A flash from my belly in Flash Friday

Ever since the accident, Charlie, the Bass man, has been drinking his whiskey through a straw. There’s a cigarette burning on the piano but no ones on the stage but the house lights and someone’s lost hat. Cheryl said she’d come home with me, but she’s talking to Bruno and there’s bad blood there, and maybe when I get off shift I’ll think about being someone else.

Well the natives are getting restless, but they ain’t the natives from around here, and they shuffle in their seats and pay for drinks in contraband. The band shuffles to the stage and subwat tokens fall at their feet and razor blades because no ones seen a rose in decades except on the old black and white.

The set opens with an old blues that whathisname stole from that one guy who might have heard it on the street, and Cheryl’s dancing with a sailor or some guy in a sailor suit. After a while everyone looks the same except for the clothes and when the cops ask everyone is average, a man or a woman, light or dark hair or eyes, but they’re wearing a members only jacket laundered through the Salvation army some relative donated for the deceased.

The saxophone takes a solo that makes everyone feel a little dirty inside, like they saw an immaculate angel and just wanted to fuck it. And he rides his 44 bars of barroom short like Brando on an Indian panhead, Charlie, on the bass, anchors him down, and Christ he’s hard to look at since the accident.

Harry lights a cigarette and takes his solo on the piano, puffing out smoke like an old engine burning oil, and everyone thinks about some woman they lost or misplaced or some guy or all the holes where women and guys ain’t.

And when my shift ends the waitress tips me out and the band folds bills into their pockets and the parking lot mutters as engines catch and people go off alone, except for maybe Cheryl. I lock up the joint and everything is quiet except my boot heels and the buzzing of the sign for Budweiser.