Hurt

Summary: “Of all the nights I have spent here, I have never seen the stage be occupied by other than the occasional drunk singing along to bad eighties music or a passed out frat boy. My eyes narrow as a thin lithe figure drags a stool with one hand and a heavy guitar case in the other. “

Author's notes: I don't own the song “Hurt” and if you're wondering what version the girl is playing, it's the heartbreaking Johnny Cash version. I love Trent, but Johnny's version fits the story better.

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The small club was practically empty save for a few passed out drunkards at the bar with their heads bowed in a sacrilegious prayer, a world-weary bartender, and myself. An empty stage sits in front of me, it lays abandoned and dreams of the days when nameless jazz musicians poured their souls into rusty microphones and sultry vixens lamented over lost lovers. The microphone stands alone in the darkness.

Of all the many tables surrounding the stage, I am the only person sitting at one. The chair wobbles and the surface of the black lacquered table is sticky with an unknown substance that I quietly hope is beer. It is silent, with the exception of the drunken ramblings of a man dressed in a shabby business suit and a beer mug glued to his stubby fingers. The whole place smells of cat piss and broken dreams but still I manage to go out of my way to spend time here after a hard day of work.

As I stare blankly at the bottom of my glass, watching the backwash dance in the stale beer, a single spotlight flicked on and buzzed on the empty stage. The bartender sighs and mumbles something about a singer and I turn to look at him quizzically. Of all the nights I have spent here, I have never seen the stage be occupied by other than the occasional drunk singing along to bad eighties music or a passed out frat boy. My eyes narrow as a thin lithe figure drags a stool with one hand and a heavy guitar case in the other.

She takes my breath away instantly. Her knee-length white lace dress glaringly stands out from the dark of the club. On her feet are well-worn black motorcycle boots and her chin-length black bob looks like it was cut with a dull razor. She looks hardly older than sixteen, fresh faced and naive to the evils of the big city. But with her youth comes an ethereal quality that I had never seen before.

She takes her seat on the stool and pulls a dark cherry stained wooden guitar out of her tan leather case. She adjusted the strap and set the guitar on her lap. The guitar shines with the glare from the lights and stings my eyes. A small cough comes from a man at the bar and the girl smiles weakly and speaks into the microphone, “Hi, my name's Delilah and I'll be playing a few songs for y'all tonight.” Her voice is small and I hear a hint of a Southern accent coming through.

Her long fingers strum the guitar a couple of times and she clears her throat. I forget my dancing backwash and give her my full attention. The microphone crackles from being ignored for so long but her voice comes through quickly. Her strumming slowly forms into a song and her pink little lips quiver with the anticipation of her song.

“ I hurt myself today to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real. The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting try to kill it all away. But I remember everything. What have I become?”

At first her words are weak and her voice warbles a bit but soon she hits a full stride and the notes come out perfectly. I recognize the song and my mind sings along. Her fingers deftly stroke the guitar into playing the right notes. She closes her eyes and sings the chorus.

“My sweetest friend, everyone I know goes away in the end and you could have it all.
My empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt.”

A few of the men at the bar shout something crude and one even throws an empty beer can at the stage, barely missing the beauty on stage and hitting the dark red curtain behind her. Her words falter but her fingers press on, pressing down the strings and releasing sweet noise from the wooden instrument. My heart pounds in my chest and loosen my tie. I feel sweat seep out of my pores despite the frigid atmosphere of the dank club.

Several sung words later and even more heckles from the intoxicated crowd, to my dismay I see tears fall down her pale cheeks. Anger rises in me and I turn to the hooligans behind me, “Hey, would you guys shut the fuck up?! I'm trying to listen!” Of course, at this moment the men become sober and I learn what quick tempers my fellow barflies have. A large man with a handlebar mustache and a shiny baldhead rises from his stool. He wobbles a bit but his anger is not lost on me. “What did you say, you little fuck?” his thick Brooklyn accent causes his words to run together, giving the threatening inflection of them a harsher tone. I open my mouth to repeat myself but I stutter and my reply is lost in a flurry of meaningless words. My nonexistent reply seems to have set off the thug's short fuse and he rushes at me.

As our arms tangle together and the table I sat at crashes to the floor with my weight, I see a flash of white and the worried face of my sweet Delilah. I hear her beg with the man to release me but one of his buddies soon pulls her back and crushes her arms to her sides with his huge muscular arms. I can hear her cries as the drunkard drives his fist continually into my face and I feel the warm sensation of blood pouring from my nose and mouth onto my face. Again and again, the raging fist pounds my poor face into oblivion.

I know that my nose is long gone, the bones ground into a fine dust, and that my cheekbones have collapsed in on themselves. I know my face must look horrifying to my beautiful Delilah but I have the strange feeling that she'd love me anyway. That she would love everything about me. My vices and my bad habits would seem normal to her. She'd be fine with my drinking and she'd sing me the songs she wrote the night before. I feel a smile spread on my face as I imagine her warm body against mine as we lay in cool bed sheets, drinking in the warmth from each other. We'd read the Sunday comics together and agree on how stupid people must be to find Cathy funny. She'd cry whenever I'd accidentally hit an animal in the car and would insist on giving the poor creature a funeral on the side of the road. Her smile would light up my dark life and everyone would comment on what a cute and unusual couple we were. For once, we'd both be truly happy.

As if the abuse he had inflicted on me was not enough, I heard the sick slick of a pocketknife opening in the man's hand. I see the six-inch blade and I know that I'm dead. He brutally jams the knife into my stomach and I know that I'm dead. I see him walk away and Delilah break free from the other man's grip to run to me. I see her dark hair frame her pale face and her eyes filled to the brim with tears. She sobs loudly and I know that I'm dead. Dead, but happy.

“If I could start again, a million miles away I would keep myself. I would find a way”