Dead Kennedys by Scott Reardon

Author:Scott Reardon [Reardon, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aspen Press
Published: 2021-05-18T22:00:00+00:00

13

I walked down the street with the wind blowing right through my clothes. All these people were out really embodying the Christmas spirit. I watched them for a while and felt stupidly happy every time someone smiled or laughed. Afterward I ducked into a bar.

I was just finishing my second beer when “Baby, Please come home” came on. It’s a hit from the 1960s, and it’s about a woman telling her husband how bad she wants him home for Christmas. Everyone in the place just lit up as the singer, Darlene Love, really got going. The thing is: even though the song has bubblegum lyrics, you could actually feel in Darlene Love’s voice how much she wants this guy back. There’s something about a woman being vulnerable like that. You just want to grab her and kiss her.

But as soon as the song ended, the place went back to normal, and it was like the song hadn’t even come on at all. I wasn’t feeling that great by then. There was all this green and gold tinsel everywhere. I kept picturing myself ripping it all down and then taking a fire axe to the face and crotch of the plastic Santa in the corner.

Another oldies song came on. “Blue Velvet” by Bobby Vinton. There was an old woman sitting with a group of people. No one was really talking to her, so I went over and held out my hand. She laughed a little, but then she got up, and we started dancing.

Everyone in the place was watching us.

The song made me feel like I was back in the 1950s, in some bar off a country road. I imagined I was a more decent, more American version of myself. And I lived in a small town where I knew everybody. And I belonged somewhere. That town was mine, and I was its.

When the song ended, it took me a moment to pull myself together. The old woman curtsied to me, and a woman clapped. It’s stupid, but I guess a part of me was hoping everyone would applaud, and it’d sort of bring the whole place together. But that didn’t happen.

I sat back at the bar, drinking alone with my thoughts for a few minutes.

This strange fifty-year-old guy kept looking at me. “Are you old enough to be in a bar by yourself, young Werther?” he asked finally. He talked like his great-grandfather had been a baron or something.

I shrugged. “I’m taking some time off.”

“Ah, are you out trying to find yourself?”

“I never thought of it like that. Maybe.”

He turned to the bartender. “Lloyd, I believe I was right. Young Werther here is trying to find himself.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

I almost didn’t want to ask or do anything to prolong the conversation. The guy seemed like the kind of person who owned cats.

“Have you read The Sorrows of Young Werther?” he said.

“Never heard of it.”

“It came out in the eighteenth century and became one of the first bestsellers.

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