Page 24 of Night Songs

Waitin’ for someone to set her free

People started to look up as my voice rang out through the place. My sound is high and rich at the same time, with a lilting roundness that comes from my accent. I know I’m not supposed to think things like this, like maybe it doesn’t make me a real artist, but I love my voice. It isn’t always perfect, and there’ve been times when I’ve strained to push the sound from my body. But I really think it’s beautiful.

Hess came in low and steady underneath me for the chorus:

Let me out, Lord

Let me be free

Let me out, Lord

Who will I be?

Meanwhile that tight, coiled rhythm twisted around the room, and as more heads turned our way, I could feel the unrest building. The song wasclosing in, trapping them. One man called for us to cut it out, and then another joined in the heckle, and the tide built against us, even if I could tell some were intrigued by the sound.

In a pause in the lyrics, I whispered to Hess, and we gradually changed from her serpentine riff to “The Prisoner’s Song” we’d sung earlier at the lake. We harmonized, taking the old tune and speeding it up for a bigger, more modern sound:

Now if I had wings like an angel

Over these prison walls I would fly

And I’d fly to the arms of my poor darlin’

And there I’d be willing to die

The atmosphere in the room changed immediately as we set the audience free, and pairs of dancers took turns in the space between the tables. The same men that had heckled us moments earlier now hollered up at the rafters and ordered more beers.

We started taking requests, as Hess and I knew a lot of songs between us. We’d been practicing together for weeks, and we had an unspoken language. It felt like we were sharing one brain, one heart, one set of hands. But there were two throats: the voice all my own floating up toward the ceiling and hers coming in to tether it to the ground.

After an hour or so, Darlene motioned for us to clear out for the next act, and we stumbled sweat-soaked and giggling into the women’s bathroom. Hess went into a stall and pulled me in behind her, and we both leaned against opposite walls, still gasping from the elation. I had never felt so lifted before.

I stared freely at Hess’s hair stuck to her glistening collarbone, her strong arms, the golden harvest of her body. I had that desperate, bone-aching feeling again of wanting to be closer to her, and I took a step forward. It was a tiny stall, so she only had to move a few inches more to bring us front to front, the outer tips of our bodies grazing against one anotherand filling me with red, electric pleasure. Hess moved even closer, pushing me back against the wall.

She nuzzled her nose against mine, and our mouths parted but didn’t touch, held there in that space and time right before. It tasted like strawberries and their bitter green stems.

Then her mouth slid into mine, and the boundary between us fell away as it did when we played music, and there was only slick, smooth pleasure curving from side to side. I knew our hands were on each other, but I couldn’t tell what we were touching, only that it felt good everywhere.

A rough knock rattled the door and startled us apart. A woman yelled at us to hurry up, and we scurried out with our eyes cast down.

I looked in the mirror at my mouth ringed in red and the wild tangle of my hair. Hess looked unblemished; if anything, her face shone a little brighter. She wet a corner of her dress with cold water and held it up to my skin, then raked her hands through my hair. I closed my eyes as her fingertips stroked my scalp, evoking the pleasure from before.

Then another woman came in, and Hess pulled her hands back. We each turned to the mirror and pretended to primp.

Once I was presentable, we returned to the main room, and I put my apron back on. Hess took her usual place at the bar, and she buried herself in her book once again. On the surface it was like nothing had happened.

But everything had changed.

As I made my rounds collecting glasses, the cowboys were more beautiful, the whiskey more jewel-like, the band’s music sweeter to my ears. The bar blushed under its lights, and I made a game of waiting as long as I could to look in the far corner.

When I could no longer stand it, I allowed my eyes to wander where they wanted, and she was there, staring back at me.

My love.

6lulabelle

1967

FIFTEEN YEARS LEFT