Singing in the Night Air

by MADELINE BLAIR

Once I went sober for a recovering alcoholic because I wanted to see what it was like to be him. When I left him for the last time, I drank for weeks, dizzying toward amnesia. I let the wrong men in the way open windows let mosquitos in at dusk. The bartenders noticed. The bouncers too, eyebrows raised at my karaoke companions cycling through. Milwaukee & California became my only constant, the Blue Line station lights welcoming like a warm friend. I craved the red spotlights, the fog, the blare in my ears, the whistling and whooping when crowds rallied me onstage. I went on singing my siren songs. I didn’t care what it cost me. It all came to a screeching halt after a bad afterparty above Belmont Harbor, waters dark and watchful from below. For months I stayed caged inside my house, plagued by constant panic beating through my veins like a drumline. I came to resent the whole city. When I tried to meet a friend for coffee, I made it two Blue Line stops before fleeing, spilling breathless into the grass. I watched the train move on without me, bitter in knowing they would arrive just fine. I began to open my bedroom window and sing like a sparrow into the night air and empty street. When my cousin came home from college and asked me to karaoke, I declined, then changed my mind. After all, I missed the wind on my face, the drives we’d gone down Lake Shore together since learner’s permits. We sought a new spot, some speakeasy hidden in the Loop. We spoke French on the patio so no one could understand us. I chose to sing La vie en rose. Someone tipped the KJ to bump me to the front of the line. A man with kind eyes left his seat at the bar to come closer and watch me. When I finished, it was him I ran to smiling. Some music you know by heart. He later told me he loves this city most because it’s mine. I still remember how the stars sparkled in the sky that night.

lake turned to ocean
the moon follows us both home
light never too far