Last Call at Whispers

The beer bottle struck the base player squarely in the face. It traveled over the heads of the crowd, like a bird darting from one bush to the next, or a fish racing from one corral head to another, only in this instance, it was a Miller High Life migrating over the heads of unassuming fusion jazz fans to land across the forhead of Groove Pocket’s bass player, Slim Walking, knocking his fedora right off. And as Slim bent over to retrieve his hat, one hand held to his face, while the other members of Groove Pocket stood by in unsyncopated shock, a voice rang out across the small dance floor at Whispers Jazz Lounge.

“Slim Walking, you broke my heart, and I hope you choke to death!”

The bartender came sailing over the bar, and the bouncer pushed his way from the entrance to the back of Whispers, where I now stand watching in awe as they pull my sister's arms behind her back and begin forcefully removing her from the bar.

Slim Walking squints into the stage lights. The crowd turns toward me, or rather toward the void my sister left behind her, and I clutch the neck of my now-warm dollar beer. I begin to question the last-minute invitation I accepted to join Marnie across town for the closing act at Whispers Jazz Lounge. I should have known the text was suspect. It came just after midnight on a Tuesday. It included a request that I wear a disguise. And Marnie had mispelled the name of the venue.

Hey sis is me Marnie lets us go to Wipers Jazz. I pick you up in 20 and wear yer hats and glasses?

I hadn’t heard from Marnie in weeks. It’s easy to lose track of the silences, the people who haven’t called, the people who might be stewing in their own heartbreak and growing revenge spores in the dark of their stuffy apartments. Marnie had never mentioned Slim Walking. The gold band on his left hand, now held over his lacerated forehead, may be why.

Her voice is carrying, bouncing off the asphalt and stucco out in the Whispers parking lot.

“You hear me, Walking? You hear me?? I hope you CHOKE TO DEATHHHHHHHH…” Marnie howls.

I want my legs to move, to follow her outside, but they’re frozen here to the sticky floor as I piece this puzzle together.

I’d thought Marnie was just keeping busy, caring for her neighbor, Ms. Simon, who’s housebound and got no family of her own, or wrapped up with Pickles and Edamame, the stray cats she took in, or working her two full-time jobs at the nursing home and Chickin’ Lickin’. She’s always looking after someone, Marnie is. But I should have asked.

Back when we were small, and summer was long, Marnie and I would sit on the hot concrete, chewing sourgrass stems that sprang up beside the green electrical box in front of our home. And Marnie, who was older than me but had no friends in bike-riding distance, would tell about her one-day wedding. She knew the colors of the bridesmaids’ dresses and the shape of the pearl earrings she’d wear that would dangle ‘gainst her neck. She’d have pink flowers and swans swimming in a pond just outside the church. But the man she’d marry never made an appearance in her stories. He was a faceless suit, standing at the end of the aisle. Presumed but not imagined. If he had been, he wouldn’t have looked a thing like Slim Walking.

Time stretches, though, like bubble gum grown flavorless, and you pull it between your fingers till it’s so thin it might snap. You find yourself working just to pay for a door to lock your things behind. Marnie’s hair turned more dishwater than blonde, and she’d stopped telling stories, stopped chewing on stems. She filled her life with serving. But I remember a time when Marnie dreamed of being served. When she was sure there were seats at tables with white cloths and silver-domed trays waiting in her future.

The drummer emerges from behind his kit and passes a handkerchief to Slim. The other members of Groove Pocket, whose name is emblazoned in felt letters across the bass drum, gather around him. The crowd shifts tensely, eyeing the door for the bartender’s return, because it’s nearly last call. And then Slim Walking steps forward, out of the light and into the shadow, eyeing me suspiciously. Course he is, Marnie and I are wearing matching hats. In what universe did we arrive separately, wearing cheap purple sequined cowboy hats? Marnie had them on the front seat when she picked me up and wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I donned that hat and insisted on driving.

“It’ll be a laugh,” she said, “now hurry, or we’ll miss the final act.”

When Marnie was moving out of our childhood home, I helped her label the boxes. Books. Blankets and Pillows. Stuffed Animals. Hats. She was only 17 and moving into her first apartment with Joe Billows, who was 25 and her manager at Yogurt Chill. I wondered if Joe Billows would be the faceless suit at the end of the aisle. I wondered if he wanted swans, too. He didn’t seem the type. Joe Billows had a thin mustache. My heart was adrift. How could my sister be my sister if she was living in the Meade Manor Apartments? Whose bed would I crawl into when I woke in the night?

Slim Walking lowers the handkerchief. “You friends with that crazy bitch?” he asks me, half spitting.

The people nursing dollar beers to my left and right turn to me. They tip their bottles back and drink their last warm dregs of swill. Their faces are sweaty. Like Slim’s upper lip. Like this whole shit hole that outta be called Wipers. Like the bottle that is in my hand that I let fly. It follows the arc of Marnie’s bottle. It comes home to roost.

Cuz that crazy bitch is my sister.