Thursday, March 26, 2009

Lucille

"She's a beauty, aint she son?"
"Yeah she is pops," I say as the two of us sit down at the dinner table. And she really is. Her body curves like bends of the old highway 52 that runs back behind our house. Her skin shines and it's smooth. Ever so smooth.
"I found her down on Beale when I was about your age. I was playing the Kudzu Diner every night. Singing my heart out to the broken-hearted drunks. Thirty years later and she still can bring a man to his knees."
"I wish I could have seen you two way back then, dad."
"You shoulda heard her son. She could sing. She had the kinda voice you don't forget. When she wailed, people listened."
I wish I could have seen them, just dad and Lucille, singing the delta blues in that smokey, dimly lit dive. Singing for the sake of singing.
"She's had better days, son, don't get me wrong. But she's still got it in her."
Her slender neck has accumulated a few nicks over time. Her fretboard stained with years of sweat from dad's passionate playing.
"But she can still sing boy, she can sing. I want you to have her Albert. I want you to make me proud at that old diner, and sing your broken-hearted laments to those sinners lookin for a savior."

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