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Bothering the Coffee Drinkers (continued)
After the set, Johnny Q talked to Joy for what seemed like a long time. She wanted to know where he was off to next, and he told her and she thought out loud how exciting it must be to live life on the road. She jokingly asked if she could roadie for him. She also told him a lot about herself, but that was common to his experience, people tend to open up to performers, even at his level. But, unlike most people he met on the road, the more she talked, the more he liked her and wanted to get to know her better. She didn't fit any particular category, and as Johnny Q sipped his fourth iced latte of the afternoon, he learned she came from a large family, had two sisters, was in graduate school, getting her master's in social work, and after that she wanted to do something with at-risk youth. She talked about how getting a good start in life was essential, and so many kids didn't have the advantages she'd had growing up.
"It's not a fair playing field," she said.
Johnny Q felt something inside. Now, he wanted to marry her.
"Can I buy a CD?"
Johnny Q thought about this. If he gave her one, he might get started on a path that would never end, and the next think he knew he'd be an at-risk performer. So, he compromised and cut her a deal. She asked him to sign it. He wrote something short and sweet and scrawled his name with a sharpie pen he'd brought along for just such an occasion. The bookstore was growing quieter and Johnny Q heard Silas Henderson's affected Massachusetts-born country twang wafting in from the CD section. Joy's friends were starting to show signs of impatience and restlessness, as they cleaned off the table and returned their rental books and magazines. Johnny Q saw his opportunity slipping away and so he stumbled forth, asking her out to dinner. She demurely thanked him and said she'd love to, but Alisa was the driver and they had to get going because her cousin was visiting from out of town and would be arriving soon and they'd promised to meet her and it was quite far away and they were probably late already. Johnny Q wondered how far anything could be from anywhere in Greensboro and Winston-Salem.
"Can I sign up on the mailing list?" she added, abruptly. "I'd love to see you next time you come to Greensboro to play."
Johnny Q figured that might be never. But he played it cool, handing her his clipboard as he leaned back to watch, one hand on the back of the chair she sat in as she leaned in and wrote down her information. He thanked her and she offered her cheek for him to kiss, which he did. Then, he watched her get up and walk past the empty tables and barren magazine racks, through the discount section, out the doors and into the twilight. He packed up, got paid, and did his totals: a hundred bucks to get him to the next place, a CD for the road, a magazine, and thirty-five bucks in CD sales. Oh, and he had an e-mail address and smiley face on the mailing list, from a girl he'd like to marry. Maybe it hadn't been so bad after all. Like his manager said, it would be the six times in-between that would kill him.
[The multi-talented Doug Hoekstra first became known to us as a writer of songs rather than prose. He has six albums out in the states, with a seventh (Su Casa, Mi Casa, a collection of live performances recorded between 1996 and 2004) just recently released in the UK, soon to be readily available on this side of the Atlantic as well. See our reviews of The Past Is Never Past (2001) and Waiting (2003), and hear some clips from those CDs here and here. To find out more about all things Hoekstra, visit the artist's website.]
