Black Elvis by Geoffrey Becker Page B

"Huh."
    "What?"
    "It's not a drink."
    "What do you mean it's not a drink?"
    "I don't know." He held his glass up to the light. It looked pretty much like it ought to look. Amber liquid, some rocks. Lorna had taken to doodling on a napkin, and I could tell she was getting near her limit already. "It's weird."
    "You want another?"
    He grinned suddenly. "Sorry. Just my sense of humor. Thought it would be funny if this not-bar were serving not-drinks, you know?"
    "Do you think I could smoke?" Lorna asked.
    "I doubt it," I said.
    "You can smoke in bars," said Andy.
    "I think we've established what's wrong with that argument," I said.
    He tipped his head to one side and looked at me with great seriousness. "How do you feel about the minor seven flat-five?" he asked.
    "I don't really know how to answer that."
    "It's probably my favorite chord. It's just so there , like your pivot foot in basketball. Know how I think about it when I'm soloing?"
    "How?"
    "Like a red ladder, leaning against a wall I have to paint. But instead of starting with the first rung, I step onto it a few rungs up. If I'm in E minor, so it's an F-sharp minor seven flat-five, I forget about the F-sharp entirely and just think A minor triad ."
    "A minor is red to you?"
    "Of course it is."
    "Are you synesthetic?"
    "I couldn't say."
    "Why a wall?"
    "I paint walls for a living."
    "Excuse me," said Lorna. "I'm going to see about a restroom."
    "Make sure it's a real restroom," I said.
    "Pretty," he said, when she was gone. "Your wife?"
    "Not yet. I'm kind of doing her taxes. That's what I do. She's a real musician, plays all over the place. Recitals, accompaniment gigs. She made fifty thousand dollars last year."
    "Damn." I could see he was impressed. "How long have you been doing her taxes?"
    "Going on two years now. It's an open-ended kind of thing."
    "I get it. Endings are overrated anyway."
    "Hey, maybe we could jam sometime," I suggested. "Since we're both students of Arthur's and all."
    "I don't know," he said. "Maybe."
    "You pretty good?"
    "I'm all right."
    "Me, too," I said. "I'm all right."
    I dropped Lorna off at her house. I call her Lorna, because that's what she says, but on her tax forms, it says "Laura." I tried asking her about it one time, but she just corrected me. "Lorna," she said. "My name is Lorna."
    "I could come in," I said, now. "It's not that late."
    "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I have an early day. I'm giving lessons all morning, and I have to practice for Seattle. And then there's this guy who's going to call me about a gig in Liechtenstein."
    "Liechtenstein?" I said.
    "The country."
    "It's hardly a country."
    "You're right. Technically, it's a principality. Apparently, you can rent the whole thing out for functions, like a Sheraton."
    "Wedding? Bar Mitzvah?"
    "It's more of a corporate deal. But they want music. German, preferably. This is some German company that's renting out the country. I think they make razors."
    "Principality."
    "Exactly."
    We kissed a little, but not the very best kind—we were both sort of phoning it in. I ran a finger along the outside of her bra and she licked my ear. She was thirty, just turned, a secret late-night consumer of frozen edamame and watcher of Friends . "I'll call you," she said, and then she went inside.
    I wasn't sleepy, so I went to this actual bar, Dapper Dan's, which is only across the street and down a block. A locals kind of place. I wasn't there more than a few minutes before Andy came in. I'd never seen him there before, but then I thought maybe it was sort of how you learn a new word, and then suddenly you start hearing it everywhere.
    "Jack on the rocks," I said to the bartender, when he came in. "I'm buying."
    "That drink at the hotel was nine bucks," he said.
    "You should have paid them with not-money."
    "Where's Laura?"
    "Lorna," I said. "She went home. She has a recital in Seattle next week, and she's practicing all the time. Brahms, I think."
    "Longhair music." He seemed a lot