The Music Is The Moment

Suppose you turned west onto 33rd off of Peoria at 6:07 this morning. Suppose, despite the red “private drive” street sign, you went past the low grey building and the medical plaza, and towards the twisting and smoothly paved office complex along Crow Creek. Suppose you looked to your left. No, not the dumpsters. Not the large commercial oven abandoned in the middle of the parking lot. Come on, it’s hard to miss. Yes, there. Next to the little silver car with the doors wide open. It’s a girl in a blue polka dotted skirt. She is alone in an empty alleyway, and she is dancing to beat the band. Music is pouring into her limbs and the silent, potential charged morning air, revving the day and her body to life. The Arcade Fire’s “Rebellion (Lies)” has gotten to this gyrating and twisting girl. She can’t go to work, she cannot start her day. This song, this rhythm. She’s caught mid routine. So she dances, she must, she greets the day with nothing less than it deserves, spontaneous and undeniable joy.

- - -

Two girls flutter like moths in a glass lantern behind the windows of the shop, empty and locked, the last lights still glowing on their block. One pushes a broom, one tidies behind the counter. Every few minutes, few tasks, one of their mouths opens wide, you can see their diaphragm and vocal chords constrict as they bawl to one another at the top of their lungs. They stand, yards apart, holding a screaming conversation for minutes at a time, their rags and mops abandoned while they share some new gossip or advice. Step closer to the window. You can hear it now, “Coming out of my cage and I’ll be doing just fine . . . started out with a kiss how did it end up like this?”. The large glass windows vibrate slightly from the volume. Turn it down? They’d just as soon turn down this CD as deny their conversations for the sake of a quicker close-up. The one with the mop slaps the soapy head to the floor with a flourish. Oh man, this is a good one . . . “Bring it back down bring it back down tonight . . .”

- - -

She rolls the window down as she navigates the bumps of the intersection and coasts along the access road. It’s now fully dark and the oppressive day’s heat has begun to lift. She feels the breeze move over her freshly showered skin, almost refreshing though still tempered with the smell of asphalt and the tendrils of humidity that hang over Tulsa like an atmospheric garland for a five month stretch. Air moves through her hair, newly freed from it’s paste of food and sweat, across her body, freed from it’s nine to five minimum wage uniform. “When your favorite corner bar is full of people you don’t know, when you’ve pawned off all your records and your tools to pay the rent . . .” Chris Staple’s comforting voice sings, twanging guitars and drawling drums reiterate. It’s finally Friday, it’s the weekend. She’s got ten dollars in her pocket and a girlfriend waiting for a ride to the bar. A cold beer, a good cigarette, a chance to dream and plan with her loved ones. This is what underpaid work in a slavish kitchen means, the chance for these things. It is entirely worth it.

- - -

I splashed about in my enormous bathtub, happily flopping a washcloth to and fro. My cat wanders in, primly avoiding the spray, poking his head above the tub’s edge. I gasp to him, “Ben, I love this song!” “Frantic [Roman Polanski Version]” has come on the random selection of the ipod hooked up in the other room. I sing, soapy and warm, pleading to Benjamin, “Say something romantic, this feeling I can’t stand it! . . . I don’t wanna be a human trampoline anymore!” I reach out to him as I croon and he leaps away from my wet, Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint All-One soap scented embrace, attacking a towel with a look at me that says, “You try that on me again and you’re next.”