The Blue Note Chapters Two and Three

Chapter Two


    I dragged my tired butt into my little shabby one room flat, sat down on my one and only comfortable chair and poured myself three fingers of cheap bourbon. As bone tired as I was I still needed to wind down a little before heading off to dreamland in my solitary little bed. I smiled to myself, not even knowing why but knowing the reason was a certain beautiful lady, Michele Dubois. Her voice played in my head like she was singing to me right there in my room, haunting the wee hours of the morning, drawing me strangely into her secret world. Sweat poured from my face, I let it roll seemingly enjoying its wetness as it streamed down my face onto my already soaked cotton shirt. What a magnetic hold she had on me, drawing  me to her, I was consumed by her beauty, helpless not to succumb to her charms.

    Finishing my drink I decided a shower was in order. I stripped off my soggy clothes and threw them in a corner that was already piled with several days of similarly dirty clothes.  The water in the shower started off hot but soon turned to cold, feeling like tiny ice cubes pelting my tired body, but I seemed oblivious to the onslaught. Still in a trance, deep in thought, I continued my shower until my skin wrinkled up like a prune and turned a similar color. I grabbed my cleanest dirty towel, wrapped it around my waist, not bothering to dry off, and walked to my makeshift bar and poured myself another three fingers.

    The bourbon was going down smooth and I was just starting to relax when suddenly there was a terrible ruckus at my door. I finally figured out someone was knocking, although I had not a clue who would be disturbing me at this ungodly hour. Not wanting to get up from the comfort of my chair and my glass of bourbon I yelled, “Who the hell is that”? It better be important.”

    A deep bass voice grumbled from the other side of my battered door, “It’s T-Bone man, open up Bogart.” He followed his request with some more loud knocks that seemed were going to go on forever.

    “Okay, okay, I’m coming,” I said finally realizing he wasn’t going to go away, ever. I got up reluctantly, dragged myself to the door, still dripping , still dressed only in a bath towel and opened the door slightly and peered out. Sure enough it was T-Bone. “Come on in,” I said, but not really meaning it.  He stood in the door blocking any light that might have desired to enter my abode and turned sideways  in order to gain access.

    “What’s shaking Bogart?” He said with his signature cigar butt dangling from his lips, dropping a few ashes on my floor as he spoke.

    “What’s shaking? I should be asking you, since you’re the one beating on my door at five in the morning,” I said taking a sip out of my glass of bourbon. “What the hell is so important, T-Bone? I mean c’mon, can’t a guy get some rest?”

    “Have a seat Bogart, you’re gonna want to hear this, trust me brother.” T-Bone said as he waved his big hamhock of a hand in my direction. I took a seat in my comfortable chair and he pulled up a chair and sat across from me staring at me like I was the one that had the revelation instead of him.

    “Well, c’mon spill it, T-Bone,” I said impatiently, downing the remainder of my drink. “Wait a minute let me get myself another three fingers, you want a drink?” He did so I poured myself and him one, handed it to him and sat back down hoping to hear the big news at last.

    He took a big gulp of his drink, almost killing the whole glass, slammed it down on the end table and wipped his mouth. “You’re not going to believe it, man,” dropping more ashes on my floor.

    “Damn it T-Bone, if you don’t get on with you story, I swear,” I yelled, getting visibly pissed by this point.

    “Okay, okay man, calm down, I’m gonna tell you. You ain’t gonna believe it.” He said one more time.

  “You said that already.”

    “Okay. You know that fine new singer that started tonight, Michele Dubois?” He asked as if I wouldn’t have noticed her or knew who she was, he just didn’t know. “You’ll never believe who she left the club with tonight?”

    I stared vacantly, trying to make him believe I was unconcerned but inside I was frantic, not wanting to know the answer. “Michele Dubois?” I said like I could care less.

    “You’ll never guess. Go on guess,” He said almost playfully.

    “God damn it, T-Bone, spit it out. I don’t have time for this crap.” I said really pissed now.

    “The mayor, Dennison. She left with Richard Dennison, can you believe that? I warned her about him, but she did it anyway.” T-Bone looked at me like it was my time to speak but I didn’t know what to say.

    “So?” I said still trying to act unconcerned. “Why do you think I would care?”

    “Man I saw you looking at that girl all the way from the stage, man.You were digging her cool, don’t say you weren’t. You were hoping  to leave with her yourself, Bogart, I know you man.” He said and I couldn’t deny it wasn’t true but didn’t know it had been so obvious. “I’m worried about her Dirk, that mayor and his boys are bad news.”

    I was worried about her too, but I was more worried that I had lost my one and only chance at a once and a lifetime thing, with the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I finished my drink and asked T-Bone if he wanted another but he said he had to go home and get some rest before rehearsal at four. He shook my hand and patted me on my back, hoping to make me feel better, but I didn’t. And then he was gone leaving me alone with my thoughts and a half a bottle of bourbon.

    I needed to get some rest as well but I needed another drink even worst, so I poured myself a full glass this time, sat back in my easy chair and let it do its magic. I needed something to dull the pain, a pain I couldn’t explain but very real nonetheless. “She left with the mayor,” I said out loud and took a large gulp of boubon almost killing the entire contents of the glass. “The mayor of all people, damn.”

    I fell asleep sitting right there in that comfortable chair, a glass of cheap bourbon in my hand, it spilled on my floor as I slipped off into never never land, waking two hours later with a start. Hoping T-Bone’s visit was some kind of sick perverted dream, I got up and drug myself to bed. I dreamed of Michele Dubois and me making love in a cloud, drifting through time and space, I was in Heaven. But be careful what you wish for and dream of, it just might come true.



Chapter Three


  Eight o’clock in the evening and I was back at the door of the Blue Note, making sure the mugs didn’t tear up the joint one more time. I had an uneasy feeling, but I couldn’t figure out why, something was wrong but for the life of me I didn’t know what. Call it a premonnition, or intuition or any number of things, but whatever it was it had me standing uneasy at my post that night. That broad Michele had something to so with it, of that I was certain, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I was pondering about these things when the source of my thoughts showed up and to my chagrin with none other than Mayor Dennison himself.

  My jaw dropped to the steaming hot  pavement as I saw them approaching the club, arm and arm like a couple of for real love birds. Made me sick to my stomach, a beautiful dame like her with a chump like that, but powerful, rich men always get their choice of dames, while stiffs like me get the left overs. I tipped my hat, nodded, and said, “Evening, Mayor, ma’am.”  I smiled at her, and kind of glared at the Mayor, hoping he wouldn’t notice the obvious distain and contempt I had for him.

  T-Bone and the band were playing hot as usual, the melodic sounds of their jazz covered me as the door opened letting in the happy couple. I was jealous as hell, but had no right to be, afterall who was I, just some washed up private dick from La La land, working as a bouncer at some after hours night spot. I was just the hired help, a nobody, a nobody that didn‘t stand a chance with a dish like Michele Dubois, so I might as well stop thinking and dreaming about her.

  But I’m not the type of individual who is easily dissuaded from trying to obtain something I want, so quite naturally I didn’t put her out of my mind. I was determined to at least get one date with the beautiful lady, that was my goal, not asking too much I didn’t think. I’d dated beautiful women before, well a couple at any rate, but this Michele Dubois, she was something different. Besides her beauty she had an enchanting quality I couldn’t quite put my finger on, nevertheless I was quite smitten with her to put it mildly. Oh hell I might as well say it, I was in love with her. Head over heels, down deep and dirty, full blown in love with that woman. But I was afraid I was like a dog who chased cars, if they ever caught one, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.  What would the likes of me do with a stunningly gorgeous woman like her? I would only make a fool of myself. Well her fool I’d be if only she would let me.

  Nine o’clock rolled around, I was taking a short break from my duties on the door, when it was time for Michele to take the stage for her first number of the evening. All eyes were on her as she glided onto the stage like a dream come true. T-Bone and the band started a sultry cool number, she again like the night before caressed the microphone, God I wished I was that microphone. Her sweet voice filled the club, I found that I couldn’t take my eyes off of her and the strange thing was she seemed to be looking at me, our eyes locked in some kind of strange game, feeding off of each other’s passion. She sang her song only to me, I was the only one in the room, that spun around and around making me dizzy and intoxicated all in the same instant.

  I decided right then and there that I had to have her, nothing was going to stop me, not even the mayor and his goons. I would die in my quest to conquer her land of love if thats what it took to win her. The song finally ended and I snapped back to reality, a big wet spot on my shirt from drool that had been emitted from my open mouth during my sojourn to never never land. About that time once again a big hand grabbed me on the shoulder, my boss, Ralph Smithson, telling me to get my butt back on the door, I reluctantly complied.

  I was still shaky on my legs from the trance I had been in, almost falling over a few tables on the way back out to my post, once again outside of the Blue Note.  The night was hot and the sweat ran down my face, I wiped it with a handkerchief I kept in my back pocket. My heart beat rapidly in my chest, my breathing was heavy, I felt like I might past out anytime, hitting the hot pavement below my wobbly legs, that felt like two sticks of wood.

  The music stopped inside, I could hear it as well as feel the absense of the music, leaving the club with a sort of empty sound filled only with the sound of voices and the clinking of glasses. It was break time for the band, which means it was midnight, the witching hour as it’s sometimes called. I lit up a Camel and took a long drag blowing the smoke out forcefully like I was angry at it for some reason.

  “Got another one?” A deep voice belonging to T-Bone inquired. I pulled one out and lit it for him, he took a big drag. “Thanks, Dirk, you the man. I been wanting one of these for the past two hours.”

  The two of us just stood there enjoying our cigarettes for while in silence but we knew there was something that needed to be said, that was going to be said.

  “So you ask her out yet?” T-Bone said, dropping his cigarette butt on the pavement and stamping it out

  “Just like that, huh?” I said not believing the question he had just asked me. “Are you kidding?”

  “I‘m not kidding. Did you ask her out? I know you want to,” T-Bone said, looking me dead in my eyes.

  “I don’t stand a chance with a dame like that, T-Bone, I told you that already,” I said pleading my case, hoping he would leave me the hell alone about the whole matter.

  “She wants you to ask her out. She told me she wanted you to,” he said, but not too convincingly.

  “Oh, She did?”

  “Yeah she did.”

  I was starting to get mad as hell when T-Bone grabbed me and said he wasn’t kidding she actually wanted to go out with me. I asked him why he didn’t say so, he said he’d been trying to do just that.

  “She said she was going to ditch the mayor later on and she wants to go home with you.”  That‘s what T-Bone said and he swore it was the truth.

  He went on back in the club to begin a new set leaving me outside in a state of shock and disbelief.  Nah, no way, this wasn’t happening, couldn’t be true, I was totally lost and confused as I stood like a statue at my post in front of the club, not really seeing the customers coming and going. “She wants to go home with me,” I said out loud not caring who heard me or whether or not they thought I was a nut case standing outside a night club talking to myself.

  Inside the club I could hear the music playing and knew soon she would be onstage again, my angel, voice straight from heaven, Michele Dubois, oh my God. I could just see her on that stage, beautiful face, voluptuous body, caressing the microphone, making love to it. She began to sing and I was in heaven once again, nothing in the world mattered but the sound of her voice. There was nothing in the world but her, as she continued to sing drawing me further and further into her world.

  Then a strange, bizarre, but welcome sight appeared coming through the door of the Blue Note, the mayor, Dennison, came storming out cursing to himself, got into a limo that was waiting in front, that quickly drove away  like a get away car. I was stunned, confused, and motionless for a minute but soon came to my senses and realized what had just happened. He was gone, just as T-Bone had said, opening the door for me to make the next move.

  My mouth suddenly became very dry and my head began to spin as the shock of the moment hit me, it was now the moment of truth that I had dreamed about and hoped for. What was I going to say? Fear gripped me and I began to tremble, feeling like a school boy who was about to ask a girl to go out on a first date. “Come on Bogart,” I said quietly to myself. “You can do this.” I wasn’t so sure that I could at that moment, I was so enamored with the lady, there seemed no right words to say that wouldn’t sound utterly ridiculous coming from the likes of me. She didn’t even know my name or anything about me, I was nothing, a nobody, a has been that never was, but it was showtime, time for me to perform now.

  I left the relative safety of my duties and found myself in the club standing just inside the door, paralyzed, frozen unable to go any further as the angelic voice of the singer filled the club and my heart to the point of bursting. I stood in a cold sweat, I could feel eyes on me, weird eyes that seemed to search every inch of my body, drawing me in but not allowing me to move, all in the same instant. I felt I would scream, but couldn’t move or utter a sound, so I just stood like an immobile mute, thinking any instant I might pass out cold on the dance floor. But I was suddenly being pulled to the stage like a magnet pulling metal and soon found myself right in front of the stage gazing at the beauty that encompassed it and me and I knew in an instant what I must say.

  Looking into her deep blue eyes all that needed to be said was said, and when the song was over I found myself as if waking from a dream at a secluded table with the one and only Michelle Dubois from New Orleans. She knew my name and everything about me. I knew nothing of her, but wanted with all my heart and being to know everything there was to know about the lovely lady that occupied the chair at the table next to me. “I’m Michelle, Michelle Dubois. You have been watching me, yes? You like the way I sing, Mr. Bogart?” She reached out and took my hand as she spoke, the electricity surged through me like a jolt of lightning. “I have been watching you too. You are very handsome. I can tell you are a good man. I know things Mr. Bogart, things about people. I don’t know why.”

  I could hardly breathe, or utter a sound, all I could do was stare into those eyes as she spoke, not caring if the world came to end and if it did I would die a happy man.  I wanted to tell her she was the most beautiful enchanting creature I’d ever seen but for the life of me I couldn’t, I could do nothing but stare into those pale blue pools that seemed to open up a world somewhere way beyond the Blue Note, way beyond the world somewhere in another time and space. Finally able to speak, I uttered just above a whisper, “Call me Dirk.”

  “Pardon, monsieur?”

  I said again, this time a little louder, “Call me Dirk, my name is Dirk.”

  “Okay, Dirk, you find me attractive, yes?”

  “Oh, yes, very attractive, yes,yes,” I heard myself stammering, but was powerless to stop my idiotic utterance.

  “Perhaps we could have a drink, maybe over at your place when I get off. What do you think, Dirk, could we?” She said, and I heard her, but I still couldn’t believe my ears.

  “Oh, yes, yes, we could have a drink. At my place, yes,yes,” I continued to stammer but by this point I didn’t give a damn..

  “Meet me out front of the club at three, don’t be late, Dirk,” She said and got up from the table and was gone, leaving me sitting alone with my mouth open, not knowing or believing what the hell had just happened.