Pelt Me With Olive Juice

‘O L I V E J U I C E!’ I imagined they would mouth to me from the audience. The big, cherry red lips of my sisters, their slightly dull-white teeth, embellished ‘whiter’ in contrast to the tempting cherry red. As I traipsed across the creaky, hardwood floor—stained a deep maple, scratches running amok, fissures, translating like a palm reader. I nervously drifted mentally, imagining the history behind the sketched pattern across the floor of this stage.
Small, low-budget one-act off-Broadway plays, scrawled under the dim lamp lit bulbs of a local diner. Coffee stained pages handwritten through the purposed insomnia-laden effort of forgotten play writes…once convinced of their inevitable breakthrough success; utterly stunned by the less than blip-on-the-radar way they came and went like so much swept dust across the gritty floor.
Brash metal bands—with their dark orchestration—turnkey fan base strew all-charcoal-rim-eyed inverted crosses and maniacal faces; black leather and dog collared; grating with the plush violet velvet seatbacks. Double bass drum chunka…like an old film reel.
Quaint, perfunctory string quartets—maybe a jazz ensemble complete with skilled, demure vocalist, or a horn section including a visiting professor and the bellowing of his cornet. Interviewed one mid-day afternoon at the local public radio station, beckoning the local 40 something, npr-listening, less than occupied with much of anything but the steady cadence of their hum-drum lives…the interview was sure to attract a medium-to-large crowd; the newly single (versus recently divorced) vocalist, a stone fox, flirting wildly with the tall dark and handsome from the sound booth, wooed the audience into a sell-out cd-purchasing frenzy.
The quartet or trio, certainly mended some of the deep welts carved, in the fury of humping monitors/board/amp—drum cases; steely-silvery cymbal stands and lug-soled boots, knife-like into floorboards, bruising rafters and (sound panels/auditory flag panels) ‘ripped to shreds’ with the gun-metal charged riffs of the metal-heads.
The 4/4 rhythm; Sarah-Vaughan-lyric-induced elixir cure nursed back the resolute joy to the fabric of the space—violet seats took their deep, therapeutic breath, stretching back into their comfortable shape.
A scuffed foot across one more floorboard, and my perch comes into full view. A pale yellow sphere of light, wrapped around the four-legs of a single barstool. My guitar, leaning at its post, amp light glowing red-orange. Deep breath, exhale away from the microphone, look down, look up. I stare out into the straightaway, and try not to concentrate on the bulbous, heady, yellow sun that requires a kind of sun shade I’ve never found. Like the way eyes adjust into the darkness, I see through the blinding light, skim the crowd as I smile and speak into the mic, thanking my audience. Applause sounds, and my head dips back tips forward, and a Cheshire-cat-grin plants itself on my lips. I reach for the neck of my Stratocaster/Fender/Gibson/Ibanez tune, as I tussle some talk, keeping it low key, friendly and home base. I tune, crank the knob, tap my right toe, and strum me some licks. There it is, and I plant my hiney in the seat. A wispy piece of hair falls into my eye tickling me. I sing and play. My heartbeat has slowed. It hasn’t stopped the dampness. My nervousness transcends from the obvious to hidden, and I feel a drop slide down the indent of my spine. I grin it away, catch a hand waving, and see my sister’s—there in the third row, center-focused, grinning ear to ear, all cherry-red lips and silently mouthed (lip readers that we are) “O L I V E J U I C E” signing.