Marie-Helene Bertino - 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

Emo Sonofabitch Gladden solos. How he plays the trumpet: like a son of a bitch. His fingers are thick as garden carrots, but deft. He blows a phrase and it sounds like a girl saying, “come here.”

It is almost time for Alex’s solo. Lorca strums his son’s chords on his jeans. He wants to play it for him, but he can only watch.

The song surges into a different tempo. Alex pauses on the edge like a Northeast girl waiting to jump into double-Dutch, searching for the right height, or some incalculable readying of sound. Max calls out that this is his party and he loves to sing. The ropes go over and under and over and under.

Alex chases after a few notes, but they don’t please him. He hunts for a run he likes more. Gus’s percussion supports him as he noodles. Alex listens for chords in the strings, his eyes at a fixed point over the crowd. He finds it. He lands it again. The people at the front tables stop talking. Holding silver-rimmed liquor bottles to the mouth of a drink, Cassidy stops talking. Even Max, spraying saliva into the microphone, nods. The song collects behind Alex’s lead. He licks at something sparkling at the corner of his mouth. He takes a run, picks at a particular line, threads it, yes he says because he likes it, holds it, noses into it, asks if it has anything more, lets it go.

Lorca exhales. He guesses where his son will leap and is wrong every time. Can’t catch me , Alex’s tempos seem to say before leaping in wild directions. He’s better than this club already, it’s all over his posture, more like that of a visiting musician stopping off on his way somewhere better. An urge cracks beneath Lorca’s breastplate. He wants to be softer with Alex, encourage this tender talent. This is how it must feel to be a good father. But then the urge is replaced by helplessness; the amount of energy it would take to reverse the father he already has going would be too much. He can’t be expected to do that plus operate a club. If Alex keeps playing, all he’ll have are these balding nights with strangers. He’ll be surrounded by people like him, Max, and Sonny. This is no life. Who does Alex think he is? Lorca is filled by a quick, cheap anger. Alex has made it impossible to father him. Then this feeling too parts and is replaced. Lorca is tired of trying to keep the club together. The keg orders, the rotting basement, the floors that cling to their stains. Lorca wants to sit in a boat with no task more urgent than finding a fish with bait. He slumps next to Sonny at the bar, weary from this rearrangement of disposition, though only a short time has passed, the time it takes Alex to reposition his guitar, bringing the neck within breath’s distance so he has easier access to its strings.

Max yells, rolls. The song builds to one repeating line that Alex solos over.

“I’m burning,” Max sings. “I’m burning, I’m burning.”

Alex’s notes go under and over and under and over.

“Look everyone,” the Cubanistas sing, “he’s burning.”

It’s up to Alex to gather the whole mess like a family: Max’s baying, Gus’s percussion, Emo’s snivelly, choppy horn. But he’s having too much fun.

“I’m burning,” Max yells.

“He’s burning,” the Cubanistas sing.

Alex lands the final chord and releases the room. The club goes blank with noise. The crowd can’t get to their feet fast enough. They yell through megaphones they construct from their hands. Max applauds himself, the band, and Alex.

“Not too shabby,” he says into the microphone, forgetting his accent.

Alex kneads sweat into the denim of his thigh. He blinks toward where his father is, though he cannot see him through the gluten of bodies.

Sonny whistles and stomps. “Good job, Dad,” he says to Lorca.

A young girl looks up. “Are you his dad?”

“He sure is, darling.” Sonny beams.

“Does he have …” Her friends close ranks around her. One of them finishes her question. “… a girlfriend?”

Three pairs of eyes lined in charcoal wait for Lorca to answer. The muscles in his back tense with pride. “Single as a bluebird,” he says.

Onstage, Alex is being tousled and hugged by the Cubanistas. Max makes a show of fending off the audience. Alex is congratulated to the bar, where the trio of girls bluff errands in their purses, fuzz on their stockings.

“Drink?” Cassidy says.

“Whiskey, please.” He turns to his father. His eyes are slick. “How’d I do, Pop?”

Lorca doesn’t answer.

“Pop?”

“You were great, kid.” Sonny pounds his shoulders. But Alex wants to hear it from his father.

“You showboated behind Emo’s solo,” Lorca says. “You should have been supporting him, letting him take the chances.”

Sonny winces. “Come on, Lorc.”

“May we please have the little guitarist back onstage?” Max hums into the microphone. “ Leetle guitarist?”

Alex gets his whiskey and goes back onstage, no longer smiling.

Three pairs of charcoal eyes scrutinize Lorca. “Damn,” says the first girl. “I wouldn’t want to be your son.”

It gets TOAD away!” Sarina exclaims, before he can answer. Ben’s mouth contorts, trying not to laugh.

Sarina’s face is serious. “For example,” she says. “What happens when a frog’s car breaks down?”

Ben taps his foot against the bleacher, thinking.

“Give up?” she says.

He throws out his hands in phony exasperation. “Give a man some time to think.”

“Can you do better?” Ben says.

“In my sleep, fella. I’ve got jokes for days.”

Ben and Sarina sit on bleachers at the baseball field on Chestnut. A mural of autumn trees stretches over the entire wall of a row home across the street. Their clothes are almost dry. “This public art is getting out of hand,” Sarina says.

“Did you hear the one about the two leaves?” Ben says. “Sitting on a branch together? One leaf turns to the other and says, ‘It’s really windy.’ And the other leaf says, ‘Help, a talking leaf!’ ”

Sarina rolls her eyes. “Major groan.”

A breeze bickers around the bleachers. Sarina hugs her coat tighter. “What time do you think it is?”

“It could be eleven or three and I’d believe it.” Ben consults his watch. “Twelve forty-three.”

She asks if he wants to talk about it. He doesn’t answer. A cab slows in front of them. Its driver calls, “You two want a ride?”

Ben waves. “We’re fine, thanks.”

The cabdriver regards them with longing. “Olde City? Northern Liberties? Ten dollars.”

“Christian Street,” Ben says.

“Five dollars.”

Sarina’s feet ache, but a cab ride will end their night sooner than she wants. “It’s late,” she says, hoping he’ll protest. “Maybe I should go home.”

“Can you do two stops?” Ben asks the cabbie.

“I can do anything.”

“Deal.” Ben says. He climbs in and Sarina, disappointed, follows. The cab is lit by strands of jalapeño and twinkle lights.

“So glad,” the cabbie says. “I was about to fall asleep. You two just married?”

“Why would you guess that?” Sarina is pleased.

The cabbie’s face glows red then green. “Friendly talk.”

“Not married,” Ben says.

He answered fast, she thinks. It wouldn’t be hell, being married to her. She knows some things about some things.

“I get it,” the cabbie says. “Won’t commit. Wants to go to the club with her girlfriends. Doesn’t want to be wired to some guy day and night.”