, Albert!

Now am going to say something a little girlie here, whatever that means. I noticed that there is something deep about these two; they look like they truly deserve each other. Seriously, they do; there’s an ease between them. An effortless attraction. Am not saying they are in love, but I can tell that they are friends and that is better than love any day. Well, next to Myou is this skinny guy who’s been smiling the whole evening. He has blonde hair and a mischievous face. He looks stoned. Julius. He has the habit of punctuating the end of each sentence with an expectant smile when he speaks, like a happy question mark. He’s Jimmy’s home buddy. He protested with them in Teulon. Jimmy and Nora tell me he’s their comrade. They were in the trenches together. I could tell the camaraderie (sorry I could touch it) between them when Jimmy and Nora finally pitch up. Nora lets out an “awww” and puts a bit of a sprint to her step when she sees Julius. It’s raw joy. She runs over and hugs and kisses him on the cheeks. And hugs him again, holding on to him tight for several seconds. And weeps into his jacket. When they finally pull back, she holds him at a distance, hands cupping his shoulders, and looks into his face as if she were appraising a painting. There's a film of moisture over her eyes. They are alive with love, the joy of meeting an old friend, a comrade. Julius’ eyes are watery too. But Jimmy’s standing there fighting back the tears. A viking. A titan. Schwarzenegger. He's from that dated school that subscribes to the maxim that crying is a feminine vocation, something that would injure his street cred. He's not down with it, hell no. The rest of us know that he’ll soon succumb, just wait. Oh yeah, there goes Jimmy. Jimmy succumbs, breaks down like a sand statue hit by a wave.

PS: A bit of house keeping before I proceed. It’s getting a bit redundant (no, very redundant) saying Jimmy and Nora, Jimmy and Nora, like this is some hip hop song from Dr. Dre's studio. I’ll just say J&N from now on, okay? Okay. I'm just being polite by the way. Whether you consent or not doesn't really matter [winks]. Your vote doesn't count in this part of the woods because this is not a democracy after all (hehehe). I run this ship (with an iron fist) and what I say sails ;). Alright. 

Jimmy’s uncle is here too (with his wife). All four of them walked in together but he escaped our notice because of that slight moment when love got the better of J&N and Julius. Our very gracious host had let the elderly couple take their seats at the head of the table. They had quietly waited for the Walhalla to die down before the uncle, a jolly man in crutches, shot out aloud, “You can tell that we’ve been partying hard, right?” raising his crutches aloft. Everybody laughs; we get it. He laughs too. He’s a retired stock broker. Lives on a farm in some rural Canadian town (whose name I forget now) with his wife, also retired. A former school teacher. They crack all of us up the whole time, regaling us with funny, witty tales, making everybody open up and engage. They breathe life into the assemblage. They have two daughters who’ve already moved out – one to Montreal and the other to Ontario. And at one point during the evening while talking about his family, he flashes out his phone, a beat-up old thing with an antenna and says, “My daughters call me on this [clears throat]…from out there where they live. My girls. Their distant voices at times saying to us how stressful it gets living out there in the city, you know? Really sad to hear because then you remember the little girl playing and running in the backyard, her little joyous laughter ringing, floating in the air like a haze. But I secretly smile sometimes because I know that what they really mean is that they cannot seem to find a guy as cool as their dad hehehe. It’s the…”

“Honey you cannot say that; it’s not proper,” his wife interjects, cutting him mid-sentence. 

“Oops! Am sorry honey [a little silence] It’s all that drink talking,”

 “I told you to go slow on it…”

Silence. He looks around. A drunk dreamy look. And changes the topic. Wise man indeed. Knows how to choose his battles. The restaurant manager walks up to our table and announces that they are about to rearrange the place because they are hosting a band and some spoken word artists tonight. He requests that we move to an adjacent room - still a part of the restaurant - for just a few minutes. We oblige. It is here that I get to chat with J&N. He still looks like a forked carrot in his skinny pants and that Mohawk cut. Nora’s changed a little bit. She’s dropped that Gestapo cook look. Her hair’s not clean-shaven any more. She has a head-wrap on but flowing black hair is spilling out from under it at the back of her neck, as though not content to stay caged in the wrap. They say they are headed back home to Teulon with his uncle. Jimmy’s dad insists he (Jimmy) has to “get his life back together”. He’d expressed an interest in Law and now he (the dad) wants him to come back and apply to law school. And “quit playing silly games running around the world with an equally silly girlfriend”. Jimmy had taken offence at his dad calling Nora silly and it had taken the intervention of his uncle to convince him to come home.

The uncle and his wife join us briefly, between talking with the other fellows. Oh boy, the old bloke can talk. And he has these nuggets of wisdom that he rolls out when he’s having a conversation. They are pillars on which his words rest, I guess. You get the impression that you are staring down a deep well of lore. One that has seen generations come and go.

About an hour later we are invited in. Time check 9:17. The place has been transformed. There’s more buzz now. Patrons are milling in, taking their seats. And the place fills up pretty quickly. The band tonight is a five-man terror squad, led by a black dude called Beal. They have a drummer. I love his grooves, how he fills the spaces between. I like how he fills them with swanky little chops. They have a bass guitar player. This guy is a boss; he makes that bass line walk the talk. The melody guitar is holding court in the hands of a wizard donning a t-shirt written “I made you a cookie…but I eated it”. There’s a guy on the saxophone, who is glorious. The saxophone weaves in and out so gaily, creating such a bewitching, enchanting harmony. Then of course there’s Beal on the mic, with a trombone in hand. In addition, the bass guitar man, the drummer and the wizard of the melody guitar have a mic each. They give Beal vocal back-up. They are a gas.

The band starts out with old songs, renditions from the past. They play Otis Redding’s Sitting on the dock of the bay, Marvin Gaye’s Let’s get it on, Tracy Chapman’s Crossroads, and some other jams from back in the day. Beal’s voice sucks blood from the room leaving the crowd pale but giddy with admiration. For the next 3 hours or so they share the stage with some spoken word artists. They alternate; the MC invites the artists to take to the mic for about 30 or 40 minutes and then calls the band, back and forth. Most of the spoken word poets are rock solid and deep. They are steely. A few rise above the fray and really stare you down. There’s a poet called Khemut. That's her stage name. She does a descriptive piece about young people in a small Spanish town, being recruited to the mines by a coal mining company. I really love her writing, and her delivery. It’s really beautiful to hear a poet who loves words and the feel they make in the mouth, and the sounds they make on the ear. “We live where pigeons come to die…” says the narrator’s mother…Oooooh, that line better be locked up quick; it kills me. Khemut is a hoot, and you can tell that she’s a veteran of the slam circuit.

For the last one hour Beal’s band launches into its own compositions. I’ve never heard of them but they sure have that groove, that kind that uproots you and makes you move. Drinks are temporarily forgotten. Everyone’s on their feet,even the ones with three left feet like yours truly.

Beal is great. He's great because he sings from the soul. He sings from a place of conviction, as though the secret to his very survival is wrapped inside those lyrics and those chords. Around 1 o’clock they announce that they are about to go but someone shouts from the crowd that they should do one last song – Stop that Train, the Wailers. That was a mistake. They kill it. You might think they’d been waiting for it. Maybe they had, but that song wrings out any emotion that was left of the evening. They put their soul to it and go for its pulse. Beal’s voice is escorted by a sax, soulful vocal back-up and a lingering guitar, a guitar that lingers through the room like an erotic spasm through the backbone. A girl from the audience walks up to him and holds his left hand with both of her hands. She actually clings on to him. Since he is standing on a slightly raised platform this girl has to then look up to him, like he’s the messiah. She looks up to him like she’s been a bad bad girl and now seeks redemption. The imagery is powerful. She searches his eyes, but Beal is not looking at her eyes even though he lets her cling on his hands.

I love this imagery because in my mind it illustrates the power of music, the power of lyrics and the written word, the power of that guitar. I am confident that that girl is completely and insanely in love with him, if only for this moment. When the song crawls to an end the crowd shouts for an encore. Beal, all sweaty and smily, looks at them and says, “Next time guys. Next time…Thank you all for coming!” He makes a small bow and exits with his band. What follows them is a ruckus of clapping and cheering.