Friday Night at the Candlelight Lounge

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

She was better than I expected, hunched over the mic, arms and legs entwined with the silver stand like she was fucking it. My ex-lover, Pete, said she sang jazz ballads mostly, throaty and low. Almost like Billie, he said, how she lagged behind the beat, her voice catching on the blue notes. Pete said I should catch her act, if I was in town. Look, it was June in L.A. — the gloom fogged my vision. Pete warned me. Careful! She’s bad news. Lonely. Clingy. But those days I was needy, too. I could care less that her nose was crooked, that her speaking voice was little more than a whisper. I overlooked her slouch and her wandering eye, and those clothes she wore, wrinkled Dockers and a food-stained shirt. After her set, she stood in the doorway. Her untamed black hair, a frizzy halo. Her hands were in her pockets. Her eyes were on me. She made my fingers ache. I got up from my ringside table, left my jacket on the chair. You want a drink? I asked her. When I returned from the bar with two tequila shooters, she was sitting in my chair. Wearing my jacket. A noticeable improvement to her outfit. We clinked glasses. Salud! Pete said she was a cheap drunk. Two rounds after each set, he laughed, she turns into a slut on wheels. Already her head sagged against my shoulder. She had a tiny snore I found endearing. Whatever you do, don’t take her home, Pete warned. Of course, he’d say that. He had what they call ‘graveyard love’ that ‘I don’t want you anymore but I don’t want anyone else to have you’ kind of love. The kind of love that makes me want to do the exact opposite of whatever he asks. So after the club closed, I took her home. Invited her into my bed. She was ravenous. It wasn’t just sex or tequila, she consumed my thoughts, my marijuana stash, my peace of mind. She raided my closet. Stole my favorite thigh-high boots. When she forged my name on checks, I forgave her. When she rearranged my furniture, re-hung all the art, I looked the other way. And when Pete snuck into the bedroom one midnight, begged for forgiveness, wanted a threesome, I welcomed him. Look, I know it’s crazy, but none of this mattered. What mattered was how she sang love songs in the shower. What mattered was that first night, at the Candlelight Lounge, how she stood in the doorway after her set, backlit and dangerously beautiful.


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"Friday Night at the Candlelight Lounge" was first published in Book of Matches.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, Diode, The American Journal of Poetry, Spillway, Nashville Review, Poetry East, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. She’s authored ten poetry collections, most recently, Triggered, 2023 (MacQueen’s Publishing); Brazen, 2023 (NYQ Books); and Duets, (2022) an illustrated, ekphrastic chapbook collaboration with poet Cynthia Atkins, published by Harbor Editions. Alexis’s photographs are featured worldwide including the covers of The Pedestal Magazine, Witness, Heyday, Pithead Chapel, and The Mas Tequila Review. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, you can find her at: www.alexisrhonefancher.com