Plays

He is a bluesman that time forgot. Through the people he did influence he is finally being honored with a show at Carnegie Hall for all his accomplishments in the music world… Yet he truly believes he does not belong there. This will be his last performance that nobody will ever forget.

THE GOD CODA

A Soliloquist Tale

SCENE

An historical opera hall that is just renovated and doing its grand re-opening. It is full on glory and pomp. A spotlight sign on the curtain displays “His Last Song”.

A dim light shines slowly down onto the centre of the stage. A backscreen suddenly lights up in a bright red haze. It is in complete contrast to the old SINGER who saunters up to the solitary microphone and blows lightly into a microphone that hangs around his neck. He is well into the winter of his life. His creased, weathered, face is shadowed to the quiet crowd in front of him. The backscreen begins projecting images of his history. It helps him transport through time and space. He reaches back and caresses the guitar slung over his shoulder with involuntary action like a lover reaches out to their partner’s hand. He is road weary, uncertain, and tired. The only thing that keeps him standing is his music. He doesn’t really know how to address the establishment or what is expected of him – he is on the brink of something larger than his own being.

SINGER

Softly clears his throat.

Thank you… Thanks for comin’ out tonight. It’s been a long time… Last time I stepped up on these streets I was backin’ a weird sounding poet-songster who found blood on the tracks… I see they have room for the big bands to t’ set up an’ play the night away. But no room for dancin’… There’s this place not too far from here that use t’ have this great stage where people would stomp an’ sing till dawn. And it had this bar that reached from one end of the room to the other… That’s what this place is missing. A great bar. …Maybe next time. Anyways we used t’ play our music and the place would shake like a Saturday night juke box. For you younger ones that’s records in a machine you would put money into to hear your favorite songs… Hopefully tonight… I know I am ramblin’ on but you gotta understand that the last place I played there were a handful of people an’ I had to hold the waitress’ tray while she served the beers… So basically, I’m scared shitless. Chuckles then blows a little into the harmonica. So if you have any requests or jus’ feel like singing along feel free an’ come on board.

He breathes a cold note into his harmonica that silences the massive theatre. The sound should grip each soul in a different way, he thinks, but it’s call is universal. His old eyes squint and peers through the spotlight then he swings his guitar around to allow his lover to face the audience. He begins tuning the beaten beauty.

SINGER

…I’ll get this right. After a couple of short bursts into the harmonica… That’s better… I… I don’t know why I really wrote these next bunch of songs… I was just travelin’ place to place taking in the stories… Never paid any attention to what people were takin’ from them… Figured I was just trying to make a connection to the room with the situations I was facin’ at the time. The songs are a way to reach back. Take the music and open it up. To reach under the belly of that newly paved blacktop and see the bones that it covered… He muses for a bit then launches into a song that brings loud applause.

Images and moments of truth pass through his thoughts as the screen shows a small audience at a coffee shop listening to his younger self. He was resurrecting days long dead. He sees the young looking to the old for some sign to fill in the generational gaps. When the black and white images begin to blur, he lets out a silent, solitary note and lets it drift towards the crowd. His guitar is part of his anatomy. It is him. He strums a hard note. From his microphone to the furthest seat in the house he lets his voice follow the harsh guitar chord. Now he knows the song should fill in the empty spaces between him and everyone else. A faded image of a woman comes on screen.

SINGER

That was an amazing woman… she helped me put together my first record. It was a great time and when we hit the road, I couldn’t have been happier. But like all good things… Let’s just say I let my newfound popularity get to my head. We eventually drifted apart after she tried to shoot me Laughs at his own joke. I still want to thank her for putting a mark on that album and on me.

His fingers begin to fly up and down the neck of his guitar blasting out notes that even the best of ears could catch. They are guided by a thought, an impulse, and a will that he could never describe but is perfectly painted by the music and his voice.

More images crawl up the screen of swamplands of the Mississippi Delta and the back alleys of Old Chicago. The song weaves its way up and down Highway 61.

SINGER

What you’re seen’ is a road that I have bled on so many times. …It’s not the same now but there are some ol’ films you can watch that will bring you back. His voice begins to deepen. Blending with each cord change than to himself.

Lord where the fuck am I?

His voice now becomes dry as dust. The dust that blows across all those highways that are running through his memory and the backscreen. The overhead lights cast sharp crevices into his features as if he is facing an enduring chill and yet his fingers still move beyond human recognition. He slowly blows into his harp and the passion build; cycloning until he becomes the eye of the storm. He is now part of the past, of the days in New Orleans; in Clarksville… in Chicago. He doesn’t see a grand theatre in front of him now. He sees pool halls, bars, and back alleys. He doesn’t see or hear anything around him in this world. Then he returns and his voice becomes that hum. Streams od sweat pour from his head as he backs from the microphone and the spotlight.

SINGER

Thank you… Shields his eyes. This is almost as loud as the crowd down in Harry Hope’s dive in the Bowery…. Any of you been there? …didn’t think so. This is a great honor an’ it’s hard for me to hold myself in. …few times there I really did think I was gonna shit myself. I’m not the type t yammer ‘bout myself instead I tell stories of the folks around me. …You’ve all been to big concerts and see on TV where folks go on about their lives and how they ‘Thank God’ for all they got. I talk about the folks that God didn’t really give anything too… or at least from what they feel that God turned his back on them.

The backscreen goes dark, and a light blue haze filters the stage.

SINGER

One of the best nights I had was in this city in Ontario. It was a bar in a low-down hotel that you’d only go when all the other places yelled last call. There were about ten people in the place. You could tell five were regulars, two just fell in and these two guys who were crawling the street from one end to the other. Pub crawl they said. …The last was this pretty girl who sold her looks… It was funny… I was on a break and saddled up to the bar and those two pub crawlers ordered me a drink with a nod then one for themselves. They ordered something called a ‘Black Russian’. Well the bartender turned with a snap eyeballing them. The one guy repeated the order, so the barkeep pulls a bottle of the shelf and get this! He blows the dust off it!! I started laughing when he said, ‘if I pour this shit somebody’s gotta pay!’. Well those two guys started throwing the drinks back and ordered the place a round. …the party had started. …Then one of those guys turns to me and asks if I could play a song from the Delta… from the Crossroads.

The blue haze turns to blood red.

SINGER

I didn’t want to at first but somethin’ in his eyes and voice told me he was lost and need direction home. So I had him get my guitar and a sang right to him. …In the corner of my eye I could see everyone leanin’ in, but this song was for him… When it was done, I pumped it up and turned the shithole into a Delta Juke Joint. The pretty girl, well she had her tit out and some guy was thrown cash at her. The other crawler yells out “GREAT now there’s gonna be a cover charge!” I laughed and kept on jammin’. The other one thanked me as he need some songs and booze to lift him from the pit he fell into. …That’s when I also realized who I was singin’ for because as he was enjoyin’ the music I said, ‘God bless you son’ and he quiet. … After the song he paid his tab and thanked me again and left with this: “God has left the building good sir. This is hell. Make it bearable for us.”

The stage goes dark. He strums a few chords then picks some notes. The backscreen begins flipping the pagers on musical history from the blues of The Great Depression; WWII Big Band; 50’s birth of Rock and Roll; 60’s Folk and Woodstock.

SINGER

Ok now that I put a downer as the kids say on the show, I’m gonna sing a song about this lady who brought a bright light to everyone she met. …It was show down in Memphis and ended up at Sun Studios. The receptionist was very kind and let me join the line. Remember back then there were two lines. The one I would always be in was only allowed in the back door. Well I got to see where the greats played. She then invited me to a diner, but I wasn’t allowed in. She put up a fuss but still those were the times. …What’s funny is in a lot a ways thing have changed but mostly history repeats. We went to a church revival and I sang my soul out and the folk welcomed her with open arms but the next week we went to her and the shunnin’ began. I was allowed in and she became troubled by her kin folk. …I can still see it here.

The backscreen moves time forward through the 70’s.

SINGER

Big rock came and the Punks brought somethin’ to the party. They were great. They liked to fuck with everyone. The way music was meant to be.

To be continued…