The
antique shop below my apartment was packed out the door; it had been that way
every Friday night since Sam, an elderly black man from the South Side of
Chicago, took over the store year ago. It’s not the antiques that were the
draw, but it was Sam’s blues band. It gave this small Jersey town a glimpse
into the old blues that owned the windy city nightlife during the 50’s; it
provided me with the “I Can’t Sleep Because of the Blues, Blues,” a tune by the
legendary Muddy Waters, I believe.
I
stood on my second floor balcony, and tapped my foot along with the smooth
electric guitar chords being plucked in the shop below; I took a few puffs of
my cigarette and looked out over the cobblestone sidewalk and took in the cool
fall evening— that’s when I saw her.
Her
face was gleaming in the light produced by the neon Eiffel Tower, which stood as
a marker of the shop since Sam started running the store; her dark hair seemed
to fade into the night. Her red dress seemed to reveal everything, yet keep it
all to the imagination. My eyes were fixated; they had never seen such natural
beauty in their 28 years of being open. I didn’t notice the clouds beginning to
roll into the night sky blotting out the moonlight: it only seemed to intensify
the mystery woman’s radiance.
As
I continued to stare at the lovely woman the bluesman downstairs went into his
original song “Woman in the Night.” Yes, this sounds cheesey and like a fairytale,
but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
I
had to get to her; I couldn’t stand observing from a distance any longer.
I
put my cigarette out and rushed down the stairs. The cool September air flowed
through my blonde hair, I didn’t even care that my feet were bare; my heart was
in charge that night not my brain. As my foot hit the last step the rain began
to come down, that didn’t dampen the mood in the antique shop; the blues
continued to blare and the crowd continued to grow. I pushed past the line of
people waiting for their chance to see the local blues legend,
Reaching
the corner; I stood in the rain, illuminated by the faux Eiffel Tower, but the
beauty that occupied the same spot moments ago was nowhere to be seen. I walked
up and down the street searching for a glimpse of her again, but luck had never
been something I had. My heart began to ache, and finally my brain took over
and I began to shiver in the rain. I lost my chance at finding love in the
prescience of the tower like so many romance stories, though, I know, it wasn’t
the real tower the romance of Paris was in the air regardless.
The
next afternoon I went down to the shop to talk with Sam to see if he could help
uncover the identity of the woman since he seemed to know every beautiful woman
in the town. I walked into the shop to see Sam fiddling with an old grandfather
clock, his heavy black hands working effortlessly on the gears inside, like a
surgeon he was precise and quick. Without turning around he heard me approach
him.
“I learn’d how to fix these back in
Paris, I was der tryin’ to become a great bluesman, I wanted to be the nex’
Howlin’ Wolf, but I wasn’ gettn’ much money fo’ my show, so I took to fixin’
clocks in a small shop.” He paused and stepped away from the clock, “lor’ that
seem like a million years ago,” he seemed to drift off into some distant part
of his mind, a part where he still lived and breathed the Parisian night.
“Sorry to interrupt Sam, but can I
ask you something?”
Still being lost in his memories of
La Ville-Lumière, Sam didn’t even hear me. “Come here fo’ a minute, look right
der on the counter. Those are picture of my Paris time. That der first one is
me playin’ at a bar down by the Eiffel Towa. Da Towa a thin’ of beauty. It
stands in da night, glowin’, like a gorgeous woman, you just drawn to her. I
fell in love under da glow of that der Towa, I gots a picture of her somewheres,
hold on a second.”
I starred at Sam’s picture, his
white hair was a solid black, his smile was dazzling, his hands gripped his
guitar with such strength that if the guitar was alive it would be gasping for
breath; nothing like the man that stood before me, he is a frame of his old
self. His hair as white as his teeth once were, his teeth no longer glisten
anymore. I suppose it was from the toils of a struggling musician; dental
coverage isn’t usually something clubs offer to perform.
“Right der, dats Délia an me; my
French beauty. Now ya tell me if ya ever seen a mo’ beautiful gal.”
Sam handed me a black and white photo,
its wooden frame cracked and worn from time, my eyes were first drawn to the
Tower in the background of the photo; it illuminated the dark cloud-filled sky.
“Now, what you haf’ to ask me
friend?”
I ignored Sam; I didn’t need to ask anymore.
I stood looking at the woman from the corner: Délia, standing with her arms
wrapped in Sam, smiling. Délia’s face gleaming in the light from the Eiffel Tower;
her dark hair seemed to fade into the night sky. She appeared just as I saw her
the night before— a woman of exceptional beauty, so close yet unattainable.
When
Sam passed away, about three years after his Paris crossed with mine; I took
the photograph and hung it in my apartment, like a painting in the Louvre. My
Délia: there to look at, but never to have.
