Ashamed: A Short Story
There's a place I go. A bar. A nice bar. A really nice bar. Money dwells there. Lots of money.
Oak paneling.
Jazz.
Thick steaks.
Rich.
Fat cigars.
Fatter rich men.
Young attractive female bartenders hustle me, angling for big tips.
I was a high roller at one time and people know it.
Good looking folks hang out there. I'm there.
Fifth beer there. I look around and the dish hustler winks at me - a woman of forty or fifty, seen many a rough day, not attractive at all, a little mentally handicapped would be my guess. I turn my head away, towards the twenty year old bar tender bending over getting my next beer. I look at her ass and wink at her.
A few more beers go by and the owner asks the dish hustler to play a few tunes on a saxaphone. Everyone laughes and turns their eyes towards the dish hustler. She pulls a shiny golden sax out of a case.
Then silence.
The notes that come out of the sax are not only melodic but brillant. Beautiful, sexy, romantic, moving notes. I stop mid-sip and glance over and the dish hustler is in a moment of rapture. The sax pitched up towards the cieling. Everyone in the bar has stopped talking and is looking now at this artist holding the sax.
Oxygen has left the room.
Suspension. No movement.
She stops playing, puts the instrument away, and walks by the bar towards the door. I grab her by the arm and stop her. I tell her that was a moving piece and ask her where did she learn to play. She smiled and says she learned it in church. She turns and walks away. As she left, people at the bar snickered, joked, and made fun of her.
I felt sick.
I slowly put on my jacket. Everyone but her had shrunk in my mind. Myself a whole lot smaller than anyone else in my own mind. I walked outside with tears in my eyes.
How many people do we discount in our life that have superior talent and knowlege, that we ignore because they look, talk, or act differently then we do?
I am and remain truly ashamed.
Oak paneling.
Jazz.
Thick steaks.
Rich.
Fat cigars.
Fatter rich men.
Young attractive female bartenders hustle me, angling for big tips.
I was a high roller at one time and people know it.
Good looking folks hang out there. I'm there.
Fifth beer there. I look around and the dish hustler winks at me - a woman of forty or fifty, seen many a rough day, not attractive at all, a little mentally handicapped would be my guess. I turn my head away, towards the twenty year old bar tender bending over getting my next beer. I look at her ass and wink at her.
A few more beers go by and the owner asks the dish hustler to play a few tunes on a saxaphone. Everyone laughes and turns their eyes towards the dish hustler. She pulls a shiny golden sax out of a case.
Then silence.
The notes that come out of the sax are not only melodic but brillant. Beautiful, sexy, romantic, moving notes. I stop mid-sip and glance over and the dish hustler is in a moment of rapture. The sax pitched up towards the cieling. Everyone in the bar has stopped talking and is looking now at this artist holding the sax.
Oxygen has left the room.
Suspension. No movement.
She stops playing, puts the instrument away, and walks by the bar towards the door. I grab her by the arm and stop her. I tell her that was a moving piece and ask her where did she learn to play. She smiled and says she learned it in church. She turns and walks away. As she left, people at the bar snickered, joked, and made fun of her.
I felt sick.
I slowly put on my jacket. Everyone but her had shrunk in my mind. Myself a whole lot smaller than anyone else in my own mind. I walked outside with tears in my eyes.
How many people do we discount in our life that have superior talent and knowlege, that we ignore because they look, talk, or act differently then we do?
I am and remain truly ashamed.