Shine a Light on Me

Out of the corner of my eye I notice I’m about to get an earful from Wanda.

I’m closing in on sixty and a tongue in the ear from a barroom flirt doesn’t have the same affect it had when I was closing in on my twenty’s. It seems the older I get, the closer I get to adolescence.

“Please, woman,” I say, “the game’s on.”

Wanda slumps back in her seat and I finish my pint.

“You’ll die alone, Michael,’ she tells me.

That’s what they’ve all been telling me.

“No one to mourn ya, Michael,” they say. “You’ll die with a pint in one hand and a cigarette burning in the other. That’s how you’ll go, Michael. Up in smoke.”

Not a bad way to go, I’m thinking. A flaming Mickey funeral pyre of alcohol, tobacco and bad times. A fitting way to die, I’d say.

There ought to be a funeral pyre shop on every corner. They’d be lined up double round the block, I’m betting.

Open twenty four hours. Come on in. Have a pint and a smoke and we’ll send you off to your great reward.

No guarantees as to who you’ll be meeting up with once you get there, I’m thinking.

They’d have to figure in a no return clause. Can’t have everyone wanting back in because you saw your ex-wife at the pearly gate waiting with your pipe and slippers and a complaint or two.

“Oh, no. Not this shit again," I’d be thinking.

I know a few people I’d like to take with me, though. I’m making a list.

There’s the fella lives one floor below me. Before he leaves for work in the morning he likes to set off cockroach bomb sprays in his kitchen.

No sooner is he out the door than I’m visited by scores of dirty looking critters coming up through the cracks in my kitchen floor looking to share in my meager breakfast of peanut butter, brown bread and coffee. Nothing ruins a cup of coffee more than finding one of those bastards at the bottom of the cup when your going in for that last drop. Screws with your day entirely, is what I’m saying.

Yeah, I’m definitely inviting him along, telling him nothing about the funeral pyre part. Have a beer with me, son, I’ll be saying. Put your money away, I’ll continue. The party’s on me.
Another million dollar idea, I’m thinking.

“Another pint, Michael?” says James.

“I’m thinking not, Michael,” I says. “Got a million dollar idea and must go home and add it to the pile.”

”What pile is that?” says James.

“My Million Dollar Idea book pile, James,” says I.

“This last idea of mine will make a grand epilogue, I’m thinking.”

“Good luck on that,” says James.

“Thank you, James and goodnight. And goodnight to you, Wanda.”

“Night, Michael,” says Wanda. “Sure you’re not wanting any company?”

“Night, Wanda,” I says and walk away before I have myself a weak moment. The last weak moment I had resulted in terrifying screams as the infestation from the floor below managed to make its way to my bed sheets and have their annual parade on our naked bodies.

Turns out the particular bar fly who walked me home that night was none too fond of cockroaches. So I try to spend my nights alone, pouring over my Million Dollar Ideas book and wondering if the world is ready for such as me.

Probably not, I’m thinking.

I sit at my kitchen table and tune in the radio. It’s my company of choice at the moment. I tune in some bluesy channel. Blues is a lovely thing to sing. Jilted lovers forever jumping in rivers or shooting their spouses and drinking themselves into an early grave. Subjects dark and dreary. Yet it all seems so right and normal when your singing along, I’m thinking.

Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in the town
Sometimes I get a great notion
I’m gonna jump in the river and drown

That Leadbelly knew the score, I’m believing. Black man in the South. Done a woman wrong and got wronged in return, no doubt. Killed a man. Chain gang. All that trouble in life and he manages to write something like that.

If you’re ever in Houston
Oh, you better do right
You better not gamble
You better not fight
'Cause the sheriff will grab you
And the boys will bring you down
The next thing you know, boy
Oh, you’re prison bound.

Leadbelly night on the radio and I’m finishing my book. Life is grand indeed, I’m thinking.

The knock on the door stirs me out of my dream state and I start feeling blue, but not in a good way.

“Who’s there?” I says.

“It’s Wanda, Michael. You run off with out your jacket.”

I did, indeed. I notice. That’s what million dollar ideas do to a man. Make him forget his own name they will.

I open the door and there stands Wanda. I’m surprised at how human she appears with my jacket draped over her arm. Like it was her job to care for it and if any woman dared think they were woman enough to carry the jacket, well, that had to answer to Wanda.

I’m speculating the reason I’ve never noticed Wanda is because I’m not used to seeing the woman out of her element at James’s tavern. What a handsome woman is Wanda, I’m thinking.

“Here you go, Michael,” says Wanda.

“Thank you, Wanda,” I says. “Care for a nightcap?”

I no sooner say it than I kick myself for saying it. Weak moments are hard to battle and I been battling them all my life, I’m thinking.

But now I’m getting a different feeling as Wanda strolls around the kitchen like a cat, leaving her scent in every corner.

Keep Your Hands Off Her starts playing on the radio and I break into a big smile as I start singing along with Leadbelly.

She's a heavy-hipped mama, she's got the great big legs

She's a heavy-hipped mama, she's got the great big legs

She's a heavy-hipped mama, she's got the great big legs

Walking like she walkin' on soft boiled eggs

Keep your hands off, keep your hands off her

Wanda seems to be having a good laugh herself as she sashays around the kitchen dropping an article of clothing at every turn till she stands before me in all her big girl glory.

“You sure are something, Wanda,” I says. “You thinking about staying a bit?”

“Sounds like a million dollar idea, Michael,” says Wanda. “Too bad you’ve gone and finished that book.”

“Oh, there’s always room for one more, Wanda.” I says.

By the time I say it Wanda has already found her way to the bedroom.

Cockroaches be damned. I says to myself. I’m going in. Hard to tell how many more million dare ideas I got left.

We both done a fair bit of screaming that night and not a cockroach in sight. Life is grand, indeed, I'm thinking.