Guitar Pickin'

Chris would say that, even though he's a five foot 7 white kid in shorts living in the Cass Corridor, no one would mess with him. He said that a crackhead had summed it up something like "We know you got something going on, oh yeah." What he had going on was an obsessed depth of knowledge in German philosophy, more dangerous than crack. I had been misinformed that my friend's band Gaytar, was going to play at the Old Miami one evening. I went to Chris' apartment and had the opportunity to meet Chris' building manager, a bald martial arts master who had crashed his motorcycle headfirst into a car going 85 mph the wrong way on the highway after his wife had divorced him. On rainy evenings, he would go on his roof and practice with a katana. Chris' building had relatively few problems with theft. Sheila and Gianni showed up at Chris' and we set of for the Old Miami. As we walked under that green awning, we were teleported into a sort of drunken twighlight zone. There were two men in overalls sitting in front of the stage. I asked the white-haired one if there was a punk band playing there tonight. "Now I don' know bout all that but if ya wanna see some good guitar pickin music, just stick around." Were we in Kentucky suddenly? He even had a toothpick stickin out of his mouth. We decided to stick around for the guitar pickin. As we were waiting, relaxing on the twenty year old couches and talking trash, a black girl in urban camo pants, a black tank top and wire-rim glasses confronted us. She was sex incarnate. "Are you guys the band?" I pointed at Chris. "He's the band." "Please don't say your rappers," she said, placing her hand on Gianni's arm. She changed the subject... "I just got out of prison, and I'm just lookin to get fucked." She was staring at me hard, even with Sheila half wrapped around me on the couch. "My name's Keisha." She was rubbing Gianni. "It's my birthday." Neither Chris nor Gianni were looking very receptive. "It's because I'm black isn't it." "No, no, of course not." It wasn't that. She was beautiful, dangerous, and a little too horny. "Oh, don't tell me you guys are gay. Man, I just want something up inside me, with some creams..." I interjected "Some motor oil." "Ohhh, you know what I'm talking about. You dirty." At about that moment, a man walked out of the bathroom into the corner of the bar. She sat on his lap as the guitar pickin started. The first song was entitled "Dealin with the Devil," and was half an hour long. It featured the backup stylings of a woman in a crocheted top. She would dodge away from the microphone after each vocal harmonay she sang, as if the guitarist had accidently head-butted her in practice some time in the past.