I am dropped off to pick up my car from the shop. I was only just able to finagle a ride, so I get there a couple hours early. I manage to kill an hour or so reading "My Sister's Keeper" while breakfasting at Denny's, which is a thunderstorm of shrieking children, clattering dishes, and harried waitresses with gleaming, brittle smiles that never crack the glaze on their eyes.
After dawdling over my pancakes, I can tell that my welcome is quickly wearing out. The place is crowded, standing room only at the doorway. To the hungry patrons and the tip-starved waitresses, even my stool at the counter is prized real estate. I tip in cash and take my receipt to the register to pay by credit card. During a slightly uncomfortable moment when I zero out the tip line on the credit card slip, I try to psychically beam the words "I tipped at the counter" to the cashier, who I imagine is giving me the stink-eye. I make my way out through the huddled masses who yearn to breathe (eat) free (cheap) (breakfast).
Squinting up at the hazy sun, I realize I probably still have an hour or so before my car is ready. I take a walk down to the shop anyway, where my suspicions are confirmed. The shop owner suggests I check out the swap meet nearby, but I already know where I'm going. I double back, and find myself standing outside a small building -- a shack, really -- with the place's name scrawled along its length. I take a step through shutter-style doors into a dim golden room. Time hasn't stopped in this place, exactly... it has just wandered in for a cup of coffee and a few pages of a good book. I decide it has the right idea.
The owner is a white man, a couple inches shorter than I am. A silvery beard complements salt-dusted hair, and his broad smile starts as a spark in the center of his pupils, expanding until his whole face glows. The combined effect is as disconcerting as it is welcoming, like the sun being born between two crescent moons.
"Hi there! What can I do for you, buddy?" He speaks with a faint accent; it sounds vaguely Eastern European.
I grin weakly in the face of his solar smile. "Hey, could I get a small coffee, please?"
"Sure thing, buddy!" He turns and bustles around, then hands me a steaming cup.
As I fork over a fiver from my wallet, I remember a sign beside the door. "Say, when do you guys have live music in here?" I don't plan on ever attending; it just seems indecent to stand there, mute, in the face of such friendliness.
The owner's smile ratchets up a few million candlepower. As he hands me back four bucks, he exclaims, "Right now!"
"What do you mean?"
"You want music? I play for you! Just give me second." He closes the register and flips up the bar counter.
I take a step and half-turn to let him by, and it's only then that I notice a petite Asian woman in jeans sitting behind me. A ring on her hand matches one on the owner's. We exchange smiles, and she swats the owner playfully as he trots past us.
He maneuvers through his tiny cafe to an even tinier back room, where an electronic keyboard is set up, along with a guitar stand, an anemic drum kit, and an empty mike stand. No curiosity about the last; the whole cafe is hardly big enough to contain the sound of a cat clearing its throat.
As he settles onto the keyboard bench, I drop into a chair at a tiny round table. I keep my book closed, and watch as he starts to play. From the first chord, I can tell that even if I did buy the man's record, it would be one of those that slowly warped in the heat of my car, never seeing the inside of a CD player. His music wanders aimlessly, stutters and hiccups, and is delivered in a poorly-rendered synth reproduction of an accordion.
Even so, as my eyes wander around the tiny room, I start to get it. The walls are covered with pictures and posters; the owner and his wife outside a B.B. King show in New Orleans, album covers featuring long-dead jazz musicians. Home-grown posters of Herbie Hancock flaunt their pixels proudly alongside glossy photos of this same cafe, packed with cheering people. That sounds impressive, until you realize that ten people in this place would force the fire marshal into apoplexy.
My fingers are drumming along with the beat, provided by the "Jazz 3" setting on the owner's electric keyboard. The owner's wife saunters over to him and hip-checks him sideways a few inches so she can slide onto the piano bench beside him. The music shifts up a fifth, then back.
I think for a minute that I'll be treated to a synthesized accordion duet, but she just leans against her husband with a small smile. It strikes me that the owner may never play Carnegie Hall, but you can tell that this tiny woman is really the only audience he'll ever need.
After each song, we clap and cheer heartily. Occasionally, people wander in from off the street for some coffee or breakfast, always with a friendly smile and familiar greeting for the owner and his wife. During one of the many breaks in his performance, the owner shows me a huge plastic Eiffel tower glass from the Paris hotel in Las Vegas. He earnestly asks if I think it would make a decent wine carafe, and I can't think of any reason to say no. Everyone laughs when the wife, with a vixen wink, volunteers for the arduous task of going to Vegas to pick up a few more.
The hour passes quickly, and all too soon my phone is ringing, with the mechanic on the other end. The owner and his wife have disappeared somewhere, I suppose to arrange a trip to Vegas. I drop a few dollars on the table and take a last look around the room before I leave, taking in the cheap wood panelling, the chipped and cracking tables, and the rickety chairs. There's a soft caramel glow from the sun coming through the door, and I imagine if I squinted a little bit, the place would suddenly be thick with smoke and guttering candlelight, and laconic men in sunglasses and dark suits would be threading their souls into the air.
I don't usually listen to jazz. I couldn't recognize the difference between Coltrane and Gillespie, other than the ballooning cheeks. I have never wanted to run a jazz shack in a part of town generally reserved for auto-shops and titty bars.
For a few moments today, though, I nearly did.