"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm a little wired."
"Hey! Honestly! It's no problem," said Tony. "It's just nice to have someone to talk to." Tony took a drink of his beer. "This is a great place. I bet Alvin would have loved it. Hey! There's a band! Cool!"
The band was setting up. An antennae-thin bald man was awkwardly adjusting a mike stand with a beer bottle clenched in his right hand. A girl with bright pink hair shrugged out of an army jacket and tossed it on of the amps. She was wearing a pink bustier and a black and white polka-dot skirt.
"I used to be in a band," Tony said. "It was ages ago. Back in school. I have no idea if we were any good or not. I was too nervous to judge. I don't just mean when we were playing in front of people. I was nervous all the time. I played bass. I might have been terrible or I might have been a genius. I might have been better than Tony Levin. I just don't know. Too nervous. Every time up I picked up the bass I would just blank out. It was like temporary memory loss."
"Didn't anyone else give you any clue about whether you were any good or not?" I asked. "No one ever said anything like, 'You suck!' or 'You rock!'?"
"No, not really. We were too young and they were all too polite. I mean, everyone said I was good but I didn't really trust them because I had no idea if they were any good or not. People who really care about music have such strong views, don't you think? I mean it seems the only way you can trust anyone who knows anything about music is if they hate most of it. I always find it a struggle to really hate a song. It all sounds pretty good to me. I mean, I know I'm supposed to hate Celine Dion, but, you know, sometimes her stuff is kind of pleasant. But the people who seem to care about music hate Celine Dion. They hate tons of songs. And usually they're far more interested in talking about what they don't like than what they do. So, because I didn't really hate anything, I didn't trust my own judgement when it comes to music. And most of the people I knew back then didn't seem to hate anything either. So I can't trust them."
I was beginning to lose focus. I drank some more of coffee. It had cooled down. I could feel the caffeine providing a gentle hum to the foggy organ that was my brain. I was grateful that the girl in the band had chosen a bright pink motif. It gave my eyes an easy focus point.
"Well, I think this band tonight is going to be fantastic," I said. "It's pink."
"Pink?"
"Pink," I repeated. "The band is pink. Look". I gestured at the girl on the stage. For some reason there was a glass of beer in my hand. Some of the beer spilled on the ground. I carefully put the glass down and examined my hand. How had the beer glass got there?
"Oh," said Tony. "I thought Pink was the name of the band. But you just mean the girl is wearing pink."
"And she has a pink head," I pointed out.
"I think it might be a wig," said Tony.
"We're not debating the reality of her hair!" I said, possibly louder than I meant to. "The significant aspect of the top of that woman is that it's coloured pink."
I looked around the table. Both of my coffee cups were empty. "I need another coffee," I said. "Do you want one?"
"No thanks."
"Back in a second." I brought the empty cups back to the bar. "I'd like a couple of refills," I told the barman. The bar was getting louder. It was getting harder to hear individual sounds. Maybe more coffee would help bring some clarity to the noise. I needed to have my senses sharp when the band began playing. I brought the coffees back to the table one at a time.
Leave a comment