From Her

PUBLISHED IN RED LINE BLUES 5: LADY DAY, WINTER 2007

William walked into his apartment. He dropped his keys in the dish on the counter. The lamp he had left on before going out to dinner lit what was in its reach. He hung his jacket by the door and walked the perimeter of the living room, closing all the blinds. He sat down on one end of the couch with a sigh and just looked off at nothing for a few minutes. The evening had left him unsure of himself. Unsure of his relationship. It hadn’t ended bad with her—but just sort of in a disconcerting whimper. The TV was dark. He scanned the books and CDs on the shelves halfheartedly from where he sat. He checked his phone but there was nothing new. He put the phone down on the couch beside him, took off his watch, and walked over to his record collection. Crouching down, he leafed through the crate and pulled out his Billie Holiday album.

William stood up, slipped the record out of its sleeve, turned on the record player and the amplifier, and put the record on. He went back to the couch, moved his phone out of the way, and laid down with his head on the armrest. He slipped his shoes off and they tumbled onto the floor. The lamp was still the only light on. Lying on the couch William noticed the shadows cast around the room and across the ceiling by the single light source. The band was playing the intro, led by the muted trumpets. And then Billie Holiday came in, with her certain unsteady sweetness.

Her voice washed over him. He closed his eyes slightly, but without the little effort to hold them shut. His eyebrows jutted up with her higher lilts. A faint grin ran across his face at the sweeter chords. He tapped out the rhythm with one finger on his stomach, and shook his head faintly with the sadness. He tried to focus on her words, but they just swept around him. He had put Billie Holiday on because he thought she spoke to what he was feeling.

He felt the way she sounded. In this mood he didn’t have words for, it was soothing to hear her sing his blues. She was putting her finger on it right along with him. Or for him. She was doing it for him. She did the work, and a damn fine job at it. He had only to lie there and stomach what she was putting down. But she wasn’t easy to bear. There was that raspy dissonance in her voice, sure, but there was something else in what she offered up that made William wonder if he should allow himself to take it. She was offering it up, wasn’t she? She had recorded this rawness, so William was free to make it his as well, right? A recording seventy-five–years old, and he was still unsure how to place her. Of his great-grandparents’ age, and she still sent shivers.

If he thought too hard on it, William was frightened by Billie Holiday. But then William loved Billie Holiday when he was feeling right for it. She shook him. Maybe he ought to approach her with more reverence.

If he could keep the questions at bay, he was happy to share her sorrow for a night. Not every night. But then when the needle lifted, he wondered what he and Billie Holiday shared, really. When the track ended and the houselights came up, she seemed so much farther away. He couldn’t say if there was even a point at which their melodies hit the same note—to say nothing of being in the same octave—or if he was only grasping at her shadow.

He tried to get to the bottom of how she worked on him. Maybe she was a witness from a worse-off way—her song the dark example, the pain that he could never match. Or maybe she proved that darkness could be carved into something bittersweet. More frightening, maybe her song was the drug—or the mistress—whose charms could lift him out of his sad state for an hour, possibly two. A definitive answer stayed hidden. Wherever place she was coming from, her story certainly overpowered his. Her song was stronger. He was only nodding in agreement.

Somehow it felt good, even though she wasn’t singing to make him feel better. She took the microphone just to tell her side, without butter or apologies. But William didn’t know if he could accept those notes so coolly. He was uneasy admitting that she had something he needed. He didn’t want to take anything from her. He didn’t want to take her for granted, make her small. But in fact the opposite held sway: It was she who made him insignificantly small in every track on his—her—album. He couldn’t be certain she was right for him just then, or now, or the next time he reached for that record. But he let it happen.

The side ended and the turntable came to a halt. The last sound from the speakers was a short puckered crackle as the kiss of the needle lifted from the vinyl. He thought of whether to get up and turn the record over. He considered whether he could take more. Or better to just lie there on the couch, in the silence, with his shadows? What songs were on the other side? Before he could make up his mind, the phone started vibrating. He shot a glance down at the screen. It’s her.