The Funky Chicken

Seven years and a day.

Was it May 28th or 27th when she made the deal? It was hard to remember. That night was blurry enough. Maybe it was past midnight? Which would make the day she was waiting for tomorrow. But she didn’t think it was. The man she made the deal with didn’t seem to be that into semantics. 

It was 11:54 right now and she was almost in the clear. It would be seven years and two days when the clock strikes 12. At least she was pretty sure it would be. If she was right about the date that is. She hoped she was. She was eager to be past this memory, officially. There wasn’t so much of a worry about it all. Only a sadness at the fact it had come so quick. 

God the years went by fast. And she was still in the same place. Nashville. Still doing the same thing. The thing she loved most in the whole world. But when you start trying to make money off that, well, that changes it. Steals something from it. Tarnishes it. Protect your passions was a song she had made inspired by that idea. It didn’t do really well. Mainly because she believed people wanted country songs about chasing your dreams not squirreling them away. 

Seven years and a day. 

She would play at midnight and by the time she was done this day would be long behind her. It would be seven years and two days and the contract would be void. Null. At least she thought that’s true? She wasn’t sure. Irish car bombs made sure of that. They were explosive alright. Booze wiped away almost that whole first year. And damn had she been DRUNK when she made that deal. She wasn’t even sure what she had to give in return when her time was up. And truthfully she hadn’t known what she received. She always was a great guitar player. She might have peaked, finally pushed through that barrier. And it was the years of bleeding fingers that made it so. Not a shadowy deal.

It was the tutors her mom bought for her off their Grocer money. 

It was the thousands of songs she wrote and threw away.

The study of the greats. 

The jam sessions with the best where they pushed each other for days on end without sleep. Drugs and music were all they consumed.

But still. After this day was done and gone, she would feel better. Like she achieved all of it on her own. Truly. No half forgotten dream or shadow gave it to her. It was her skill. HER work (And it was so much work) that got her this far. She strummed on her guitar absentmindedly. A soft hum bouncing out into the half-full seedy bar. A quiver that was little more than a whisper that lovers share in a place like this. It steadied her. More-so than the cranberry and soda water she sipped on. Couldn’t do booze anymore. Couldn’t do a lot of things. They became problems. But truly she knew the problem was herself. In her muddled head and weak will. She wrote so in her song called Chips fall. 

11:59 

Day’s almost done. 

She smiled while chewing on an ice cube. What was I ever worried about? 

She played the chords to the opening of Chips fall and sang under her breath. She wouldn’t play it tonight. That was her old stuff. People didn’t respond to that. They wanted up-beat. They wanted pop. They wanted little lines that were easy to remember and sing back. The execs told her so many many times. Also how her style wasn’t right for country music. God she heard that a thousand times. But of course it wasn’t her half-japanese heritage that played into that right? Fuckwads. 

She hummed:

And the chips they fall like thunder.

Through my fingers, rattle to the ground.

I wish I could use them, 

but they were only meant to be found…

A voice from behind her rose slightly. “My favorite line was the next.” 

Her fingers missed the next tab change. The guitar rattled out a squeaky sick note. That hadn’t happened to her in some time. 

Seven years and… a day. 

She thought about running for an embarrassing second. She thought about pulling the strings from her guitar, smashing it to bits. Or crying. But she did none of those things and instead smiled. Sadly. She was used to this feeling. Being beat. Or really, the feeling of old mistakes coming back to her, to kick her in the teeth. 

‘Smile’ her mom would say, ‘Give them a pretty target at least’. 

“I guess it was the 27th we talked last.” She said, slowly spinning around, nervously playing softly still. The man in front of her was wearing a dark purple suit. Something tailored and velvety. He had a black tie against a black shirt. His shoulders were pointy and wide apart. Like a man of bones, but his white face was flush with life, rosy cheeks and plump red lips. Or maybe what made him seem so boisterous was the purple bowler hat he wore, with a feather plume of white coming from the band. It all screamed he was here to be beholden. 

“You look more out of place than a fifth teet on a cow.” She said jokingly enough. He took no disrespect as he sat down across from her..

“The next line.” He said. “A collection to be lost, life bought at no cost.” He kissed his lips like a chef would. But his movements were somber. He wasn’t poking fun at her it seemed. He then held out a singular skinny finger, as in a point of correction. “It was the 28th we talked last.” He noted. 

“Oh,” That was today. Looking at her watch. Still 11:59. “Then you aren’t coming in the nick of time. You are…”

“Early, that’s right.” He nodded. “I am always early. Never late, you will find.”

She blushed slightly. “And all this time I've been worried about getting through the wrong day.” But of course it was the 29th she should have been fretting about. She could remember it so clearly now. Like he dragged those images of that fateful night behind him on his curtails. The conversation was so clear now. 

Her fingers trailed over her strings. Absent-mindedly. Finding what little comfort was left at this bar. 

“No worries, Many people do the same. Always thinking about hoisting that gold at the Olympics. Never thinking about the after. When they shuffle home and hang it up on the wall.” He looked sad. “Then it’s just a hunk of metal.” He tapped the table and sat curling his lips into a sullen frown. 

“So midnight. That will be seven years and a day?”

“Correct.”

She looked at her watch again. 11:59. “It’s been a hell of a minute.”

He smiled looking her over. She couldn’t help but feel ashamed. She shouldn’t still be here. Doing the same thing. He should be visiting her in her mansion in LA. That’s what he’s thinking too, she could tell. She could see the disappointment in his eyes. You squandered my gift, he’s saying. He took a deep breath and very simply said. “I stopped it for us. So we would have some time to talk.” 

She scoffed. She hadn’t remembered him being so strange. So vibrant. So odd. Something had changed him. Softened him maybe? Looking around the bar the people were still milling about. Chatting. Drinking. Not paying any attention to their little corner table. The bar clock read the same as her watch. ll:59. However, no one was frozen in place like in the movies. But certainly 60 little seconds had passed. It had been drawn out. Or truly stopped altogether.

She should be more concerned but it seemed a familiar sensation. It was the same on stage. How music tends to twist time. Of course it was. She didn’t rightly know who she was talking to or what. But the electric taste on her tongue and the way he moved. She knew he wasn’t a liar. No, he was something else, but he wasn’t a liar.

“You stop it to maybe renegotiate?” She smirked.

He shook his head.

“That’s what I thought. Well I don’t know what to say to you.” She stood up and tried to wave to Dave. To tell him she was ready to go up on stage. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was talking to a haggard blonde with faded tattoos of pin-up girls on her arms. She looked back down at the suited man. “I’ll play one more song if you let me.”

“Sit down.” He said sternly. “You don’t even know what I've come to collect. We have some time. All the time in the world. And I assure you you will play. I came here to hear you play after all. All these years, I never have.”

She thought for a moment before stopping herself. She was tired. Tired of even thinking about things. Tired of maybe even strumming on her guitar to people that didn't seem to care. But she couldn’t admit that to herself. If she gave into that, then she was giving up on… on everything. She could talk more. A little bit more. She pushed all thoughts of what was to come away. He seemed pleasant enough. So her butt found the creaky wood chair again. “Fine.”

“How was it?” He asked. Leaning forward on his hands. 

“How was it?” She repeated. 

He nodded excitedly. 

“What?” She asked.

“Seven years and a day was the deal. I gifted you all those pretty little skills. So. How was it?”

She sighed. “Well, it would have been better if more people noticed them skills.”

“Ah. But that's not what you asked. You asked me to make you the best guitar player ever. Not the most famous one to ever exist.”

“Well I was in a bad spot when we made that deal. It wasn’t exactly fair.”

He tipped his brow down and leaned in further. The brim of his hat shaded his eyes and revealed a hidden intensity to him. Like pulling a thin curtain over a vile face. “Fair.” He snickered. “Fair. Tell me what you did with all this talent I plucked from the air.” He reached up and with the word pluck pulled a silver coin from nothing. He rolled it over his fingers and placed it edge down on the table and held it there. Held it so tight his knuckles were red and white. 

She thought for another moment. She didn’t want to tell him anything. But a deal was a deal. He spun the coin and it rang out in a warbling sound. Even over the piped in Johnny Cash faintly playing over the speakers. She stared at it spinning and spinning. The words started to sprawl out of her. Each turn of the coin made her want to talk more. Need to talk more. Maybe by the end of it he would understand. Maybe he would give her more time. 

“Well the first year was a mess you know. I was drinking to get up on stage. I think I was doing that because I was scared to get up there. Nervous. Yea it was really nerves talking. I needed a drink every time just to calm myself down. Soon it was a ritual. Then I was drinking during the day to write songs. I liked that headspace. Drinking reminded me of playing to the crowd. And then I wrote my best stuff drunk so I kept it going.” 

She sighed. 

“I wished I sounded as good as I imagined. One day I realized I pissed away a year and couldn’t hit my notes. I wasn’t the best guitar player while I was plum dumb drunk, that’s for sure.” She shook her head but said it with a smile. Give them a pretty target.

“Next two years I cut back heavily. I took my craft seriously. I got noticed. I sold some records. Then I thought I might have more luck not as a solo artist. That's when I joined The Voyage.” 

He shrugged. “I heard of them.” But he still had that same disappointed look.

“Yeah, well. It was nice having a band. They were great guys. But they loved to party. I mean, I did too. We really lived that rockstar lifestyle. I mean we weren’t playing big shows or anything. Small festivals. Our name was so small on the poster print you needed a magnifying glass to read it. But it was like we were famous. We toured. That was fun, with no one back home nagging you to come back. We felt... We felt free. Good days.” She shrugged. “Fun days. But fuck. We spent most of our check from gigs at the after party. Blowing through whatever was around. Drink. Drugs. We couldn’t make enough for all of us. The schedule was hard too. People in the bands had families, girlfriends, kids. Playing small bars and little festivals wasn’t cutting it. And Jay.”

“Fuck.” She held her head. “Jay. He didn’t like me showing off my stuff. He’d say, ‘you gotta play what's best for the music.” She scoffed. “I mean he was right. But I had this gift” Her jaw was so tight. “I had only so much time. I knew. I knew you'd be coming for me. I didn’t know what you’d want. What you'd take. Maybe take it all back. My hands? My voice?”

He shook his head again. 

“Before I knew it, three years had gone by. I woke up, I was burnt. We all weren’t friends anymore making songs in a basement. We resented each other because business was getting in the way. I knew I had to leave. I had to surpass this small time shit. So I did.”

“I wrote my best stuff in that stint after. At least I thought so. I finally got noticed. Signed a record label as a solo artist. They said they were in love with me.” She laughed. “Jackasses. I’m so stupid. I’m so fucking stupid.”

She paused. He was still enthralled. The coin was still spinning. She leaned forward and stopped it under her pointer finger. “Can I have a drink? I mean if we are gonna do this. Can I have a drink? Just one.”

He nodded, clicking his fingers. Before she knew it Dave was in front of them. He ordered a drink. Her favorite. Vodka, Soda, Cranberry with lime. Simple. The colors in the glass are so pretty, the taste better. Dave brought it back to the table and he pushed it over to her. The condensation on it shone like diamonds. She wet her mouth with the drink. It tasted like bliss. Warm. Right. She looked at the clock. 

Still 11:59. 

He flicked the coin out of her held finger and it started it’s spin again. Warbling near the edge of the table but not quite falling over. 

“I signed to that label thinking they liked me for me. Thinking they were different from all the scumbags in the business I met before. They said they liked my sound. Really… They liked my look. They wanted to market me as some bi-racial small town girl. Get the fucking fetishizers that KPOP brings in. But the twist was, I was a country singer. And the songs they wanted me to sing was some stereotypical shit. I mean, nothing new. And definitely not letting me do my thing on my guitar. I was pulling three chord changes a song and singing about drinking shitty fucking cheap beer and back country roads. Riding horses or some shit. I ain’t ever ridden a horse, their big heads scare me. But just because I haven’t done some shit doesn’t mean I can’t sing about it. And I can always sing about pain. I can sing about hurt. I can sing about scraping a living while the guitar does most of the work. That’s country!” She shrugged. “What do I know.”

He let her breathe and think. She started up again, her cheeks cooling down with another drink. 

“Those albums. I mean, those albums I can’t think of one song I wanted to write the way I wanted it. And I was the frontman. My name was big and bold on every album.” She took another drink. 

“The worst thing was it was what I wanted, in a way. At the start at least. That’s what I convinced myself. ‘This is what I wanted’ I would say. It was working. I got fans, some recognition. A nice house from the studio checks. And all it cost me was my pride and my talent and 20 pounds that they told me I had to lose. They gave me the trainers and pills to do it easy. I thought it was alright. That’s what I told myself, ‘it’s alright, this is the beginning of something. I can do what I want later.’ But three years and four albums and I was addicted to pills and had so many plastic surgeries I would look forward to them just to get the painkillers. I was so... So. Insecure. Insecure about everything! My nose. My fucking eyes. They wanted me to change my fucking eyes!”

She was holding back tears. Her frustration poured out of her. But her drink calmed her some. “Why did I let them talk me into all that? I wasn’t getting paid ridiculous amounts. They had a hundred artists just like me that they were incubating. Working on them, tweaking them, controlling them like little toys. Waiting for one of them to blow up. I was nothing to them! When I finally wanted out. I had to spend so much on lawyers. Just to get out from under them. I just wanted to make my music again. My music! But you know what? They wouldn’t let me. Not with the name they owned.”

“They took my fucking name. And now, I'm here. Back to square one. Using a goddamn stage name for the first time in my life. Seven years went like that.” She snapped. 

The coin stopped its spin. It rocked and finally halted. Heads up. A woman with a crown looked to the sky. She was done with her story. There was so much more to tell but that was it. Times up. You only have them in the palm of your hands for a couple minutes. Never ask for more or they'll hate you for it. That’s what she learned. She stared at the man in front of her. He smiled slightly. Just a tiny bit. Just the corner of his mouth. “I think that is a very good story.” He said.

“Story needs an end.” She noted. 

He leaned in like he was telling her a secret. “Stories aren’t real… In real life, nothing truly ends.” 

She took another drink, grimacing. “Seven years and a day. What do you call that?” She was almost panting from the amount of words that spilled out of her. She could feel her cheeks flushed. Sweat on her forehead. It was like she just finished a concert with the lights beaming down on her. She wiped the tears out of the corner and her eyes and looked at the crowd of happy bar flies. “It was something alright.” 

“Isn’t it all?” He muttered while smiling profoundly.

“There’s more too.” She noted, between gulps of the last of her drink.

“I know. There always is. But...” He tapped his watch

She looked at her own. 12:17. Showtime. 

Dave was next to her all of a sudden. Tapping her shoulder. 

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked. She looked up at him, past his potbelly that was in her face. “You okay?” He repeated. “You’re on. I’m real excited to hear you play.” He said with a big bearded goofy grin. 

She stood up feeling like she was in a dream. She looked at Tim, he did nothing. 

She found herself on stage. There was a small light on her with a crowd of two dozen people only half paying attention to her. That was okay. It was often how it was nowadays. But she was only performing for one. Maybe she couldn’t tell him it all, but she would show him. She hadn’t really squandered anything. Maybe he would let her off easy. 

She didn’t remember introducing herself. Or introduce any of the songs. Instead she found herself playing small notes to bigger ones. A harmony growing and growing. Frenetic. A living breathing, bubbling song. Like some monster coming forth out of the waters. Bigger than her. Bigger than anyone. Terrifying. It was larger than anything she had played before but it was still her too. The story of her life was pouring out of the guitar. The strings screaming to be heard like they were on their last breath. As she was. She breezed past any semblance of any songs she was known for. She played something else. One song. One song that contained all her other ones. The ones worth mentioning. One song of hurt and pain. One with simple lyrics that she had never sung before. But they came easy, the words. She didn’t know how long she was up there but as the crescendo ended she played pitter-pattering notes that sounded like funeral dirges. Then she found herself back in her reality. No idea what time it was.  

Looking up, only a couple people were still watching. Some had given up at the spectacle. Some had left entirely. Only a few remained. And him of course. 

It was what she expected. But she had hoped for so much more. 

Always have, that’s what got you into this.

She steeled herself and bowed. 

Tim wiped his eyes between the applause he doled out to her. He was in a completely different light and as she hopped down and smiled and he beamed it back. She took his hand and found that it was warm.

“Alright, I’m ready” She looked at the crowd again. One last time. Some ten people were still clapping. Only half of them meant it. A few were in awe and fighting back emotion. One fan was bawling and apologizing to their date. 

That’s enough, I suppose. 

He bowed to her and placed his feathered cap on her head which made her blush and giggle. Arm in arm they left the little seedy bar. Her guitar still propped up in the corner. She wouldn’t need it anymore.