Dear Lyzako,
I walked back to my truck with perfect timing last night - up Woodward and across Nine Mile as an ominous storm rolled in, lightning bouncing around inside the blue-black clouds but no real rain. It was only around eight o'clock, but it was getting dark as midnight and an occasional plump drop fell as I made my way west on Nine, the sidewalk flecked with half-dollar-sized wet marks. The sky turned into a horrific painting of roiling blues, grays and black not unlike the one in El Greco's 'View Of Toledo'. Just as I made it to the parking lot behind Record Time, cutting through the alley to save a few steps, I experienced an ear-splitting peal of thunder and a frightening flash of lightning - so frightening and immediate in fact, that it caused me to duck, and the rumble set off several car alarms in the lot. I laughed at myself right away, knowing full well that ducking was no real protection against lightning, but it was a natural reflex anyway. Car alarms are no real protection against theft, either, by the way.
My reaction reminded me of that old 'drop and cover' reel they used to show us in grade school - advice that was supposed to protect us in case of nuclear attack. Then I thought of the more realistic and humorous take on that adage, which was to simply 'bend over and kiss your ass good-bye'. A group of teen-age girls that had just come out of BW3 screeched when it happened then erupted with loud laughter, both from fear and relief, giggled themselves silly as they ran for their car.
As the cacophony of alarms swirled around me I hauled ass across the lot and jumped in my truck, which was parked on the street just to the north. By the time I pulled away from the curb it had begun to rain. Not hard, just a steady whisper of rain, far less than I expected.
I came home, called Primo's and ordered a couple of mediums, the special - one with ham, pepperoni and mushrooms and the other with bacon, hot pepper and anchovy. They crumble the bacon at Primo's, which makes it surprisingly good and un-breakfast like. With fifteen to twenty minutes to kill before picking up dinner, I took out the trash, put to soak the two-week's worth of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink then headed out. Still just light rain, my wipers pulsing intermittently.
At the corner I stopped at the BP for some beer and noticed that they had Tecate tall cans on sale, so I picked up a couple for four bucks. On the way out I said 'sorry, not today' to some poor guy who picked me out to pester for money because of my glowing white skin, then headed back east on Nine Mile towards the pizza place. It was just beginning to come down by then. I grabbed my pies and headed home as the clouds burst and we got about five minutes of real rain before it dried up and moved to the north.
I spent the remainder of the evening fucking around on the computer, half-heartedly watching television and drinking my Tecates, enhanced by wedges of a faded half of lime that had been rotting in my fridge for over a week.
I'd had a few pints earlier at the Bar, watched some of the rebroadcast of the Tigers game, chit chatted with the bartender. A couple of cute young girls who work at the Magic Bag came in for dinner and told him that the Thursday night show was The Yardbirds.
“Did I hear them say The Yardbirds were playing tonight?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Who could be in that band anymore?”
“That's what I was saying."
“It has to be somebody from the original band, doesn't it. I mean you and I can't just start a band called 'The Beatles' can we?”
“Probably the tambourine guy,” he said with a snide chuckle.
“You know what a yardbird is, don't you?” I asked him. He shook his head. “A chicken. That's why Charlie Parker was called 'Bird'. It was short for 'Yardbird'. They called him that because he liked to eat chicken.”
“I did not know that,” he said, seeming impressed with my knowledge of the obscure. “It's a good factoid to know, though.” He pointed at me as he headed back down the bar.
By the way, it turns out that the current Yardbirds lineup features two of the founding members - Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty, but no Clapton, Page or Jeff Beck. Not really a surprise, I suppose.
And certainly no Charlie Parker. Bird Lives!
Regards,
Marty Sherman
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