Song in the Key of G and C

Volume One

Two Playing Blues Guitar

…….

prev

…….

I knew I should’ve never started this thing. I knew it. Man, once you go down a road you cant ever go back. I dont care what they say. The road evaporates behind you. It rolls right up. You turn around to look, and what do you see? Nothing that you recognize. That’s what I’m saying. You stand there and you scratch your head. And all you do is look foolish. It was so long ago now, I dont remember anything. I dont even know whether I’m dead or alive anymore. I made up my mind I was gonna write a book. No big deal, right? People do it all the time. But I had to make things difficult on myself. I had to set up all these requirements. Which complicated matters. Which made things murky. It happened one night at the bar, like I was saying. Closing time. Everybody left. I did all my chores, I counted out the money, the place was locked down, I was getting ready to leave. And that’s when I saw the book on the bar. It might’ve been my book, I mean my copy of the book. Or it might’ve been somebody else’s. It doesnt matter anyhow. That’s the book that changed my life and made me want to write this book. I stayed there the rest of the night and I read it. We had glass block windows at the front of the bar, and when I saw the dawn light coming through there I put down the book and went outside and walked to City Hall, which wasnt far. And I knew I had to write a book. That’s what this book is.

If you hear songs playing in the wind you think it’s just that. Just songs playing in the wind. You dont start making up all kinds of explanations about this and that. Am I right? Well, I’m not right. Because I heard those songs in the wind, sister, and I made up all kinds of explanations. Tons of them. That’s what this is. I mean that’s what this book is. I walked up Broad Street. It was past dawn by now. I headed for City Hall. It’s smack in the middle of everything. Some old gothic or gargoyle covered stone thing built in the 19th Century. Big tower in the middle, towards the back, comes up out of the central courtyard. Four entrances, long archways. And all around this building, a stone covered plaza with benches. And a wall, a low wall where people can sit. But the wall’s divided. There’s a break in it, and that’s where the walkway goes. It was early morning when I got there, but already people were going to and fro. Dressed up, business people, who didnt give me the time of day. I stopped and I listened. That’s where I heard the song. It was the song sung in the key of G and C. I know, a song cant be in two keys, without getting all confused. But this song was confused because it was being sung by two people who werent quite harmonizing in the way they were supposed to. It was Suzy and Johnny, they were doing the singing.

Suzy and Johnny! Oh man, where do I start with those two… All my friends say I’m crazy when I start talking about this stuff. When I tell them about Suzy and Johnny, and about the spiral staircase in the center of the courtyard, right in front of the City Hall tower. And the Monster that lives at the bottom, all the way down, at the bottom of the spiral staircase. My friends say, ‘What’s all this nonsense?’ But some things they dont understand. They think all I am is a bartender. And it’s true. That’s all I am. One night somebody left a book on the bar, and I read that book, and I said ‘I’m gonna write a book.’ But that doesnt make me any different. It’s still the same me. It’s just that, now, it’s the me who’s gonna write a book. I’m still me, right? Well, I dont know about that. Maybe not. Maybe something changes in you when you make a decision. I mean a real decision, the kind you stick by. The man who wrote the book I read, he stuck by his decision. He was a great man, and he wrote a great book. But you dont have to be a great man, and you dont have to write a great book. You just have to do it anyhow. I read that book somebody left on the bar and I walked up to City Hall and I stood there between the walls and I listened to the wind, I listened to the song, to the fragments of the song which the wind was carrying in. And I knew, man, I knew whose song it was. It was Suzy’s song, and it was Johnny’s song. And they were invisible because they were hiding out. From the Monster.

…….

next: starcrossed lovers in bed