Emchee, a friend and local musician, (
Vagabondage and
Rhubarb Whiskey) plays a mean accordion, and recently posted a delightful meme on her facebook, asking people to tell the tale of how they met her, but with one twist: completely make it up. I was so delighted by this I started telling a story, and it kind of took on a life of it's own. It was too long to post on a facebook comment, so I decided to put it up here. So here it is folks. Enjoy!
How Victoria Victrola met Emchee.
I was driving down a dusty desolate road on the way to a ghost town. Was gonna see if i could dance with a spirit. Maybe share a shot of whiskey.
A tumbleweed blew by, stirring the dust, and when it settled, and the air cleared, there on the side of the road, like an apparition herself was one hell of a woman, sitting on a battered suitcase that had it's own stories to tell. Her jaunty hat sat cockeyed on her head, her bright red hair spilling out from underneath. She stuck her thumb out, halfheartedly as though she didn't really expect me to stop.
Now I'm not one to normally let people down of their expectations, but I figured she wouldn't mind if I made an exception. I stopped, and she hopped in.
“Thanks for stopping.” She said, placing the suitcase on her lap. “My own car broke down about a mile or so down the road. I started to walk back, but got too tired. Name's Emchee.”
“Pleasure. I'm Victoria.” I eyed the suitcase warily hoping it didn't contain a machete with a severed head. “What's in the box?”
“The last of my meager belongings.”
She opened it up and I peered in. An accordion, a musician's bow, a bottle of Jack half taken care of, and a saw were nestled snugly together. The saw was rusted on the edges, as though specks of blood wouldn't completely come out. Perhaps the suitcase had once once contained a severed head. The thought didn't bother me as much as I thought it might, as long as it never contained mine.
“I'm heading to the ghost town. Did you need to get back to the main town?”
“Eventually, but I was actually on my way to the ghost town when my car broke down. I've always wanted to play in a ghost town.”
“Perfect.”
We passed her little car sitting lonely on the side of the road, and drove into the ghost town. Everything was brown, decaying and shanty. Buildings were left half standing, roofs torn off, left open to the sky to come crashing down on them.
I pulled over by what I assumed was the town saloon. The main indicators being the swinging doors and the faded sign that read “Saloon.” One of the doors was slightly askew on it's hinges, causing the doorway to look like crooked front teeth. The sun was high above us blaring orange, daring us not to melt. My dress stuck to my back as we got out of the car, and the sound of the doors slamming echoed throughout the deserted town. The silence that followed was deafening.
I spotted a lump of something in the middle of the road, and the greatest desire to discover it came over me. It was a discarded rag doll, one button eye half hanging off, faded flower print dress, red yarn for hair.
“Hey! Check this out!” I called back to Emchee as I picked it up. The moment my hand touched the doll, color burst behind my eyes, sound roared in my ears, shadowy shapes began to slowly take form all around me, and I was knocked back into the dirt road. The doll fell from my hand.
“You okay?” Emchee was next to me with her suitcase, holding a hand out.
“Yeah. Did you see that?”
“The shadows?”
“Oh thank god. I thought I was going crazy. It happened when I picked the doll up.”
She helped me up, and I dusted myself off.
“Doll?” Emchee swooped down to inspect it. “Oh, how adorable. It looks so lonely.”
She scooped it up, and the shadows started forming again. A strong wind picked up whipping our hair in front of our eyes. I reached out as Emchee's hat blew off her head, and somehow managed to snatch it back. Dirt swirled all around us, stinging my bare arms. I clung to Emchee to keep from falling over, and had to close my eyes and cover my mouth to keep from choking. Then just as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped.
The dust settled. We stood dazed, like deer in headlights, looking around us.
The sun had started to set, and the sky was an amethyst-blue as deep as the sea.
Emchee still clutched the ragged doll in her hands. “What the fuck was that?” She asked.
“No idea.” I plopped her hat back on her head.
She opened her suitcase, and pulled out the bottle of whiskey. She took a long swig, and wordlessly passed the bottle to me. I followed suit. Nothing washes dust and anxiety down better than whiskey.
As I handed the bottle back, I felt a tug on my dress. I looked down, and there was a little girl with the biggest most folorn green eyes I've ever seen. She wore a gray dress that might have been white at one time, and was as tattered as the doll. She couldn't have been any older than three. She pointed up at Emchee.
Shocked, I simply nudged Emchee and nodded my head toward the little girl. She looked down, gasped and immediately took a step backwards. The little girl stepped forward, her hands reaching up just staring at us with the saddest eyes in the world. I plucked the doll from Emchee's hands and gave it to her. She clasped it to her chest, then smiled. Her face instantly lit up, transforming her. She hugged my leg, did a dainty little twirl, then ran off toward the saloon, disappearing between the doors. She was so tiny she only had to barely duck underneath them. They swayed slightly at the disturbance.
“That just happened? Right? Little girl? Doll? Run away? ” I asked, suddenly not trusting my eyes or any of the other five senses. After the pantomime with the girl, it was odd to hear my own voice. As though I had broken some law of silence.
“Yeah. Little girl. Doll. Run away. Just happened.”
“Okay. Just checking. And wasn't one of those doors crooked?” I asked.
“I think so. Did we just give a ghost back her doll?”
“Probably.”
Emchee took another drink of whiskey and passed the bottle to me. We quickly finished it off.
“Let's see where the little girl went.”
The saloon loomed before us. Emchee picked up her suitcase, and we walked toward it. We stopped at the doors, unsure of ourselves. Sure enough, both doors were on their hinges, perfectly straight.
I took a deep breath, then opened one of the doors. It was heavy, almost resistant to my touch.
The moment we stepped inside, light glared. Laughter, chatter and tinny piano music hit us like a brick wall. People were everywhere dressed in fashion from another time. The women wore big flouncy dresses. The men in vests and hats. A woman in green by the bar with a moustached man, fanning herself, roared back her head in laughter. The little girl peeked out at me from behind the woman's skirts.
In awe, we slowly made our way to the bar. People paid us little attention as we walked by.
The bartender gave us a warm smile as we approached. “You ladies moving in?” He asked nodding towards Emchee's suitcase. He poured three shots of whiskey. “I”m Sal. Propietor of this here saloon. Never seen you two before. First drinks on me!”
“Thanks. I'm Emchee.”
“I'm Victoria.”
We shook hands all around, like decent civilized people, clinked glasses and tossed one back.
“So what's in the suitcase doll?”
Emchee opened it for Sal to see. His eyes light up.
“A squeezebox!” He exclaimed. “Fellas! Turn off the victrola! We got a squeezebox here tonight!” At his order the music stopped, and so did everyone else. All eyes were suddenly on us. “Well, what are you waiting for? Play that beauty!”
Shouts of encouragement rang out from the crowd.
Emchee pulled the accordion out, and put it on. “This is so surreal.” She whispered to me. “Do you know Side of the Road?”
“The Concrete Blonde song?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I know it.
“Okay, good. Cause you're gonna help me sing it.”
She drew out the first note, easy and slow. Giving me the first four bars so that I could get a feel for the pace. Then started to sing, “Talk to me baby, say something nice.” I joined in, and was pleasantly delighted to learn that neither of us had what you would call “a singer's voice.” I had no idea what this crowd would think of a song clearly not from their time, but our voices rang out over the accordion, and we we smiled as we harmonized, knowing we nailed it.
When it was over, the crowd went crazy, whistling and cheering. “Another! Something we can dance to!”
Emchee started another more upbeat song, and the crowd roared in response, clapping along, and bustling about dancing. Before I knew it, someone tugged on my hand, and dragged me out to dance. I I twirled around the dance floor, being passed along from partner to partner, barely able to keep up with the crazy drunken pace. The lights were delightfully dizzying. And if these were ghosts, they sure knew how to party.
After a few more songs, the victrola came back on, and Emchee rested at the bar. We had another shot, bought by a gentleman in hat. It could have been any of them. They were all gentlemen in hats.
“Let's dance!” I exclaimed, pulling Emchee out to floor, and we pretended we knew how to waltz, stumbling over each other, spinning far to fast for own good, and it was no surprise that we wound up a laughing heap on the floor.
As we lay on the floor, the alcohol hit me hard, and the room wouldn't stop spinning. Colors swirled and the din of sounds blurred together into one continuous roar.
“Make the dizzy stop!” Emchee's voice echoed my own thoughts.
I looked over and she was clutching her hands to her ears. The sound got louder, and the spinning faster, and I knew it wasn't the alcohol. We huddled together, hands pressed to our ears, squeezing our eyes shut.
When there was silence, and the dizzy slowed down, I cautiously opened my eyes. The room was dark, but sunlight filtered through the slats in the walls and the busted windows, creating lines and shadows across the filthy, empty floor. Not a single person was in sight. The bar was covered in a layer of dust you could cut with a knife. We slowly got to our feet, and silently walked out the door, one side hanging off it's hinges.
When we stepped outside, the sunlight hit, momentarily blinding us. I felt as though I had just woke from a week's worth of sleep.
“Wasn't the sun setting earlier?” Emchee asked.
“Yeah. I thought that was odd.”
“Me too.” She smiled at me. “We totally rocked this ghost town.”
I smiled back, “Yeah we did.”
We got into the car, and I clutched the steering wheel, needing something tangible to hold on to. As we drove away, I glanced into the review mirror, and I swear I might have seen a little girl in the middle of the road clutching a doll to her chest, and maybe she waved.
