#Bama Rags | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

roosterbruiser · 1 year ago

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𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄? — 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟒

—𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 𝐏𝐎𝐏 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐈-𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒. 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 (𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐒𝐓) 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒 𝐁𝐔𝐘 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐏𝐔𝐌𝐏𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐉𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐒 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐖𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑. —𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒: 𝟖.𝟒𝐊 —𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 —𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 —𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃 —𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄? 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐉𝐀𝐊𝐄'𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟒

The tough leather football catapults off the laces of Jake’s right cleat and soars across the true-blue sky through the yellow guideposts staked at the opposing side’s endzone. It’s clean--doesn’t so much as skim the chipped paint before it bounces off the net gloriously.

Triple.

And just like that, the game ends the way everyone already knew it would: with Jake Seresin’s jersey blown up on the jumbotron, with the home team’s score dwarfing the opposing team just barely, with the crowd roaring in abundant approval.

The loyal crowd packing the stadium, all dressed in a sea of morning yellow and teal, erupts like an undefeated crowd should. Everyone is on their feet, breaths no longer held and fingernails no longer bitten, with their hands in the crisp autumn air surrounding them. The bright stadium lights wash over the field--all the celebrating players, the exuberant turf, the moping opposing side glitter inside its glow and beneath the evening sky.

Thunderstruck by AC/DC is screaming through the speakers. At this point, you’re well-versed enough in your school’s football history to know that this song is synonymous with victory. It’s the only reason you put up with the trash.

“Holy shit!” Bob calls out. He’s grinning, his lips a bit pink and wet and his eyes wide and watered with joy. “Bullseye, man! Bullseye, bullseye, bullseye!”

Bob rarely curses so liberally--you’ve noticed this over the past year between late night runs to the corner store and lazy afternoons in Jake and Brad’s dorm. He says things like good Lord and have mercy and now just hold on a darn second there. But during football games, his lips are looser and he isn’t as quick to flush. He can say shit and damn and sometimes fuck. It is partly because of the sticky, nippy atmosphere and partly because of the few cheap beers Javy always buys for him.

“I told you! I told you he never misses!” Javy returns excitedly. “Fuck outta here, ‘Bama!”

Javy brings his pointer and his tongue to his mouth, glancing over at you to make sure you see--you do and you’re already covering your ears. He gives you a courteous warning before he whistles after he nearly made you jump out of your skin during kick-off a few weeks ago.

He heard all about it from Jake when you let it slip casually in conversation.

“You trying to maim her or something, you dick?” Jake had said with his brows furrowed, his cheeks still pink from running though the football game had ended hours ago. He took a long, languid drink from his water bottle and then drew it away and pointed at Javy with it. “How about some warning next time, big guy?”

“Let’s fucking go!” Javy calls out, his voice ragged from calling out referees and hollering Seresin and Bradshaw, the paint on his face crumbling as his mouth stretches into a grin. “Don’t Trip on your way out, bitches!”

He wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into his side--he smells like face paint and sweat. Bob, all his excitement bubbling over, blows a yeasty breath out and wraps you up in his arms, too. Bob, somehow, always smells like he’s only just stepped out of the shower.

Jake can hear everything from the field--everyone screaming, the noisemakers snapping, the hands clapping, the other players cajoling, Javy’s absurdly loud whistling--for only a moment. He only experiences the win for a few fleeting seconds, teammates punching his shoulder pads and slapping his ass through his tight game pants, until he turns his face to the bleachers.

It is easy for him to find you. Maybe if he told someone that, someone like Javy or Bradley or Bob, they would tell him that it’s because he’s the one who bought your tickets, picked your seats. That he simply memorized where you’re gonna sit, glances over during practice, always checks on you.

But Jake knows better than that.

He knows that it is so easy for him to find you because he looks for you in every room now--even if it’s the chem lab he knows you aren’t even enrolled in, even if it’s his family’s living room in Texas over the summer when you’re home in Virginia, even if it’s his dorm room at four in the morning and he’s just dropped you at your own hal, even if it’s the crowded dining hall he knows you wouldn’t ever step foot in on your own.

He’s good at finding you--always has been.

And now, a year to the day he first saw you at that shitty house party that only played a few good songs, he finds you wedged in between Bob and Javy.

Jake’s chest is tight as he looks at you. You’re standing between two of his best friends, who have now become your friends, grinning like there is no other place in the world you would rather be than this close to the football field and drowning in beer breath.

There you are, like you have been since November of last year, standing in the first row of bleachers. You’re clapping and laughing as Javy and Bob hold you and undoubtedly insult the opposing team. You’re wearing the sweatshirt Jake gave you, that soft yellow thing that’s been faded with time since it was first worn by Jake’s father all those years ago, and there are little butterfly clips in your hair--team colors, of course.

It’s funny, Jake thinks. A year ago you didn’t own even one school team shirt. Not a hat, a keychain, a hand-me-down, not even one of those rubber bracelets you can get for free literally anywhere on campus.

“Didn’t have a reason to have school pride before. You know--before you. But doesn’t everyone have school pride now that we’re undefeated? I bet you’re the reason a lot of people buy sweatshirts, Trip,” you told him when he asked about it. It was December of last year and he was reclined on your bed, watching you brush your hair as you slipped into his father’s sweatshirt. “This is really nice, you know. Vintage.”

“It was my dad’s,” Jake told you softly, trying to be sly about his lingering gaze.

But still, you saw him when you turned suddenly to look at him with furrowed brows. The two of you had only known each other for a month and some change and already he deemed you important enough to will down his father’s sweatshirt.

“Shouldn’t you be saving this for some gorgeous girlfriend in a little tank-top?” You asked, only half-joking.

He caught your gaze in the mirror and shook his head.

“Nah,” he answered. “It looks good on you.”

But now, here you are, all these months later. In the same sweatshirt, the one you keep in pristine condition and wear almost every gameday. And now you have matching hair clips.

Almost instantaneously, you know he’s looking at you. Even when he’s across an entire football field, even when he’s being crowded by the rest of the football team and the coaches, even when his eyes are nearly hidden behind his helmet--you know. It’s a feeling that you get, one that is almost indiscernible from other big feelings like exhilaration or delirium.

And because you know he’s looking at you, you know that when he jams his finger in the sky and angles it--he’s pointing at you. You. That’s who the win was for. You. It’s always you. If someone were to be writing it down, they would know that every single win this season--and every single one during the latter half of last season--is dedicated to you. You own them, really. Technically. They’re gifted to you, thrusted into your lap, by Jake.

Just like you do each time he points to you after a win, you hold your hands in a heart--a juvenile and crooked thing. But you hold it high and proud in the sky as confetti reigns down from the bleachers above.

Jake’s beaming underneath his face mask, filled to the brim with unadulterated joy as you hold your hands up in a heart. It’s for him--it always is.

He can’t remember when this all started--the hearts, at least. He thinks they must’ve started the way nicknames do; on a whim, randomly, fleetingly. It’s that sweet thing where you don’t know where something begins or how it will end, but you know everything in-between because it just is.

But he does remember the first time you came to a game after you met. It was the next game, the one he promised he’d get you tickets to, and you sat in the front row like you said you would despite him offering to nab you some nosebleeders.

His fingertips tingled with adrenaline the entirety of the game, only gaining more momentum the closer the team got to a fourth-quarter victory. Everyone could tell that Jake was on his A-game, which meant that he was unstoppable.

He was the one who kicked the field goal that won the game--and with only ten seconds left on the clock. He remembers vividly the way the crowd went animalistic, the way everyone erupted in howls and cries and hollering.

Before the game, he memorized the exact seat you were going to sit in. During practice, he watched it--imagined you there. Your exuberant smile, your unrelenting good mood, which he partly attributed to the company of yours truly and partly attributed to you losing the dead weight of Spit Sabler.

And when he kicked the field goal, when he heard the crowd go wild, he turned towards where he knew you were sitting. It wasn’t even on purpose--it was just like a natural reaction. There you were, just like you said you would be. Grinning. Clapping. Laughing.

He was so overwhelmed with joy, so overwhelmed with having met you and immediately adored you, that he pointed to you.

You.

His girl.

He doesn’t remember what he was doing after wins before this--before he started looking for you. Maybe he was indulging in the celebration. Maybe he was letting Bradshaw tackle him to the turf. Maybe he was running to the sidelines. He can’t remember. He experiences this a lot when he thinks of life before you--it’s all blurry. Unimportant.

“You fucker! You dumb fucker!” Bradley laughs in his ear as he jumps into Jake’s arms, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and knocking Jake’s helmet with his own. “Just take me already!”

“You fucking goon, get off me!” Jake howls, stumbling backwards with Bradley’s entire weight on his torso. But he’s still grinning. “You’re giving the other team way too much ammunition right now!”

“Ammunition-shammunition!” Bradley says gleefully, panting and laughing as he hugs Jake close to him. They both stink--almost indistinguishable from each other. “We won! We fucking won! Let ‘em talk!”

“We always do,” Jake says, planting Bradley’s cleats back on the turf. “We’re literally 10-0!”

Bradley slaps his hands on the sides of Jake’s helmet and pulls him close so that the hard plastic clashes roughly. Jake starts to whine, but Bradley is too amped to notice or mind.

“I love you, man! I love you!”

“Stop!” Jake insists. The grin is devouring his face. “Be normal!”

“I can’t! Something’s happening to me! Something big and-and--!” Bradley’s already starting to gyrate, spreading his arms out and running in place on the tips of his toes. “Oh, God--it’s happening!”

“Don’t!” Jake warns, shaking his head seriously. “Please--just this once, don’t do it--!”

The team is already watching the two of them, amused. They know what’s coming. It’s the same thing at the end of every game that Jake wins for the team--which is almost every single one at this point.

Bradshaw is notoriously an idiot--bonafide. But he might be the most beloved member of the team; he has an irresistible goofy charm about him that even the quarterback is susceptible to. That’s pretty much what happened with you, too. You fell in love with his big, cow-like eyes and unrelenting unwillingness to be embarrassed.

“It’s taking me! Oh, Lord! It’s taking me!” Bradley cries. He’s really getting into it now, clutching his chest and marching in place on beat. “Help me, Jake! Help me!”

“Uh-oh,” Bob says with a fond smile tugging on his lips. He squeezes you and Javy. “Trouble! One o’clock!”

You and Javy grin at the scene on the field. The other team dejectedly fielding sneers and boo’s as they sulk off the field as AC/DC shakes the ground beneath their cleats. Your football team watches on in amusement as Bradley howls and breaks out in dance while Jake desperately tries to get away.

“The Bradshaw Boogie,” you sigh, beaming. “Who could've guessed?”

“Me, you, Bob, that guy over there, that guy over here, even the lady down there,” Javy lists, shaking his head. “What an idiot.”

“But he’s ours,” you sigh lovingly, leaning your head against Bob’s. Bradley tackles Jake to the ground and your chest grows warm, pulses with love. “Both of them.”

𖥔

“Doesn’t this all feel so…American?” Bob asks. He’s pushing the cart, squinting beneath the harsh fluorescents flickering above the lot of you. He’s in his costume already--a freakishly accurate Indiana Jones costume that has gotten more than a handful of compliments since arriving at the grocery store. “Going to a football game and then buying pumpkins at the local twenty-four hour superstore?”

“Winning a football game,” Bradley corrects from his spot inside the cart, knees against his chest as he cradles a few bottles of the cheapest vodka in stock. His face is partially painted--which means he just looks partially rabid. He scratches the real dog collar around his throat and the metal name tag that he sharpied the Hell hound’s name on jangles melodically. “And we’re not just buying pumpkins.”

“Yeah,” Javy echoes from ahead of everyone, skimming the aisles absently as he reads all the price tags. He’s the certified sales finder, which is always why he walks ahead of everyone. The bright read-and-white sweater of his Waldo costume, ironically, sticks out like a sore thumb in the dull, white-washed aisles. “We’re buying Bradshaw a leash, too. Finally.”

“Ha-ha,” Bob says. “Funny. But I don’t think Cujo had a leash.”

Javy pauses and glances over his shoulder at Bob and Bradley. Bob’s watching him, brows knit and lips quirked. Bradley hasn’t even noticed that the cart’s halted--he’s too busy chewing his fingernail.

“No. We were supposed to get around to it last week,” Javy says. “He keeps wandering.”

Now Bradley looks up--suddenly realizing that Bob and Javy are looking at him.

“Oh. Kinky,” Bradley grins, waggling his brows. He adjusts himself in the cart, uncomfortably packed against the metal grates between bags of Doritos and robust pumpkins, but unwilling to get out. “I like it. Wanna take me for a walk, Goldie?”

Bradley leans out of the cart to grin at Jake, like he always does when he puts the faux moves on you, but all he sees is an empty aisle. He was totally expecting a firm smack on the back of the head from Jake and a sweet laugh from you. Nothing but cereal boxes, though.

“Hey. Where’d they go?” Bradley asks, pouting. “I totally just said that for loverboy.”

“Who?” Javy returns, starting down the aisle again as he straightens his crooked glasses. “Sonny and Cher?”

“They’re Daphne and Fred,” Bob says, shaking his head.

“More like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumbass,” Bradley says good-naturedly. He releases his fingernail from the wrath of his teeth and then sighs dejectedly. “Anyone got any clippers on ‘em? I have a hangnail.”

Two aisles over, you’re sorting through the various bags of candy sitting on the beige shelves. Nothing is striking your precise fancy and Jake can tell from the careful way he’s watching your brows crinkle. You take your Halloween candy seriously--really, you take everything about Halloween seriously--and he knows he’s already on thin ice taking you to a superstore to get pumpkins instead of a patch.

“Who the fuck likes Dots?” You whisper to him, shaking your head disapprovingly. “Do you know someone who likes Dots? I don’t. I never have.”

Jake shakes his head fondly.

“Yeah, I do,” Jake says.

“Nuh-uh,” you say dismissively, brows loosely knit.

“I’ll give you one guess,” Jake says, tightening the orange ascot around his throat.

Glancing at him through your lashes, your belly already in a puddle at your platform heels right beside your heart, you meet his gaze. He’s always already looking at you--just like he always is. It’s one of the first things you noticed about him after you two met for coffee on November 1st of last year, a mere twelve hours since you broke things off with Spit Sabler. Jake was the one who stood from the table he snagged for both of you, the one who was watching the door for thirty minutes before you arrived, the one who called your name across the cafe and waved you over.

“Hey,” he’d said when you crossed the cafe shyly and ended up at his feet. “You look great out of costume, too! I think you could still pass for a doctor.”

“Jokes on you,” you’d told him, eyeing the ridiculously good-looking denim jacket he had shrugged over his The Innocence Mission t-shirt. “You don’t.”

You cheek your grin and whip a bit of your stringy red wig over your shoulder. When he sees you struggling, two little strands of artificial hair stuck in your lipgloss, he reaches up and carefully peels them away from your lips. His fingers graze your cheek as he retracts--a ghost of a touch, the hint of a touch, the hint of a ghost of a touch. Enough for both of you to curl your toes identically in the safety and privacy of your own socks.

Both of you pretend not to be warm from the interaction.

You clear your throat.

“Nobody likes Dots,” you insist.

Jake shakes his head smugly.

“Somebody you know and love likes Dots,” Jake insists.

He doesn’t bother checking his grin--he can hardly muster when you’re looking up at him so prettily. Fuschia eyelids and candy-apple lips, all that sweet softness and playfulness sitting in the fat of your cheeks as you try not to smile.

“You lie like a rug,” you challenge, crossing your arms indignantly. “I’m calling your bullshit.”

“Error 404. Bullshit not found,” Jake says, holding his palms up in defense. “C’mon. One guess. You’ve got it.”

“You,” you say with a devious smile.

He holds his chest in mock insult and you beam at him.

“Ouch,” he says. “No. I underestimated your ability to be wack as Hell.”

“Okay, Fresh Prince,” you bite back, open-mouth laughing now. “Then who is it? Hm? Who do I know and love that likes Dots?”

“Scrappy Doo,” he says confidently.

He watches your face contort--first confusion and then realization.

“Bradshaw really does make it hard for himself, doesn’t he?” You say quietly. “But, like--now that you say that? I can see it. Unfortunately. I can see it.”

“He went to the movie theater one time to--like, literally just to buy Dots. Brought, like, five boxes back to the dorm and ate them overnight.”

“Ew,” you say, nose wrinkled. “Did he get sick?”

“No,” Jake says, rolling his eyes. “He has an industrial stomach.”

“Shit,” you say, laughing. “Go figure.”

“Unlike someone here, he’s also not picky,” Jake says, widening his eyes and nodding towards you.

Sticking your tongue out at him, you roll your eyes.

“It’s not so easy!”

Jake glances down at the mounds of candy before you, scouring for a bag you would actually enjoy. He’s learned a lot about you--he feels like he’s learned everything about you--in the past year, so he knows how tricky this is going to be. You won’t eat coconut or dark chocolate--nor do you like non-sour gummies. You only tolerate Smarties and you can’t stomach M&M’s after last year’s milkshake incident.

“Here,” Jake says, tugging a variety bag out from the bottom of the pile. He hands it to you and nods for you to follow him as he starts down the aisle again. “That one.”

“That’s ballsy,” you say to him, not moving from your spot. You squint as you read the labels of the candy in the variety pack. “You know this is a most sacred process for me.”

He turns, now in the middle of the aisle, and watches you read it silently. He already knows--before you even do--that this is the one you’re going to choose. He knows little things about you like this--like your In-N-Out order, your favorite kind of pen to write with, your dislike of baseball caps. But he knows big things about you, too--like how old you were when your parents divorced, what your favorite color was in the second grade, who you consider to be your personal hero and why it’s Dolly Parton.

“You underestimate my fondness for you,” Jake says. Heat blooms all cross his chest and his ascot suddenly feels tight when you glance back at him in amusement. He laughs dryly. “Idiot.”

“I stand corrected,” you tell him with a shrug and sigh, slinging the candy over your arm. “And you know how much I hate standing.”

“Who hates standing?” Jake grins, shaking his head. You are slowly making your way over to him in that strangely authentic Daphne costume, the one you put together over the course of three months with him in tow. “Nobody hates standing.”

When you come close to him, you can smell the aftershave on his face, the sandalwood on his pulse points. He grins down at you, unrealistically handsome even in this truly awful Fred wig--truly, it’s less Fred and more of a tow-headed Sonny Bono.

“Someone you know and love hates it,” you tease, pressing the bag of candy in his awaiting arms. “Right?”

He looks down at you in between taking measured, deep breaths. He can’t believe how much he adores you. Well, he can because he does and he has been since the moment he first saw you. He felt like he already loved you when he saw you in the cafe the day after Halloween, when you walked across the checkered tiles with your glasses on and your backpack slung over one shoulder.

“What--you didn’t bring your backpack? Do you not care about passing midterms?” You’d asked him seriously. But you were smiling softly as your lashes kissed the tops of your cheeks. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of doctor?”

Sometimes he wonders when it happened--when something happened between the two of you that halted both of you in your tracks, something that stalled anything real and romantic happening at the party or the dorm room. He thinks about it when he zones out in class, when he’s trying not to fall asleep during film in the locker rooms.

Maybe it was when some John puked all over your legs. When he told you to look up at the night sky while he wiped your legs down and free from marigold flowers and puke.

Maybe it was when he didn’t walk you to the door of your dormitory. When he stayed in his truck and waited until you got into the building before he drove away. Maybe he should’ve stuck his hands in his pockets and walked all the way up to your room, should’ve met your roommate and seen what pictures you hung on the walls.

Maybe it was when he didn’t bring his backpack for coffee. When he had to sit on the same side of the little bistro table as you and read over your shoulder, when he had to borrow one of your pens to take notes on scrap paper you happened to have.

Maybe it was when you were the one to ask for his number first, scribbling it on the corner of your notebook with a smiley face. Smiley face. Not a heart.

Maybe it was on a Tuesday in April or maybe a Friday in September. Maybe it happened while the two of you were watching Apocalypse Now or Dazed and Confused. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever know--doesn’t even know if he wants to know.

But Jake isn’t one to complain, though.

Maybe you’re not what he wants you to be--his girlfriend, even though that feels too juvenile a word for what he really wants you to be--but you’re still the best person he knows. And, in a lot of ways, he considers himself very lucky to have landed you at all. Even as a friend.

You have quickly--effortlessly--become one of Jake’s favorite people on God’s green earth. He thinks about you each morning when the sun touches his face for the first time, thinks about how warm your hands always are when you pinch his cheeks. He thinks about you each night as he flicks off his lamp, glancing at the framed photograph he has of you on his bedside table--one Javy took of you on a disposable camera, one where you’re decked out in team colors and holding a foam finger with Jake’s number on it.

Sometimes, though--like right now--he gets overwhelmed with everything. It’s like there’s a ball of light in his chest that’s starting to puncture his skin. Like there’s something bright and hot and big that wants out and wants out now.

“Right,” Jake whispers now, pretending like he’s not choked up. He grips the plastic bag in his arms to keep himself from holding your cheeks. He’s watching your lips. “You are someone I know and love.”

There is a hotness radiating from Jake, but you hardly notice. If you did, you’d be fanning yourself and un-pinning your wig. But your gaze is unwavering, even if you feel like Jake isn’t quite meeting your eyes right now. Either way, you still feel seen by him. Always.

“Prove it,” you whisper to him.

It sounds like an invitation--maybe it is.

Yes, it lingers there in the air between you, the one that smells like dead leaves and artificial apple and gardenia perfume from the lady a few aisles over. You and him both see it, clear as day, as if it’s some sort of bright red mist surrounding you.

You have a supremely good eye for detail. You notice eyelashes on sidewalks and memorize license plates on speeding cars and have never once missed foreshadowing. That’s why Bradley has you proofread all his essays, why Javy has you watch football games with him, why Bob studies with you, why Jake loves to watch movies with you.

So, you notice it whenever Jake’s eyebrows pinch. Whenever he looks confused, like he’s just about to sputter out a what? and step away from you. That’s when you realize, flushed as ever before, that your faces are a mere inch apart.

“Buy my candy,” you say, straightening out and moving your face away from his.

Jake’s heart is hammering in his chest.

Fuck.

He was going to do it. He was going to ask if he could kiss you--Hell, he was just going to hold the stupid wig in place and press his lips to yours before he lost the nerve.

But it’s too late. You’re already smiling at him, expression unreadable to him even though he’s well-versed in you, nodding towards the register.

“Goldie--!”

“Hey!” Javy says when he sees the two of you. “Simon! Garfunkel! Let’s get a move on, huh? We’ve gotta get our drink on!”

Both you and Jake turn to find your three friends standing at the end of the aisle. Javy with his hands on his hips and his lips pursed, Bob smiling almost apologetically like he knows he interrupted something, and Bradley struggling to his knees in the very-full cart to get your attention.

“Hey, Goldie! I made a really good joke earlier and you weren’t there,” Bradley starts, grinning as he gestures wildly. “Okay, so Javy said--!”

“Down boy,” Bob says, nudging Bradley.

You and Jake trudge towards the three of them, a strange aura of embarrassment and disappointment permeating the air around the two of you. It’s strange because the two of you, as close as you are, never seem very embarrassed about being so obliviously in love as you both are.

“What?” Bradley asks, genuinely oblivious. He’s gesturing to you as you sheepishly make your way over to the cart. “She missed it! She’s my audience!”

“Audience of one?” Javy asks, brow raised. “Lame.”

“Boo me all you want, but I’m loyal. A one-woman kinda guy,” Bradley defends. You’re smiling at him, rolling your eyes, when he pats his thighs while waggling his eyebrows. “Hey, pretty lady. Wanna take a seat?”

Jake thumps the back of his head hard, even if he knows that Bradley’s adoration for you is purely platonic and flirtation if in complete jest. And Bradley keens at Jake, strangely accomplished.

“Nah,” you say softly. You hold your own hands and try not to breathe in too much of Jake’s cologne. “I’ll stand.”

𖥔

Technically it’s still Halloween when you and Jake stumble into his dorm room. The two of you have been in Bob’s dorm room for the better half of the evening, drinking away a couple bottles of vodka between the four of you while having a horror movie marathon.

Things feel alright now--better than they did at the beginning of the night, in the direct aftermath of whatever the fuck happened at the store. With every drink the two of you had, you moved closer to the middle of the room from the prospective sides you’d initially settled in. By the time Jaws II was being discussed, you were laying your head in Jake’s lap and letting him stroke your wig.

“Jinkies, I gotta get you back,” Jake had sighed, glancing at the clock and then you. He dropped his eye in a heavy wink, one that was not as sly as usual, and nodded towards the door. “Gotta celebrate our anniversary.”

“Oh, right,” Bradley had interjected, leaning over the two of you with a pink-tinted grin. “What’s the first anniversary? Silver?”

“Paper,” Bob corrected, slightly inebriated.

“Do candy wrappers count?” Jake had whispered, thumb pressed against your cheek.

“Yeah,” you yawned. “So does cash.”

Time is ticking by quickly and so are you as Jake shuts the door behind the both of you, a broken laugh falling from his vodka-flavored lips at something you said on the elevator. Something he can’t even remember now.

“Jesus, it’s dark,” you say as you pull your lop-sided wig off your head and let it slink to the wooden floor. It will, undoubtedly, live there for the next couple weeks. You can already imagine Bradley eating shit after slipping on it. “You live like this?”

The room is dark and empty besides the two of you, completely quiet besides the usual clanging and hollering outside his window from the drunk boys in the courtyard. And, of course, the laughter still dying on Jake’s tongue and the thumps of your heels.

You have been in this room more times than you can count--so much so that several of the floors RA’s have approached you about blowing off floor meetings. So, despite being a bit drunk and despite being in the dark, you’re able to find the radio sitting on Jake’s dresser. It’s where it always is beside a pack of gum and his favorite bottle of cologne.

“Like a hermit,” Jake says. “A Norman Bates type.”

“Spooky,” you whisper to him. “Really getting me in the mood over here.”

“Yeah? Sitting in Bob’s room and watching creature features didn’t do that for you already?”

“Nope,” you say, shaking your head despite the fact that he cannot see you. “You know I like more high brow stuff.”

“Right,” Jake says distantly as he reaches blindly for the switch to the lava lamp. “Slashers.”

“Uh huh,” you mutter. Then you clear your throat and drunkenly giggle as you sing. “Gimme, gimme, gimme some gore after midnight.”

“You know how I can tell when you’re trashed, Goldie-girl?” Jake grins, still fumbling for the switch. “You start singing ABBA parodies.”

“You like my parodies,” you whisper back.

“Love ‘em,” he says and he really does mean it.

The lamp suddenly illuminates the room. The both of you squint in tandem, on opposite sides of the small dorm room, stumbling in your steps in surprise.

“Hi,” you whisper to him.

Your makeup is smeared--bleary. His wig is gone and his ascot is untied.

“Hey,” he returns. “What are you in the mood for? Pick your poison.”

He nods to the CD’s you’re sorting through.

“Julee Cruise,” you whisper back. “She’s been stuck in my head all day.”

“On the left,” he tells you. “Towards the bottom.”

Nodding, you dig it out. Jake rubs his eyes, trying to sober up. It isn’t that he wants to even be sober--he feels good right now. But after what happened at the store, the way you have been inside of a hard shell all night between Jaws and The Blob, he wants to have a clear head.

Fumbling only slightly, you manage to start the CD. And without looking back at Jake, you wander over to his twin bed and flop down on the brown plaid bedding, sighing in relief.

“I’ve been awake for too long,” you whisper to him, blinking up at the ceiling.

He’s still standing beside the lamp, watching every one of your moves with his heart in his throat.

“How long?” He asks.

You turn to him, biting a smile and blinking your bleary eyes.

“My whole life,” you return.

Now he’s biting a grin.

“Wow,” he whispers. “You must be exhausted.”

“Yup,” you confirm. You point to your platform heels and crooked stockings. “Too exhausted to take my costume off.”

A bubble pops inside of Jake, inside of you, in tandem. You blink at him. He blinks at you. There are only a few feet separating you and him, only a few paces across a shitty rug and old hardwood floors.

He swallows hard. You notice it when his Adam’s apple bob.

He considers what could happen next. He could press forward, tell you that he can help with that. And then maybe you would sit up and draw your knees to your chest and tell him he’s just like every other guy you’ve ever been friends with. Or he could stand right where he is now and just nod like he didn’t quite hear you, then sit on Bradley’s bed while you huddle up by yourself in his. Neither of which sound palatable to Jake right now--or ever.

Your heart is racing as you watch him. Fuck. You keep word vomiting, keep accidentally inviting him, keep telling the truth too voraciously.

When he moves, he doesn’t say anything. That’s what he’s decided on--he won’t say a word. He’ll just…walk towards you. And you watch him as he crosses the floor, his footing suddenly a bit more sober than it was when the two of you left Bob’s dorm after Bradley insisted on a second screening of Critters.

Then he’s standing before you--you’re laying below him. Both of you watch each other, drink in every movement--there hardly are any. His palms are damp and your throat is dry.

His movements are slow, but calculated. His fingers wrap around your right ankle and your leg feels weightless as he lifts it and places the bottom of your shoe on his pristine Fred Jones sweater. The color of your shoe, that sweet purple-pink, is a stark contrast from the muddy print the sole of your shoe will leave.

Jake doesn't look away from your face as he reaches for the buckle.

It’s a tiny thing, flimsy and delicate. But he’s dextrous.

“Thanks,” you whisper preemptively--just to say something.

Falling by Julee Cruise is playing. You can only hear the blood rushing through your ears--you’re sure Jake hears it, too.

“Jesus,” Jake says and he’s still looking you right in the eyes. Your heart rate spikes--your back almost leaves the bed in a sudden arch at just the sound of it falling from his lips. All rasp, all football player, all Jake. “How’d you get these things on?”

“With a little help from my friends,” you say back pathetically. You shift slightly and he re-secures his grip on your ankle like you are trying to climb away from him. “You know. Fingernails.”

You hold your hands up to him weakly and he nods, still not smiling as he fingers the buckle.

“Right,” he says. “Something I don’t have.”

“Right,” you say.

“But anything you can do, I can do better,” he says.

His heart is hammering.

But you smile--smile despite the apple vodka staining the back of your throat and the heat pooling in your belly and the thoughts of him muddling your ever-present attention.

“Tell it to the heels, baby,” you whisper to him.

And, like you’ve said a magic word, he gets the first heel unbuckled.

With a raise of his eyebrows, as if to say ha!, he delicately removes the heel from your foot and sets it on the floor. He’s still holding your ankle, softly stroking the light pink nylon tights. Wishing it was your skin. Burning all the same.

There’s a muddy shoe print on his chest now. He sees it--so do you. But neither of you say anything about it. You’re too nervous to accidentally invite him to something he doesn’t want to come to--he’s too nervous to say the wrong thing and make you retreat.

Your socked foot rests against his chest even after he releases you, which is what he wants. Any part of you against any part of him.

He makes quick work of the other buckle and you watch, sobering quickly beneath the warmth of his touch and the velvety music flooding the radio.

“You’re a pro,” you whisper. Your voice is somewhere between a whisper and a jive.

He doesn’t say anything.

Here you are, below him in his bed. Here you are, your legs open and your ankles in the stronghold of his hands. Here you are, a year to the day since he first saw you. Here you are, listening to his dream pop in his dorm after hanging out with your friends that used to be his friends that you now share.

Here you are. It astounds him, really.

How lucky he is that you’re here. Now.

Right now.

There is an intensity to his gaze, one you see fleetingly, rarely in certain instances. If you were someone else and so was he, you would call those instances stolen glances or maybe pensive longing.

But you’re you.

He’s him.

So you don’t know what to call it.

“Are you okay?” You ask.

“No,” he answers.

He clears his throats, ignores the ringing in his ears.

Fuck. He didn’t mean to answer like that.

You’re already scrambling to sit up, to probably interrogate him and press your knuckles to his forehead and check for a fever, but then he’s pressing his flat palm to your belly and pushing you back against the bed.

It is not a hard touch--nor is it a violent one. It is a guidance, a suggestion. One that takes your breath from your lungs and smacks his face with it. One that renders you almost voiceless.

“What’s wrong?” You whisper.

“No, nothing, I--it’s nothing,” Jake tries, knowing how much of a liar he sounds like right now.

“But you just said--!”

“--Forget what I just said,” Jake tells you. He means it. He pushes down and feels all the skin of your belly, all the warmth and blood and flesh. You’re thrumming with life. “Really. I’m fine. It’s fine. I just…”

He stops talking--knows he’s digging himself in a deeper hole.

Swallowing hard, you think about the grocery store. Your quiet, accidental invitation. If it was really accidental at all. You still aren’t sure. You can't be sure right now when he’s looking down at you the way he is.

You have to ask. It’s overwhelming you--the thought that you did something wrong.

“Did I…do something?”

His response is immediate. Instantaneous like he’s rehearsed this before.

“What could you have done that would ever make me not okay?” He asks, a strangely kind bite to his tone. As if he were saying Don’t you know that I love you, you idiot? “I mean, really. You’re kinda the best.”

“I don’t know,” you whisper. Words are tugging on your lips. “Buy you a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD?”

A dry laugh falls from his parted lips, but he doesn’t smile. He can’t. Not when his throat is so dry, not when you two are so close. So, so close. Close enough to smell that warm amber in your hair and against your throat.

“Get serious,” Jake insists after a moment.

Shifting beneath his palm, you stare up at him.

“I am,” you try.

“No, you’re not,” Jake says back, brows furrowed.

You glance down at your costume.

“I can’t be serious in pink tights.”

Jake doesn't have time to think--doesn’t have time to stop himself. He’s reaching up, up and under your dress, hooking his fingers in the band of your pink tights and tugging on them. They come loose much easier than the buckles, practically purr at Jake’s touch as he draws them down your legs, leaving a trail of gooseflesh on your skin.

You’re gasping, nearly moaning before you choke on it, as he swiftly removes your tights. And then your legs are bare before him and your legs are still open and he’s standing and you’re sitting and your pink tights are in his fist. They’re still warm from your skin--still smell like you.

Jake drops them on the floor, not peeling his gaze from yours. They’ll live on the floor for a few weeks, too. He knows it. So do you.

Now you’re speechless, which doesn’t happen often.

Jake’s heart is battering inside his ribcage like a bird attempting to flee.

“What happened at the grocery store?” He asks.

He has to ask. He needs to know.

“What?” You sputter out. Your heart races. Fuck. You were hoping to just forget it all. “What are you--what do you--?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Jake says. He flushes when he realizes that your legs are still open, when he realizes that you couldn’t close them if you wanted to since he’s standing so close to you. “C’mon. Don’t bullshit me.”

“You tell me,” you demand. “I thought you were gonna…I don’t know…”

You’re too flustered to continue, throwing your arm over your face under the guise of shielding your eyes from the light. Your face, your arm, your skin, your breath--it’s all so hot. You want to melt into the plaid bedding and become one with the dust bunnies.

“Marigold,” Jake says and it sounds like he’s begging. “Don’t hide from me. C’mon. C’mon, we’re friends!”

Friends. There’s that word.

You want to roll over on your side, want to just apologize and go to your dorm and pine privately for him, but you can’t. You can’t because he’s leaning forward and tugging your arms away from your eyes.

He’s suddenly infinitely closer to you. So close that you feel tipsy just breathing in his breath, all the alcoholic apples that have died there.

The two of you stare at another. You’re searching his eyes, his nose, his lips, trying to get a read on him and what he’s thinking and what he’s doing. He’s leaning over you, slotted between your legs, his hips only a breath away from your core. He feels it when you squirm--he isn’t sure if you’re trying to get closer or farther, so he shifts backwards a few centimeters.

“Did you want me to do something?” Jake asks. It’s a quiet demand. A plea.

“What do you mean?” You ask even though you know. You’re stalling. “Where? At Bob’s?”

“Don’t be a chickenshit,” Jake says, shaking his head. “Back there. At the store.”

You swallow, don’t know what to say. The light is suddenly too bright and the music is suddenly too loud. Your breaths are paralyzed in your lungs.

“Did you want me to want you to do something back there? At the store?”

He scoffs--it’s a mean, but soft sound. He needs to hear you say it. Yes, you wanted it. He didn’t overstep. He missed the chance, but he knows now. He won’t miss the chance again. If you just say it. Say you wanted it--wanted him.

“You’re impossible,” he whispers.

“I’m trying not to be,” you say back. “Sorry.”

“We almost kissed,” he says and his lips are quivering. “Right? That’s what that was, right? You wanted me to kiss you.”

When the words fall on your ears, in your already heightened state, you feel like they’re accusatory. You wanted him to kiss you. And it made him knit his brows and falter, stumble.

You’re fucking everything up.

You can’t afford to fuck everything up with the best friend you’ve ever had.

“No, I didn’t,” you whisper. Your voice is hoarse, thin.

“Yes, you did,” he whispers. His brows are totally furrowed. “You’re a bad lair.”

He almost says that he couldn’t look away from your lips all night. He almost says that he wished you were closer to him. He almost says that he wants you to kiss him, too. He almost says that he’s wanted to kiss you for a year--an aching, throbbing year.

But he doesn’t.

“Stop it,” you tell him quietly. Tears are welling in your eyes. You blink rapidly, try to ease yourself from the absolute comfort of his heat. “Why would I want that?”

Now he says nothing. There it is--that crippling fear he always has, the one where he fucks it, the one where he’s rejected, the one where he fumbles the ball, the one where he misses the goal. Except it feels realized suddenly. Suddenly as you’re looking up at him in artificially warm light, your tights tugged off your naked legs by him, you look hurt. Your eyes are watery and your lips are twisted and you’re not drunk anymore.

And he’s the one caging you in. Holding you against the bed.

At once, he lays on his back. He’s no longer between your legs, no longer hovering you and looking into your eyes. He’s laying beside you.

The both of you lay there, side-by-side, blinking up at the ceiling. You’re desperately blinking, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. And you’re curling your knees to your chest, holding yourself together with flimsy tape.

His chest is heaving. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know what to do.

But he doesn’t have to because as he’s running his hands over his face, shaking his head and opening his trembling lips, your hand is on his forearm.

You’ve never been one to hold a grudge. You even wave at Spit Sabler when you see him around campus. But even if you were someone who held a grudge--you know it would be fruitless when it comes to Jake. You’ve never been able to feel anything but love towards him. Pulsing, jovial love. Red-hot and American.

“Hey,” you whisper. You’re watching him, lying on your side now, trying not to sound as desperate to keep him as you feel right now. “Jake. Look at me.”

He does at once.

Plaid bedding separates your mouth from his and your eyes aren't as watery anymore. It’s good. That’s good. Jake still can’t muster a word. He can’t believe what he just did.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“We’re just drunk,” you say dismissively. And even you sound like you don’t believe that bullshit. “Saying dumb shit when you’re drunk is, like, a rite of passage. Right?”

He nods meekly after a long, sober pause.

“I’m…” he starts. His cheeks flood bright red. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, don’t be,” you tell him. “Like--it’s…don’t worry about it. We can talk about it when we’re sober.”

He nods. Grateful, kind of, for your grace. But also angry that he couldn’t make it work--angry that things didn’t end up the way he needs them to.

He glances at the clock just as it strokes midnight.

No longer Halloween. Time to take the costume off.

Absently, carefully, you reach forward and press the pads of your fingers against the muddy heel print on his chest. He won’t be able to wear this sweater again, but you feel like this isn’t going to be something that he throws away. And if he did--you would climb into any dumpster on campus to retrieve it. Just to hold it. Just to keep it.

“Wanna get coffee tomorrow?” You whisper.

The hint of a smile tugs on his lips. He finally tears his eyes away from the clock and looks at you.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think I know a place.”

Your lungs deflate slightly--with relief, with grief. It all feels the same.

“Don’t forget your backpack.”

Another laugh--a sad and pitiful thing. One he might regret later on. But it’s enough that his hot blood is beginning to cool, even this close to you, even with this much of your naked legs on display on his bed in his empty dorm.

“Hey, Goldie?” Jake whispers.

You worm your way closer to him, like you always do. And, like always, his arms are already open to receive you when you press yourself against his chest and inhale the mud and cologne there.

“Yeah?” You whisper.

“You’re my best friend,” he tells you suddenly and it’s true. “Like, you’re my favorite person. Forget Bradshaw.”

Tears well in your eyes again--watery and fat. And you laugh softly, knowing you’ll regret it later. It punctuates this conversation with a casual tone when in reality--this conversation is nothing of the sort.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “You’re kinda my best friend, too. Asshole.”

The two of you sit in the music for a while, neither of you looking at each other. His heart is thumping unsteadily and you graciously pretend not to hear it despite your head resting on his chest. The alcohol is fading slowly and the both of you blink lazily.

Because he can’t stop himself, because he needs something resembling a win tonight, he leans down and gently kisses the top of your head. One feather-light thing, hardly anything really.

You feel it. You always do. You never miss a thing.

“Do you wanna stay?” He asks.

“You already took my shoes off,” you mutter. “I’m not going anywhere.”

𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: OH MY GOD JUST FUCK ALREADY!!!!!!!

𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

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corey-musick · 3 years ago

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musical web - 7-27-2021

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“Maple Leaf Rag” performed by Scott Joplin

Original listening log: "Maple Leaf Rag" is a very exciting piece of ragtime music. While Joplin's left hand maintains a steady meter, his right hand is playing a syncopated melody. He makes good use of dissonant chords, creating points of tension. It almost feels a little bit like being at a carnival or something, with the tense moments being similar to being pulled up a roller coaster before cascading down as the music resolves or begins to be more consonant. Another part that amde the song exciting was how freeform it was. There were certainly moments of repetition, but Joplin consistently introduced new melodies to the song, keeping listeners on their toes as he plays.

The very first listening log I completed for the class was for Scott Joplin’s classic “Maple Leaf Rag,” written in 1899. Going back and listening to it again after all I’ve learned in this class, I can see how Joplin took aspects of music before him (such as African musical syncopated rhythms and “dance music”) and used them in a brand-new way that would last for decades after he first composed the song. The way he uses rhythm and melody - setting a steady rhythm with his left hand while playing a syncopated melody with his right - can be found in a ton of popular music that followed (and some that came before) and set the standard for ragtime music of the early 20th century such as “Hello, Ma Baby.” Joplin helped to create a new type of music that felt, to many, uniquely American.

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“Cotton Eyed Joe” performed by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys

Original listening log: As someone who has been to my fair share of middle and high school dances, I am definitely familiar with Rednex's version of "Cotton Eye Joe." This was, however, my first time hearing Bob Wills' version and I had no idea the song had such a long history. The predominant instruments I hear are the fiddle and the piano. The former is referenced in the lyrics themselves ("Hewn my fiddle and rosin my bow / Gonna make music everywhere I go / Gonna play a tune they call Cotton Eyed Joe"). It's a bit paradoxical to say you are going to play a tune called "Cotton Eyed Joe" on your fiddle in the future whenever you are doing just that in the present, but I think it adds to the fun that permeates this song. Whenever Wills is singing, the instrumentation is pretty unintrusive. The lyrics are pretty simple with a ABBCDD form where the Bs are the same and the Ds are the same. Again, I feel that this song is meant to be a fun dance song. While the lyrics are almost a little tragic (the man wasn't able to get married because of this elusive Cotton Eyed Joe), they're really not meant to be taken to seriously. Instead, the simple form and energetic, jaunty piano and fiddle accompaniment just makes me want to dance!

Wills’ version of “Cotton Eyed Joe” combines American popular swing music with folk/country tunes. Like “Maple Leaf Rag,” “Cotton Eyed Joe” is also dancing music, and it even has the same steady beat underscoring a syncopated melody that Joplin’s “Rag” has. Another interesting connection is the rhyme scheme Wills uses, one that is ABBCDD where the Bs and Ds are repeating lyrics. It calls to mind the AAB rhyme scheme blues uses where the As are repeating lyrics. As the song has its roots in big-band swing/jazz, this makes sense, but it is not a connection I have made until this moment. Even the lyrical content kind of fits in with this comparison to the blues - the lyrics are kind of sad! The man was never able to get married because of Cotton Eyed Joe and he is lamenting that in the song, albeit over a jaunty dance tune.

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“Countin’ the Blues” performed by Ma Rainey

Original listening log: I really enjoyed this piece. Having never listened to Ma Rainey, I would say this was a terrific introduction. This song is what I think of when I hear someone mention the blues. Ma Rainey's rich, sorrowful vocals really show how badly she has the blues. It almost sounds like she's groaning and struggling under the weight of her melancholy, trying to express her feelings and say what she needs to say. The lyrics themselves follow an AAB form characteristic of classic 12-bar blues. I am particularly interested in how she namedrops a couple of different blues songs in the second verse including "Beale Street Blues," "Bama Bound Blues," and "Stingaree." She is quite literally counting different blues songs by doing so. It reminds of how when some people get sad, they want to listen to sad music to help process or cope with their emotions. The instrumentation of the song perfectly communicates the melancholy tone of the song, with the cornet, clarinet, and trombone players seeming to (for lack of a better term) really take their time to play the music. Coupled with Ma Rainey's slow, steady, sad vocals, the entire song has a melancholic tone that is incredibly effective in communicating the message of the lyrics - the singer is sad from getting bad news ("mama's just now got bad news") and is expressing how she feelings.

Moving on to some actual blues, we come to the iconic Gertrude “Ma” Rainey. Much like how “Maple Leaf Rag” is classic ragtime, “Countin’ the Blues” is textbook blues music. It contains a call-and-response form when Ma Rainey sings and is “responded to” by the instrumentation, something that can be found in other blues music like Robert Johnson’s “Preachin’ Blues”. It also features an instrumental introduction, something characteristic of ragtime music. “Countin’ the Blues” and blues music in general is popular music that has its roots in African spirituals and, generally, the early African American experience.

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“He Got Better Things for You” performed by Bessie Johnson’s Memphis Sanctified Singers

Original listening log: I loved this piece! Bessie Johnson's raspy, passionate delivery really communicates how she feels about the subject matter she is singing about. There is simple guitar accompaniment, but the focus really does remain on the vocals and, by extension, the lyrics. This is a great storytelling/moralizing song. I like how Johnson draws the listener in with sweet, clear vocals in the first three lines, saying how she wants to share a message with us, her "kind friends" whose souls she loves. I admit I was a little jarred when her gruff vocals began on "but half ain't never been told," but as the song went on, it made sense. She shares stories of Saint Mary and a man named Cornelius (if this is a Biblical reference, I'm Jewish and it totally went over my head), two people who listened to the word of the Christian God and now wait in heaven among the better things. Johnson wants to share her message so that all of the listeners can get to those better things.

Johnson’s “He Got Better Things for You” is the first and only explicitly religious piece of popular music I have included on this list, but the influence of Black religious music on later genres like jazz and the blues cannot be understated. The textbook points out that Johnson’s emotive, gravelly voice feels similar to the brash trumpets jazz musicians use in their songs, but I would say that is where a lot of the similarity ends. The guitar music and vocal melody are quite simple and easy to understand, which makes sense when one considers the genre. Its accessibility and sweet religious content feels similar to songs like “Simple Gifts,” spiritual hymns meant to be sung by a community of like-minded individuals.

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Henry Cowell’s “The Banshee” performed by Sonya Kumiko Lee

Original listening log: "The Banshee" is a really neat piece of music. It begins very quiet and eerie as Cowell gently drags his hand across the piano strings, making it seem like something is coming and building up tension. He also occasionally plucks a few specific strings that sound like spooky windchimes or something. This and the quiet dragging of his across the strings helps connect the piece of the Irish folklore being of the banshee - the eerie, single notes give a magical feeling to the song while the quiet scraping builds tension like something (death, in this case) is coming. Whenever Cowell harshly scrapes the strings, it makes the listener jump and ultimately release a bit of the tension. Overall, while the song is purely instrumental, it is highly effective at invoking the spirit of the banshee.

Cowell’s song is a masterpiece in nonverbal storytelling, comparable to Bernard Herrmann’s “The Murder,” another song that, even without words, clearly tells the story it intends to tell. While “The Banshee” has its roots in classical music, it is bravely experimental, choosing instead to use the inside of the piano rather than the keys. Much like “Maple Leaf Rag” or “Cotton Eyed Joe,” “The Banshee” is a genre-defining song. It takes inspiration from classic forms, but it turns them into something entirely new and very exciting.

This sense of innovation found in everything from “The Banshee” to “Maple Leaf Rag” is really creatively inspiring, and I think that draws the course together well. New genres and songs are created whenever the old way of doing things just won’t cut it. Ma Rainey and other blues singers drew from African spirituals and field hollers, but retooled it in a new way to express the pain and joys of living as a Black person in America. Henry Cowell took the piano, a mainstay of many different genres, and used it in an entirely new way to tell the story of a traditional piece of Irish folklore.

Music has the power to communicate things in a way that simply speaking it will not do. By drawing influence from musical styles of the past, people are able to retain a connection to those that came before them, those who shaped their culture into what it is today. By turning that influence into something brand new, however, it puts the power in the hands of the living to influence their lives in the present-day.

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