Speak-Easy

Day 154

The room was filled with people sitting on wooden folding chairs, chatting. The seats were arranged in rows in front of a glass wall. Outside on a carpet of lush green grass sat a baby grand piano and a young man in a tuxedo preparing to play.

As I moved along the front row of seats searching for the exit, a pretty woman with short blond hair asked me to sit with her. I made some excuse of why I couldn't stay and kept moving until I made it outside.

I pulled a smoke from the crumpled pack in my jacket pocket and lit a match with my thumbnail.

The man at the piano began to play the intro to Laughter in the Rain by Neil Sedaka. He was very good. Until he started to sing.

"Strolling along country roads with my baby, it starts to rain it begins to pour..."

The guy had a decent voice but something was off. His timing wasn't right like a Japanese business man with an accent singing karaoke. The annunciation is correct but it doesn't flow.

I turn around and look back in the window at the adoring audience all smiles and swinging their heads in rhythm with the music. The short haired blond is smiling. I flick my butt onto the lawn and step back inside.

Over the speakers inside Laughter in the Rain is playing with the sweet voice of Neil Sedaka singing. I sit next to the blond. The look on my face begs to know, "What the hell is going on?"

She leans close and whispers in my ear. "We don't like to discourage our students from expressing themselves. This one is a very talented pianist. Although as you can hear he is a rather mediocre vocalist.

"If we tell him he shouldn't sing he'll leave and end up playing in some speakeasy. If he stays and develops, he could become a world class pianist. So we arrange informal recitals, like this one, to keep the student and his parents happy, if ignorant."

This is from a dream I had. I hope to turn this into a short story or novel collection of murder mysteries set in Detroit during prohibition. A pulp fiction style story.

I know Neil Sedaka won't work for that era as he wasn't born yet. But that was the song playing in my dream.

Until tomorrow,

Ken