Falling Dominoes
By Eric Van Vleet

The rain ate away at the snow banks steadily. It was washing them way leaving patches of ice on the sidewalks hidden out of the lights. Tired employees were slowly and cathartically turning around the open signs and dimming the lights. All Jeremy could hope for was to find some shelter.

It seemed the shops were all closing like a series of dominoes one step ahead of him. He finally raced out ahead and made it into The Electric Earth Cafˇ shivering. It was now a matter of seeing how long he could linger without buying anything before they kicked him out. The front window was completely fogged up, so Jeremy couldn't see anything inside. He'd could've walked into anything at that point, but any change was welcome.

He knew he needed to find a hidden place where he could become a chair. A man held a microphone in his hand while adjusting a harmonica rack on a small step height stage. "It's great to be here in Madison, Wisconsin. I guess I gonna play a couple o' numbers for ya tonight." People were sitting cross legged wearing earth toned sweaters reading, while a fake blond with heavy Halloween like make-up and a beehive sat talking inches away from a man's stubble conquered face. The man with the guitar was now incidental noise trying to tuck words and melodies in between pauses in conversation and turning pages.

A cute red haired waitress wearing platform shoes teetered above the crowd like she was on rickety stilts searching for discarded cups and plates. Jeremy picked up the paper and made it his new fortress. She passed him without noticing, while the singer turned and said," This is an old Wobblies' song. A real workers of the world unite sorta thing." He sang the song with his eyes wrenched closed with the words pinched out the side of his mouth. A messy harmonica solo ended it with Hindenburg type grace. "Haven't done that'un in a while," said the singer. "This'un'll be betta."

He started into a Jimmie Rodgers song. Jeremy then noticed a girl with her dark brown hair in two pigtails and a wide a sloping face with cheeks growing ever rosier sitting with a bottle spaced far enough away to be for an imaginary companion.

She was nodding her head ever so subtly and rhythmically that Jeremy took long greedy glance out from behind his newspaper. He figured if he went to the bathroom, he could get up walk around, look at the amateur black and white photography on the wall and then ask her if he could sit down.

The singer was howling a high note on his harmonica that existed in a separate dimension from his guitar as Jeremy made his rounds before becoming Mr. Polite. "May I sit down?" he asked. "If you want to," the girl said. "My name's Jeremy, what's yours?" he asked. "Helena," she said. "So what do you think of this guy?" asked Jeremy. "I've heard him a lot," she said, "but he's still good." "I think he's fine," he said.

Jeremy then figured he'd better make his mark in whatever way possible. "Did you know that Jimmie Rodgers had tuberculosis, and between takes he'd lie on a cot and spit up blood into a pail?" "Yeah, I did," she said. "You have to admire that," said Jeremy. "I respect anyone who will do anything to get what they want." "I don't know if there are any buckets around," she said. Helena then frowned and took a drink of her beer, wrapping seemingly her whole mouth around the bottle to get as much as she could.

"So what do you do?" he asked. "I'm a student studying American folklore and history," she said. "So I take it you know about Jimmie Rodgers?" "Yeah," she said. "I'm out of work. I did some assembly line work. I used to bottle soda," said Jeremy. "Thrilling," she said. "How could you do that day after day?" "I don't know," he said. "I hated it and wanted to quit. Then they helped me do that by firing me." "I'm sorry," she said.

The singer then took a big drink from the glass resting on the stool next to him and continued with his stage banter. "Here's the one song I wrote after singing all them others written by the greats. It's for my girl."

This song was markedly different. It was slow and delicate. He sent it straight from the center of his mouth. He picked the strings as if he could snap them with the most tempered brushing. "I wonder where this girl of his is," said Jeremy. "I don't know, but he's singing it like it's just the two of them," she said.

After the song ended, the man put his guitar on his stand and gave all of his harmonicas a bath in his drinking water to get ready for his second set. There was light applause that was overshadowed by the noise of his cowboy boots on the hardwood floor as he walked off the stage.

Jeremy sensed that he was walking over to him, although he might make a turn to get something from the counter. He didn't. He sat right down across from Helena and picked up the mystery beer. "That was great honey," she said and then leaned over giving him a kiss. Her cheeks flared up to mythic shades of delight. Jeremy had never seen anything like it and knew that it was now time for him to go back out into the night to find a new spot.