“I tell you, this road is an awful partner
Got me so strung out
I know you think that it’s just one big party
But that’s not what it’s all about.”

Earlier that night, inside Park West, the lights were hiply dim. Looming blue curtains against the far wall gave the anticipation that something big was about to be revealed. Nothing would come from behind them, however. Instead the show would take place in front of them. On the cusp of my 41st birthday, I had been a few years coming into the realization that was how life worked. It takes place right in front of you while you, mostly while you’re waiting for something else.
The top tier of the venue hosted a swanky bar, adorned with mirrors and cut glass that served to play with the limited light that did abide. A multitude of liquor bottles with their clear glass tops exposed looked more for decoration than they did for sale. The bartender and his dapper hair looked for show also, though they worked in unison to complete an order.
The middle tier held a series of trendy booths where the patrons could sit cozily, as though around a small, invisible fire which boasted just enough visible light to dab a little on the face of your companions. One more tier down and closest to the stage, were long tables which ran perpendicular to the stage’s curved front like spokes from an axis. We chose to sit at one of them.

The interior of a dome sat above it all and absorbed any renegade light which made it that high. A mirror ball hung unemployed in its center, though the top of it, due simply to it’s proximity, gleaned a little light with which to play. It sat above like a thought attempting to rise from the anxiety of the day. It seemed uncertain as to whether it would go on and break free or simply burst in effervescence.
In this city of 2.7 million people, a scant 500 might have been in the place. Most were probably there for the headliner, the son of a well-known country music star. We weren’t.
Neither was the man across from us. He too was here for the opening act, a female artist named Nikki Lane. His cuff was unbuttoned on his shirt and pulled up above his forearm, exposing the American muscle that fixed things and made them work. His brown hair spilled onto his denim blue shoulders, and deep creases marked his high cheek bones. His palm cupped a Coors Light bottle, his fingers wrapped around it, and his thumbnail traced the edge of the label it wore around its neck.
As Nikki took the stage with the rest of her band, she saw him and offered something of a girlish, southern grin and wave. He swallowed hard and nodded to acknowledge it, almost embarrassed, as though he was unaccustomed to something so gentle.

“Do you think that’s her Dad across from us?”

“It might be.” He seemed to beam with a certain look of pride.
It was as though the two of them, there in the semi-darkness in front of the blue, knew some secret everyone else in the place was merely guessing at. Quickly she turned and brought a hand up to furiously rub the side of her nose. The band settled into their places and she spoke to them only to fidget with her nose again.

When she sang, he sang too, in a voice so soft it was inaudible, which knew every word to come, as though he knew them long before she had wrote them down. On the streets outside, the same 2.7 million would give me the man little notice, but we did. We thought he was cool as fuck.

I come from Greenville, South Carolina. Not sure if you all know where that is or not. My father works road construction. I was a flag girl once, but I graduated to that machine that packs the asphalt in. My Dad always thought he was a song writer. In fact sometimes when I get in, he’s called me and left a message of him singing a new song he’s convinced will someday be a hit. Mostly I suspect he’s drunk.
When I was in ninth grade a teacher wrote on the board, “Complacency Kills,” and I guess those words just kind of bored their way into me and I sort of got carried away with that.
The voice she spoke with was a departure from the southern voice with which she sang and carried something of that southern sadness that has a tone just deep enough to know your secrets. The voice she spoke with was higher, sweeter, and bore a bit of pride in having come all the way from South Carolina. I don’t not know who the guy across from us was, but we decided it doubtful that it was actually her Dad.
My grandfather had promised me the car of my dreams when I got out of high school, but I dropped out early, and that car of my dreams went to his girlfriend instead, which left me with her old, busted-down Chevy Lumina. So I took it, put a trailer hitch on it, got a U Haul trailer, and drove the damn thing to California to make it big as a fashion designer. I’m still not sure who got the better end of that deal.
It’s all right. I don’t have the best luck with cars anyway. A matter of fact, I just wrecked my boyfriend’s, so he’s driving mine. Which, it turns out, really is the car of my dreams. It’s a beautiful, black Dodge Charger, and I think he’d really enjoy driving it except that I opted for the personalized plates and they say HWYQUEEN, and you know I think it’s really starting to piss him off.

When her set had ended, the headliner eventually came out to claim the stage. Nikki had previously sang a refrain about how, “forever last forever, until forever becomes never again.” With his bass player jumping around like Steven Van Zandt, the headliner condensed it to a refrain of his own “forever is just a four-letter word.” After a few songs we had all had enough. The mysterious stranger left, we left, and the dome above decided to fizzle after all.

On the way out, we passed the man in blue at the merchandise table, waiting to say “Hi,” looking as if he would patiently wait forever.

I had been trying to figure out just where that soft light was coming from. I suppose it was coming from a South Carolina girl who had grown up and had the courage to go out in front of a different crowd each night and lay her life on the line about the way things are instead of the charade of how we want them to be. Mostly it was for little more than the entertainment of strangers. Yet for some, for a brief while, Nikki Lane brought the sun.

https://youtu.be/b-m4N84clZU