One For The... A Story of the Past Come To Call

Lights up, Mendacious Minny's place looks like any other bar in the known
universe. Beat up old floors. A half-circle bar that looks more like a high
school cafeteria than something a genteel ginslinger of the old cultured type
would recognize.

Windows to the outside world are garage doors, open now in the evening air.
The p.a. system runs to the outside so the overflow crowd can enjoy the
music just as much as the groupies Minny hopes will jam the inside.

How it changes when the lights come down is our job.

Just don't ever play a song with a line like "have a drink on us". Not in
Minny's place, she's fast to count pennies against the band's take. She's
sent more than one group home with a bill for services rendered even after
they've packed the place to the rafters and the fans have bought every drop
of liquor in the house.

We're old pros, though. Minny's ways don't surprise us. Sure, piss us off,
of course.

So long as we keep our eight-armed drummer away from the drink trays, though,
we're usually more than a few hundred each to the good at the end of the night.
It ain't a living, exactly. But it's one hell of a nice bonus twelve nights
a year.

Minny's other scam on musicians being license fees. Her and every other
venue in the galaxy.

Doesn't matter to us, though. Any covers we do are long since public domain.
Most of our sets are originals. Plus, we've played there enough now for her
computers to build up a database.

New bands spend hours with her, before and after the shows, going over each
piece, wrangling with her about which ones she's got to pay for. With a nice
surcharge on top for the house.

DJ's, new ones anyway, go through hell. Last hot young thing to come through,
a Lrztop with her adult scales just setting, spent three days with Minny,
going through the recording fifteen seconds at a time until every last song bit
had been accounted for.

Good thing Y'ld'na drew a massive crowd, spillaway into the parking lot. She
was lucky. Even with sending royalty checks as far away as the Little Peeper's
and Hoppers Elementary Grassreed Orchestra in the Usalalit Demesne, she ended
up profiting on the trip. A normal crowd and she'd have been doing more than
just cussing and complaining.

Last I heard, Y'ld'na's even booked another trip to Minny's place. But this time
she's sending a pre-recorded performance ahead. Live and learn.

Tonight we're a jazz band. We've got six, enough talent to get 'em out on
the dance floor. We've even got a singer who does a pretty good job on the
vocal bits.

Minny's feeling melancholic. Her homeworld's star went nova a little early.
They got everybody out of the system in time, so her parents and family are
ok.

Except for the part where they moved in with her. That part she doesn't look
too happy about, but them's the breaks. She's covering up well enough, she
asked for a jazz set so she could get the crowd up and dancing, drinking, early
in the evening, then send 'em off on the blue note toward closing time.

Crowd skills.

It's not until I have my trumpet in my hand and the mic stand in front of
me that I see the night's problem child for the first time. Traalska, lean
and small. It's not physicality that makes me wonder what we're in for,
she's not the type to make you reach for a chair.

It's the look she gave Minny.

Minny is dressed up, heels and skirts and the whole bit, ready to dance and
get the evening started. She doesn't do it very often. Tonight is a night
for the bar crew to make the money, she's going to make some fun.

The Traalska follows Minny with her eyes. She's set up just off the dance
floor, sitting at a table with the drummer's wives.

After the first set, I ask Ledannt about her. "Oh, she's a cousin by
marriage. Odthina offered to put her up for a couple weeks while she gets
settled in to her new job."

Family business. Why's she looking at Minny like Minny'd served her iced
tea instead of gin fizz? "I'll get qAr'd to ask Odthina after our next set."

Next set, we move on to bop. Nothing hard, just faster, the early stuff.
Now that everybody's warmed up it's time to get down and funky.
Mixed in with a little early Armstrong, some Dixieland Jazz Band. Just enough
to give everyone a breather, then crank it back up and let it swing.

qAr'd is Ledannt's oldest bride. And the most subtle. "She says it's because
Oaate served in the Leq Division."

Who's Oaate? And what's the Leq Division? "Odthina's cousin, remember you
were wondering what her deal with Minny was? The Leq Division were the ones
who pacified Minny's homeworld in the last big blowup."

Not the nova, I guess. "No, not the nova. The Atrophis-Traalska grudge
match, the one that Minny ran away from to come here."

Now I remember. Minny doesn't talk about it much. She hauled herself
halfway across the galaxy to get away from that stuff. But that brought
up another question. "Odthina couldn't care less about that. She's offworld
for the same reason. We don't even send holiday cards."

Time for the third set. Time for Billie, Ella. Time for our crooner to come
on out from behind the keyboards and take a stand at the front. Shift balance,
mostly the swinging songs, keep 'em moving, but now we want to get 'em
close almost as often. Songs for the lovers in the audience, to remind 'em
what might await at the end of the evening.

I love that part. It's been a long time since I held my lover in my arms on
the dance floor.

I felt a little of my own melancholia, walking off the box after the third
set. Probably not a match for Minny, just enough to cuss her for stirring up
old memories.

Just like she wanted, of course. I ignore the drink she set in front of me,
pushed it back to ask for a beer and a glass of ice water. I wonder if
she's seen Odthina's cousin, and the looks she was giving her. "I ignore her.
None of it matters, now."

What if she doesn't see it that way? A shrug. Then. "Tomorrow will be here.
Why should I carry her worries, I have enough of my own?"

Fourth set, torch songs. Time to set up that blue note, get it working through
the hearts and minds. The young lovers migrated for the door during the break.

Old lovers are still around, though. Still ready to dance, slow and easy.
It's not marinating in nostalgia, this.

It's patience. The ease and flow of time. The torch songs, the blue songs,
the ones that let us know someone else has seen the passage of many things.
Wrote about it, the long dark nights.

Minny's got the lights way down. I have to watch when I solo, don't want
to knock the mic over.

All of us have to watch. That's why we don't see the Traalska, Oaate. She
never found a partner.

No. She brought a partner, a little black and blue needle gun. Nasty thing,
a purse gun made for getting out of tight spots.

Minny never saw her coming. The needles went in just at the base of Minny's
neck.

Like you'd do, if you were gunning for a human. Minny's Atrophian, though.
There's a subtle difference in the brain stem, the doctors tell us later. Just
a small difference in orientation, a little twist to the right.

No difference for a bigger gun, or a phaser, something that blasted and tore.
Big difference that saved Minny's life, Oaate using a needler, and a purse
gun at that.

It's enough. She's patchwork, waiting for nerves to regenerate, to be regrown
and reworked. And she'll be a few months restoring memories and learning how
to walk and talk again.

She's surrounded by family as we leave. The look she gives me as I walk out
tells me all I need to know for next month's performance.

"Punk set, Minny, in October? Something fast and loud to celebrate your
return?" The gang nods around me.

Minny smiles, sly and slow. She doesn't glance around at the family hovering
over her bed. Instead, she gives me a thumbs up.

I wonder, to Ledannt on the way out, if the cops will catch Oaate before she
finds a ride off-planet. "She'd better hope so. Odthina didn't take kindly
to what she did. If Odthina catches her first, there won't be anything but
a grease spot left."