chapter 9

Nina’s eyes were watering heavily from all the cigarette smoke that was coming her way from all directions of the poorly-ventilated, underground-basement space of the ‘White knuckle’. She was rephrasing from rubbing them since that made them sting with even stronger dedication. Jay had gone over to the bar to order some drinks for them, so she had currently been left alone the corner table to observe the elaborate characters that were populating the club through misty clouds of tears and smoke.

A tall, hefty lady teetering heavily on stiletto heels, wearing a long sequined dress and ostrich-feather headband approached Nina, where upon reaching her she rested her hands on her waist accusingly and asked her if she wanted anything to drink. The lady, who Nina realized was in fact a man, had a very heavy voice for which no attempts had been made to alter into sounding more effeminate and a black, painted-on beauty mark on the side of her lips. Nina explained that her friend had gone over to the bar to get drinks and that her kind services would not be required. The lady did not seem to mind at not having a customer to serve but was awfully interested in Nina’s attire which in her own words appeared to be “strange and unbecoming”. “You can only wear a conductor’s outfit if you are in fact a conductor. Everyone knows this!” she yelled out repulsed. “What world are you from?”

“Actually, now that you mention it, I am not from around here. In fact where I am from, this world shouldn’t even exist” Nina told her with an innocent smile.

“Not exist? How come all of us that live here think it exists, then? Maybe we’re all having a well orchestrated, mass hallucination. Is that what you’re suggesting?” the waitress yelled and stormed out. Nina was starting to enjoy herself immensely and thought that she indeed really was enjoying the service as the flyer suggested.

As she rested herself comfortably on her seat again she noticed that the chair next to her was being pulled backwards by an unassuming, thin young man dressed in stripy, flannel pajamas. “That’s the problem with empty adjacent seats. You never know who is going to sit next to you” he offered her apologetically as he sat himself down and rested his head against the wall. He looked like he was trying to make himself as small and invisible as possible.

“I really don’t mind you sitting next to me”, Nina told him with kindly.

The young man was taken aback at her kind remark at first but at Nina’s insistence on smiling warmly at him, relaxed somewhat and pulled his chair a little closer towards her. “Would you like to hear a story?” he asked. “It isn’t a very good one. But it is true.”

Nina agreed with obvious delight so he did just that. His story was short and sweet and was told with passion and great elocution. In it, the main characters went through a fair amount of trouble, tried to find a way out of their trouble while staying true to themselves and then in the end they actually achieved it. Upon reaching the happy ending though, of which Nina was more than happy to hear, the story-teller’s face turned apologetic and squeamish. When he finally ended his story, to Nina’s zesty clapping, he apologized for the pathetic way that the story had ended. “I know that I’m not supposed to give stories a happy ending and that it is childish and unrealistic, but I cannot help myself. It simply comes out like that no matter how hard I try. That’s why I’m not very successful at it, you see.”

“Nonsense!” Nina cried out. “I love happy endings and they are not unrealistic, no matter what other people might say. In fact, I hate watching movies or reading books in which while everything seems to be going well, goes wrong right before the end. It makes me feel cheated. The writer or the director both seem to be mocking me personally. You know those ending movie shots where the camera zooms out of the afflicted protagonist’s sinking features as he is staring directly at us, the audience, searching for hope? I hate those.”

Her explanation seemed to put the young story-teller in a fairly better mood than before though he apologetically stated that he was essentially unconvinced of the rationality of her convictions however grateful he was for finding someone who actually liked his stories. At that moment Jay returned with two glasses of red wine and seated himself on the vacant seat on the other side.

“I hope there will be some dancing soon”, she told him thoughtfully. “I’ve come a long way you know. So we have to dance. It’s the best way to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Celebrate the fact that I feel like celebrating. And here’s to hoping that I feel like that every day from now on”, she said raising her glass.

The band that would be providing them with the live music entertainment for the night was filing onto the stage and beginning to tune their instruments. Nina immediately recognized the conscientious ukulele tuner from Modigliani Road holding on to a bouzouki with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth again. The rest of the band was formed by a gypsy lady with a tambourine wearing a long skirt and a red carnation behind her ear, a very old man wearing a pinstripe suit and tuning an acoustic guitar and a chubby, adolescent boy behind a jumbled contraption made up of garbage cans and animal skins stretched over wooden cylinders of different sizes which vaguely resembled a drum kit. Nina was very curious as to what sound all these musicians together would actually be producing.

Her attention though was at that time drawn away from the stage and towards the unassuming story-teller sitting next to her who was being bullied and violently pushed around by a group of random people in the bar who had assembled around him. They were accusing him of being stupid and immature, making fun of his idiotic, happy-ending stories, his refusal to wear normal clothes and his insistence on going around in pajamas.

“Grow up!” an old, balding lady wearing a pink track-suit screamed at him as she pinched him on the shoulder. The young man sat devastated and defeated on his chair, slouched protectively with his head down. Nina felt such anger boiling inside of her as she had never felt before. She stood up from her chair and stood in front of the boy, pushing all the gathered people out of the way. “Leave him alone!” she thundered out as she pinched the pink track-suit lady on both shoulders for effect and continued. “You never grow up! You never stop growing. You always learn, you always change. You just fool yourself into believing that there is some kind of repose from change because that makes you feel safe. Fair enough! You are pussies and that is just fine by me. But you can’t go about pretending that’s normal and tear apart anyone who reminds you that it isn’t, anyone who is different than you.”

The people around her watched her with puzzled, angry expressions for a few seconds before the ostrich-feathers of the waitress’s headband strolled over to where the hubbub was clustered at which point, obviously being intimated by the waitress, the angry people dispersed and went about their business. The band started playing a song with a strange, repetitive beat and Jay pulled Nina by the hand onto the dance floor.

“You wanted to dance. So, lets dance” he said as he spun her around herself a few times. And dance they did, until Nina’s feet couldn’t hold her anymore and they had to sit down to rest. Nina gulped down the remainder of her drink and looked at Jay that was looking equally, happily tired. “Are there any fountains around here?” she asked him.

Jay shot her an amused look and told her that there was a park with a small water feature down the road. Nina leaned over and gave him a kiss at the crook of his neck, her favorite part to kiss and smell on a person. Jay smelled like a chocolate and wasabi macaroon.

“I have to go now” she told him, trying to sound stoic and determined.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to go back. I have to see for myself.”

“See what?”

“I just need some closure. Will you wait for me?”

He gave her an affectionate smile and made to crack a joke at her remark. A shadow passed over his face and he turned serious, his smile fading slowly and sadly. He looked down at his shoes and then back up at her again. “Don’t be late, ok?” he said softly and returned her kiss.