One paragraph, one Bakersfield: Bakersfield Bukowski in literary prowl at the Silver Fox - by N.L. Belardes

Over the table’s green felt hangs three red-covered lights. Patrons tonight are eager for music; they sit along the pool table edge, throats dry from smoke, while the red lights in a glimmer of haze reflect off their backs. Near a jukebox, Broken Record Gospel plays a loud set of experimental and dreamy post-punk sounds. In one corner sits a girl, dirty blonde hair—her in a light blue shirt. She looks at me; she has wondrous, delicate eyes even from ten feet away. She gets up, walks through the haze and out into the darkness of downtown Bakersfield streets, maybe to her car, maybe toward central park, on the cusp of the downtown glow. Martinis on the wall—faded painted crooked olives, and smoke in the dim bar light makes painted shapes of glasses look like shadows left from an obsessive martini moment; the painter fixated on a drink. Behind the bar, the bartender, happy in his late night sales hears another man in plaid shirt and a baseball cap mutter. It’s all talk about a writer. He’s not me. That writer is a giant of a man snapping pictures that he hopes will glisten in a cyber land of photos and words. I have a conversation with a girl in green. She wears an Adam’s College jacket and talks to me about music controversy like it’s a margarita I can pour salty into my mind; and so I do. Later I walk out of the bar, past Granny Wheeler from old high school days who says he’s in a band called Niner Niner. He smiles, “I’ve lived in the mountains for three years as a hermit.” I ask him what kind of music his band plays. He looks at me like I’ve just asked to expose a movie star’s secret mole; its a blasphemous bar band question. “It’s rock, man…” he says as if I’m an idiot bar slug. I move past him, near the black corner booth where hipsters all lurk in their polyester bar haze; far from the smoke of dancing girls who smoke two at a time and dance and scream to their tall man who is dressed in a red shirt, jeans and black shoes. His chain swings, and his feet stomp with each melodic riff from Colin Cooke: the melodic experimental Gospel sung to the crowd like an unknown testament of Indie-sacred music. The man with the chain has got black stylish glasses. He laughs and holds onto his lady. The lady next to her: Betty Page hair and well-trimmed eyebrows; lips glistening and wearing a lingerie top so stylish to today’s youth. She re-adjusts in the dim light. She peeks and perhaps wonders why I stare. A writer must observe to narrate... Her friend leans back into the man’s arms. They’re near the front of the band, along the bar, near an amp that pierces the small room. After the set a girl creeps from the shadows smoking a cigarette. “Don’t you recognize me?” She says. I don’t. The corner from where she moves is just outside the bar. Her face hits the soft outdoor light and there is a drunken smile. She looks like the Kerouac-crossed lover from the Subterraneans. But we’re not in Frisco. She’s an artist. “Do you like my new haircut?” she says. I tell her it’s cute. I tell her a local theatre is unappreciative for my charitable artwork. She stands close. She asks me to have patience and I wander away. Even charitable writers are always angry, unappreciated, and so a loathing sets in for the darkness, for literary moments on the prowl in my Bukowski-esque driven wail of thoughts. The next band is Grammercy Riff. Tonight they’re missing one of two guitarists. A guitar string breaks. Joel has just played an intro on his now broken guitar-stringed beast that mesmerizes the crowd. He doesn’t realize the effect on minds in the darkness and so makes the melodic swell of music and echoing riffs melt into a distorted howl that quickly dissipates. Just a few moments before I sat at the bar. I sipped a Corona until Ben from Broken Record Gospel asked, “When do I get to read your book?” His dark curls in their usual state; his glasses tucked against his face showing inquisitive grimaces that soon relaxed into kindness. We talked about theatre. We talked about novels while the bartender continued to pour drinks. That was just before the music poured over the scene…

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Friday, April 08, 2005. You can leave your response.