These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

It’s been nearly an hour and a half since he slipped away from the house. I wonder if they’re looking for me by now, he thinks. Perhaps I should go back.

The Yank lays the newspaper on the table. The music from the Ad Lib upstairs, which can be accessed only by a somewhat secretive elevator, is a muffled throb, and from behind the downstairs bar comes a pop tune on a radio or record player—in dollhouse rooms with colored lights swinging. . — he can’t tell. Sipping the tall ale in front of him, his first and last of the night, he finally notices the young English couple at the bar that have been watching him, and he’s only surprised he got away this long without being recognized.

“Too old to be a musician,” says the young man standing at the bar. The Yank at the table is familiar, and the man at the bar, white and in his mid-twenties with long hair, and the younger black woman, her hair already in dreadlocks that aren’t typical yet, are trying to place him. The woman teases, “But not that much older than you, is he?” and her companion exclaims, slightly outraged, “Are you serious? He’s much older!” and the woman bursts into laughter.