Blues Before Sunrise

The streetlight splattered a shimmering mirror over the wet pavement. James stared at the shape of his shadow from his seated position on the curb, then shifted, and watched his shadow shrink into a smaller, hollow space in the reflected light. He wiped the semi-dried blood from his broken nose with the back of his hand. In the distance a muffled song played intermingled with drunken voices. He stood slowly, allowing his shadow to grow to ten feet tall, the dark frame trudging ahead of his boots toward the neon blue sign of the bar on the corner. Two men were arguing next to an old pickup truck, and as he passed by, James felt for a moment that he was absolutely invisible. In his mind he’d become a ghost.

The first set of eyes to meet his belonged to an attractive woman in her thirties sitting on a stool. James realized by her quick turning away that he looked insane. The night had been insane, and yet now he felt more at peace than he had in years. He pushed open the door to the men’s room, the springs straining at each hinge and then screeching when it closed behind him. In the cracked and graffiti-scarred mirror he held a fingertip to the cut above his right eye and the blood below his nostril that had finally dried. The knob for hot water had been broken off, so he would have to settle for cold. He cupped icy water in his hands, rubbing and splashing until no trace of dark-red remained, and then dried his face with a large scrap of the paper towel roll that stood propped on the back of the toilet.

Back at the bar, he took out his wallet and thumbed over the bills. Two twenties, a ten, two fives, and four ones—enough to get good and numb and to pay for the cab ride home. Although the place was practically empty, he sat on a stool next to the woman who had watched him walk in. She kept her head turned away. He didn’t look at her when he gave the bartender his drink order, or when he said, a moment later, “And I’d like to buy another round for this beautiful woman here. If that’s okay with her.”

“Thanks,” she said, still not facing him. She held an unlit cigarette to her lips and glanced at him, a mild grin escaping. “You have a light?”

The lines of her not-quite-middle-aged face marked years passed through cigarette smoke and liquor, maybe a bout or two with insomnia or the wrong men, and less than her share of the rent at the first of the month. Her skin, though, had been exposed to less sun than many women her age, her paleness so stark against the wood-grain wall beside her that she seemed to radiate light. The whites of her eyes were red, as well as the surrounding skin, the overall effect, James assumed, of having cried for the better part of the day.

He cupped his hand to light her cigarette and shook the match flame dead—while she exhaled a gust of smoke through a sigh—thinking he should explain the disastrous state of his face. But instead, he simply told her his name and she gave him hers. Betty. They shook hands. A long moment passed. Then, with her elbow on the bar and her cheek cradled on her palm, sounding disinterested, she asked, “Are you a boxer or something?”

“Nope,” he said, lifting his whiskey from the bar. “I’m a magician.”

“Yeah,” she snorted.

“No, really, I am. For my first trick, I will make this liquid disappear.” He tilted the glass back.

Betty grinned, exhaled a slow stream of smoke. “What do you really do?”

Her voice reminded him of a blues singer who used to pour honey through the microphone, lacing it with arsenic, a singer who died around the time he was born.

“I’m a photographer.”

She squinted. “Really? Or are you just trying...