A musician finds her world changing and faces tough challenges and decisions. An unusual passenger on a late night bus ride has the music to sooth her soul.
Jodie packed up her guitar and searched for Mario, the club’s owner. Reasonably certain that she had played her last gig, she wanted to make sure he paid her. She found him in a dark corner talking to a scrawny blond in a dress Jodie figured she applied with a roller rather than pulled on over her head. A roller that ran dry before it completely covered her thong.
“Hey, Mario, I’m finished. You owe me $120 for tonight.”
“I don’t know if I should pay you for that last set. You were shitty.”
“Yeah, I get that way when I have to dodge beer bottles.”
“It was only one, and you could have ignored the asshole. I bet he wouldn’t a thrown it if you didn’t flip him off.”
“Can you pay me?” While he went to the cash register, Jodie looked around at the crowd. In the few years she’d been playing there, stiletto heels and sequence dresses had replaced jeans and tennis shoes. The style of music the crowd wanted changed, too. Not just in Mario’s club, but all around Chicago. Acoustic guitars, banjos, harmonicas, and stand up bass fiddles faced fierce competition from electric bands and screaming groupies.
The rest of Jodie’s band had already seen the future and made the switch to hard rock instead of the traditional folk and blues they’d played. Jodie could listen to rock, but she had no desire to play it. When they asked her to stay with the band, she told them no, and they went on without her. It might have been professional suicide, but she thought giving up the music she loved would have been a suicide of the soul. Now, she wondered if she might have blown it. At forty, going back to school to start a new career wasn’t likely. All she wanted was to play her music, but if bars and clubs no longer wanted acoustic music, they no longer wanted her.
“Here.” Mario handed her six twenties. “I’ll call you when I need you again.”
“Right.” She slid the money in the back pocket of her jeans and left.
The temperature had dropped about fifteen degrees since she arrived three hours earlier. As Jodie turned toward the bus stop, she saw that a light snow had covered everything in a thin white blanket. She looked over her shoulder and laughed at the lone footprints that followed her. “If I had a camera, I’d take a picture and call it ‘Portrait of a musician out of step with the times’.” When she turned back, her foot slipped on the icy covering and she hit the sidewalk.
“Ouch.” Jodie laid her hand on the back of her head and looked around to see if anyone saw the down and out musician fall on her ass. She struggled to her knees, leaned on the guitar case, and pushed herself up to a standing position. As she finished brushing off the snow, she looked up to see the bus arriving.
Her big box Guild guitar and the hard shell case weighed almost twenty pounds and it took a little effort to lift it and climb the stairs. She ran her pass through the fare box and watched the silent red light on the top turn green, to urge her along. The satisfying ‘kchink’ of quarters dropping through the slot met the same fate as her music.
Turning from the driver she saw only one other passenger. A large African American woman sat on the first side seat. She filled a large part of the bench and looked up as Jodie boarded. “Ah, a musician. You any good or you just carry that thing around for show?”
Jodie sat on the bench seat opposite her and slid her guitar underneath. The woman had knitting needles in her hands and a colorful piece of fabric in her lap. Jodie’s first thought was of Madame DeFarge from ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. That makes sense. Blues and folk music will soon join Madame at the guillotine. “I think I’m good.” She told her. “Although the rock band they hired for the second half of the night had a bigger following.”
“Oh, I hear you, honey. What kind of music do you play?”
“Blues and folk mostly. I play some contemporary stuff to get work.”
“My name’s Rosie and I sing the blues, too. I left the Delta and came to Chicago in 1945, right after the end of the Second World War. Back then, you could walk up and down the storefronts on Maxwell Street and sit in with musicians from all over the country, and ‘til all hours of the morning.”
“Glad to meet you Rosie, I’m Jodie.”
“So tell me, girl, why are you so mournful?”
It surprised Jodie that Rosie knew how rotten she felt. “I guess I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve. I knew it would happen eventually, but most of the clubs I’ve played in are switching to rock bands and putting in dance floors. Acoustic music isn’t much in demand.”
“So you’re giving up?” She dropped her knitting in her lap and smiled. Jodie saw her eyes sparkle as if she meant the words as a challenge. “Why don’t you bring your axe out and we’ll see if you can do anything worth saving.” She did mean them as a challenge.
As she reached for her guitar case, Jodie glanced at the driver who watched in the mirror. He smiled and nodded. She adjusted the strap and checked the tuning then looked across at the woman who had returned to her knitting.
Rosie began humming a song Jodie recognized. A song written by Jim Cox in 1929, called Nobody Knows you When You’re Down and Out. Without taking her eyes off the woman, Jodie’s fingers squeezed the bronze strings against the rosewood neck and followed along.
Her hum soon became words.
“Nobody knows you when you’re down and out
In your pocket, not one penny
And your friends, you haven't any
And as soon as you get on your feet again
Everybody is your long lost friend
It's mighty strange, without a doubt, but
Nobody wants you when you're down and out”
It challenged her, but Jodie kept up with Rosie’s deep and powerful voice, and in fact, she could not remember playing better. She and the bus driver added harmonies, though Rosie needed little backup. Jodie even played a twelve-bar riff or two when the remarkable woman paused for a breath. She did not sing the notes. They burst from her lungs, delivered with a phenomenal range that stretched octaves like rubber bands.
The woman sang a few more songs and Jodie’s confidence grew. With each song, she tried mimicking her voice, but when Rosie stopped singing, she shook her head. “You’re pretty good, but use your own voice. You got a fine one and your music won’t be real unless you’re the one singing it. So, you plan on giving up? Feeling full of self-pity and thinking of getting into another kind of work, like night shifts in a convenience store. That ought to give you good reason for singing the blues.”
Before Jodie could answer, the driver yelled, “Hang on.” There was a loud noise and Jodie thought the bus slammed into something. She tried grabbing the bar but instead her head flew back into the window.
“Hey, are you all right?” Jodie heard a voice and found herself lying on the sidewalk in the snow. “Did you hear me?”
She looked at the man who knelt next to her. “What happened? Where’s the bus?”
“What bus?”
“The bus I was riding. I think it hit something and I slammed my head against the window.” She looked frantically at her guitar case. “Where’s my guitar?”
“I better call an ambulance.” He pulled out a cell phone. “I saw you fall when I was leaving Mario’s and when you didn’t get right up I came running. Did you hit your head on the sidewalk?”
“No, I thought I hit it on the window.” She put her hand on the tender spot on the back of her head. “How long was I laying here?”
“Only a few seconds. Your eyes were open when I got to you. Do you want me to call?” He held the phone so she could see it.
“No, thanks.” Jodie climbed to her knees and held on to the guitar case for support. Her rescuer stood and grabbed her elbow. “I think I might wave down a cab, though. I’m not sure I’m ready for another bus ride.”
When Jodie arrived at her apartment, she leaned her guitar against the wall and turned on the laptop. She had spent the entire cab ride examining what happened. Nothing made sense. She thought she recognized Rosie’s style, but it wasn’t of any contemporary blues singer. It must have been a dream or some strange kind of altered consciousness from the bump on her head. How could so much have happened in the few seconds she lay on the sidewalk?
The woman said her name was Rosie and she came to Chicago from the Delta. Jodie had leaned back on the couch, but shot forward, wide eyed. She entered “Delta Rose” in the search engine and followed the first link to a blues women’s site. Jodie swallowed as she looked at the face of the woman on the bus. Behind her, with his hands on her shoulders, was her son, the bus driver. She died in 1963 and he in 1987.
There was a quote under Rosie’s picture—“I’m gonna spend the rest of my days and then some, keeping the blues alive.”
“Wow, Rosie, you weren’t kidding were you?” Jodie took her guitar from the case and played. “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.”
Absolutely fabulous! Your best yet, and I just couldn't stop reading it. I think you should write a book of all your short stories. Can't wait to read the next!
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