Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

He backs up again, shoots a quick look back to Peter. Strums a chord, lets it ring out.

“It’s a song about war, I guess — a war song. But it’s about the sadness of it all, which is something people don’t really see. People get so wrapped up in their anger, both sides, that’s all they know how to express. But there’s more. So here it goes.”

He starts his count again. Mute Peter stops him with a quickly raised finger.

“Oh, my god, the title. The song is called “The Lonely Night” —and two, three. .” Peter hits a minor chord and holds it — lets it ring. Ed picks the arpeggio slowly, awkwardly, as though he’s searching for the strings for the first time. They find each other’s tempo, agree on a common pace — a slow, rolling egg waltz. “Ooo. .” They’re both tenors. Ed’s singing voice is lispless. They hold the harmony for two bars and stop for two beats. Ed closes his eyes and sings:

Why do they drop two-ton

Bombs on the heads of the old?

It makes me so lonely.

Why do they drop two-ton bombs

On the heads of the babes?

I hear them fall.

And the change:

I’m so far away

Why do I feel this way?

I leave — back out the door like I’ve left something burning on the stove. I slow up a block away and then stop. Ed’s voice comes up in my head — the first line, “Why do they drop two-ton bombs. .” I start walking again and it lets up. The faster I go, the more it diminishes until, near running, it’s finally gone. I stop. It comes back full tilt — the limp, high, cloaked exhortation. I try to dispel it. Where was Al in his song before he was so rudely interrupted? The overlapping descending chorus of ooos. I’ve always wondered, marveled, at how he, in that song, in that moment where there should be some crescendo — some answer, manages every time I hear it, to avoid bathos in the anticlimax. “Hmm hmm hmmm-mm . .” The tone, so low and mellow. Maybe just an organ hanging on, mirroring the backing vocals. And then the blade-with-balm shriek, which throws up image after image for me: Gavin and his beer can litter; Shake’s gently dancing shoulders; Brian’s idiotic stoned grin; Lila’s twist of the knob up to the end of the AM dial; my father’s record stacks; the books he’d leave lying around the house, open. Sometimes when I was walking by, he’d stop me, “I love this part — listen.” Read what was to me an incomprehensible passage. It would knock me into a stupor. The words seemed to fly around the room with disparate half-formed images. I’d try to cling to something: “Seawrack” blah blah blah. “Seatangle.” All I really took with me was how the words behaved — explosives stashed in everything — the sofa, the television, his face — condemned structures awaiting implosion. “Seawrack” and “seatangle.” Watching something else grow in the destroyed face. His eyes, darting from the page to my face, regarding both with equal, unguarded affection. Standing there he was — what little chest he had puffed out — powerful, as if he’d just unlocked the secrets of some ancient tome, an unknown benevolent incantation so potent that merely thinking it dispelled all impotent and childish notions of magic and power.

I go back. There’s a young woman on the stage. She has crazy, long blonde ringlets that spill over her shoulders and onto her guitar. I don’t recognize the song, although it does sound familiar — open tuning, droning unfretted strings. Her voice spirals up from a strained and wavering tenor to a light, easy soprano like a big bird searching for a thermal strong enough to lift it. I can’t make out the words. They don’t seem to matter to her except for giving her a reason to sing.

She finishes, bows her head slightly to applause and chatter. A whistle. She raises her head sharply, throws her hair back and catches it behind her head with both hands. There’s something about her face — it’s difficult to tell from this distance, over and between heads in the smoky dark — the shapes perhaps; eyes and nose don’t match, maybe it’s the nose and forehead. It’s odd but not unattractive — beautiful even. She drops her hands and her hair drops too. Craig hoots, and I snap around to face him. “All right, Rosa!” He claps methodically. Rosa doesn’t respond. She checks her tuning and leans into the microphone, “This one’s called ‘The Seagull.’”

I wonder why she stopped her last one. This song sounds very much the same. It could’ve been, had she continued, a suite; slightly varied but linked songs, similar in melody, tone, and performance — or at least her hair. Perhaps none of us in the audience knows that it’s the reason we’re listening, because we could all just go home and put on a Joni Mitchell record rather than listen to Rosa fall short of the mark. Perhaps it’s her odd face, covered by the cascade. From where I’m standing she looks small. Perhaps it’s my distance. Maybe the guitar’s too big or the stool too tall, her hair, or the sum of all these factors. She finishes, stands, and bows. Craig is up there in the wings to congratulate her — an aborted lip kiss that morphs into a hug and a cheek-to-cheek rub.

“Give it up for Rosa, people. Great stuff. Thank you.” He checks his clipboard. “Okay, next we have Polly. Get ready for something edgy, folks.”

Polly jumps up on the stage then pulls a medium-size amp up, then an electric guitar. Craig asks if she needs help, and she hands him the plug for the amp. He jumps off the stage, grabs an idle extension cord, plugs the amp in, and gives her the thumbs-up. She thanks him with a nearly imperceptible nod. She stands and pushes Rosa’s stool aside. She’s tall, perhaps even taller than Craig. She readjusts the high mike stand and lowers the short one to the level of her amp. She looks fully ready to rock — an all-black Fender Stratocaster, Marshall amp, an indigo tank top one size too small and indigo leather pants, the pattern on which, I realize as she stands up there knock-kneed, form the stars and bars of the Confederate flag. She hits a chord, loud and distorted, shakes the silver bangles on her wrists out of the way, down her forearms, and hits two chords this time. Someone lets out a whoop, then there’s a whistle, finally a rebel yell, which is echoed by another.

“How y’all doin’ out there?” She has bright red hair that even I in these conditions can tell is dyed. It’s cut short and frozen stiff by some beauty aid. Her eyes are heavily penciled — black. She stomps a motorcycle boot on the hollow plywood platform, rips off a loud lick, another chord. “How ’bout some Jimi?” The audience responds with an affirmative roar. She counts off to herself—“. . two and. .” Ascending notes — bom bom bomp — bom bom bomp. She sings, “Manic Depression.” Her voice is thin, but she tries to pretend that she can bark and snarl. I squeeze into the little space between the big window and the turn of the bar. Craig hasn’t returned to his post. He’s up front, sitting at the first table with Rosa. She watches Polly while he watches her, checking to see if she likes it or not — so that he can wear the appropriate face. Ed talks to Peter across the next table. I can’t see either face, but Ed’s head occasionally jumps forward. Peter nods and turns every so often to Polly, who’s now into an extended, bombastic solo. The bartender taps next to my hand. I come up out of watching.

“Need anything, brother?”

“I’m good, thanks.” He winks at me, takes his drink from beneath the bar, and kills it. I grab a napkin and dab at it with my pen in hopes of coming up with a song list. “Everybody Is a Star” —I cross it out.