W. Todd Myrick
The music stopped in an unexpected rush as the drummer’s snare and cymbal punctuated the final note of the set-ending song. The stage lights came down and the man with the guitar and honeyed voice leaned into the microphone; his face cast gray in a deliberate shadow, dimly lit beneath the brim of his Stetson, his signature black hat now shining brightly beneath a lone spotlight. He seemed to want to say something but the crowd noise was not yet to his liking. The darkness that surrounded the other musicians around him and the quiet before he spoke over the developing silence betrayed the introspective moment he yearned for as he stood in front of them deep in thought.
He shrugged, dropped his left hand from the neck of his Gibson and reached into his pocket as a legion of fans, predominantly female, donning tee shirts silk-screened with his image, that had mostly followed his cue, were now standing mouths agape as a smattering of unsettled whistles and “we love you’s” reverberated across the hall. All eyes were now on the silhouette of his face wondering what was about to follow. Just seconds earlier they were at a fever pitch of excitement but as the memory of the last chords of his solo faded permanently into the stillness of the moment the hall quieted even more.
“If you’re looking for consolation for that lost love in your life…….. you should be at someone else’s show tonight” he groaned softly, almost solemnly into the microphone, the sound of his voice riding low across their heads, densely filling the space beneath the floor of the stage he stood motionless upon until his words echoed against the wall in the back of the hushed now attentive room.
“What did he say?”
“Constellation, something about the stars I think. Does he have a new song out or something” one woman half slurred whispering to the other standing there so as to not disturb the moment she hoped?
The guitar player reached into his pocket where he found the mood changing delivery device in darkness and placed it in his mouth. In the darkness, few could make out what he was doing.
The two women, standing no more than twenty feet from the center of the stage, had no clue what the singer, songwriter genius they had come to worship was talking about and the strangeness of the moment brought a sobering pause between their private investigation that ended as quickly as it had begun.
Holding the element in his hand, softly gripped between his thumb, second and third fingers, he raised it, pressing it to his lips, craving its effect but only taking a short gentle breath from its opening. The suction he created warmed the blend of essential ingredients, wildcrafted plants whose oils when blended together produced an immediate sensation of happiness as their molecules raced through his mouth and reached his olfactory nerves, transmitting impulses to his brain from the smell receptors in the mucous membrane of his nose.
The spotlight held its grip on him, his head still tilted downwards, the crowd growing anxious as someone in the audience yelled: “PLAY THE BLUES!”
Slowly he raised his face, returning to its shadowed frame, his head now tilted slightly as if he were staring at the faces of those in the front row, but the pose he struck was draped in heaviness as the black stillness highlighted white clouds that began to billow from both sides of his nose, like smoke pouring out from a burning building through open windows. Stacks of puffy white streams of air escaped, dancing in the light as they swirled and glided away from the tip of his nose encasing the microphone in front of him.
More whistling ensued as someone screamed “BLOW SOME OF THAT OUT HERE” and many yelled in approval of the off-putting comment since it had nothing to do with the moment he was taking.
He knew the full effect of the feeling he desired would take only a few minutes to arrive in what is known as the “entourage effect.” The key ingredients in the device in his hand were working better together than they could in isolation.
He raised his head and leaned again into the mic.
“The first time I heard this one ……I was sixteen …….and I didn’t know damn a thing about love. You wanna hear some blues – this is ‘No Expectations’ from The Rolling Stones.”
He took another drag and slowly exhaled.
The crowd began to stir as he pulled the device from his mouth and did something most unusual that many up front in the crowd noticed right away, including the women who thought he was going to sing about the stars - he struck the first chords of the song and began to play slide guitar with whatever it was that he had pulled from his mouth.
The stage lights popped on, the spotlight now replaced by a lush hue of red, blue, yellow and orange. The simple chord progression of C to G, repeated three times and then moved to F, C & G - his left hand sliding in a perfect rythm above the fretboard as he began to sing;
Take me to the station And put me on a train I've got no expectations To pass through here again
Once I was a rich man and Now I am so poor But never in my sweet short life Have I felt like this before
Our love was like the water That splashes on a stone Our love is like our music It's here, and then its gone
His performance of the song was masterful, soulful and as the short ballad ended two things occurred that left most chattering about as they made their way out of the hall moments later.
As he finished the song he pulled what many thought was the slide from the neck of his guitar and magically placed it in his mouth taking another short breath, paused and exhaled through his nose. As he did so a raucous reaction to that strange fact grabbed ahold of the audience moving many to nervously applaud and whistle as if he were evolving from musician to magician.
A large infectious smile broke out on his face and he spoke into the microphone one final time as his band mates began to leave the stage behind him.
“Happiness ain't something you postpone for the future; it’s something you design for the present. Thanks for coming out tonight – see you next time!” he said with a wide smile on his face as he began to leave the stage.
Suddenly he paused, pulled a white cylindrical case from his pocket and appeared to drop what everyone thought was his slide that he had just used to perform ‘No Expectations’ into it.
He then tossed the case, a protected steel slide, a joint, or a cigarette or something in between, into the audience just as the house lights rose up. It tumbled end over end in short flight and approached the audience in the direction of the same two women who still had no idea what they had witnessed.
Of the two, one was taller than most around her so her reach, timed perfectly with her jump, allowed it to land squarely in her hand, much to the chagrin of everyone around her.
Her friend marveled at her luck and the two, as well as many others around them, were transfixed to see what she now possessed, laughing hysterically.
She gave it a quick look and was surprised to see what slid out of the white case. A stainless steel rod painted gold and embossed with the words ‘happy monq.’ There also appeared to be printed on it the words fennel, thyme, and vanilla. She quickly grabbed her phone and googled 'monq.'
The top result read; MONQ Therapeutic Air - The Personal Essential Oil Diffuser
What the heck is this? Was he getting high off of this and then playing his guitar with it? I don’t understand.
Her friend looked at her and smiled “He was getting happy! I’ve heard about these – they're a trip - I can’t believe you got his – very cool!”
Someone tapped on her shoulder “Hey – you hear about him – the news today?”
“No what?” she asked
“His wife filed for divorce today. Makes sense now – I don’t think he’s ever covered the Stones before, let alone ‘No Expectations’. You catch his slide or something?”
And then she remembered. She’d noticed something about the white case the rod fell out of.
She pulled the white case from her purse that the happy monq was in and pulled it closer to read something written very small on it - in what looked like black sharpie ink
It read “for Amanda.”
Happy …………..for Amanda she mused.
She smiled because she understood, all of it!
She beamed because as crazy luck would have it – her name too was Amanda.