A Song And A Pistol-Short Love Story

A Song And A Pistol

She stood in the spotlight of the nightclub’s half-moon stage and 

sung Etta James’ At Last to a lone piano as if the artist herself 

were singing through her. “Aaat Laaast,” she sang, her arms slowly 

rising at her sides like she was ready to lift herself to heaven 

with each note. She sang in a voice as rich and smooth as holiday 

chocolate. Every lyric that gracefully swung from her red lips was 

sung in perfect harmony with the silent life of her seduced 

audience.

The pianist played behind her, shaking his head and swaying from 

side-to-side as the notes went up and down, left and right. He was 

the wings on the song bird, making them both fly. “My looove has 

come along.”

Every man in the room was her lover, every woman her hand-maiden, 

willingly serving their beneficent queen for providing them with 

these gorgeous moments of bliss. The world, seated at round tables, 

and cushy green booths under the illustrious light of crystal 

chandeliers, was hers.

She wrapped her warm welcoming fingers around the microphone as if 

it were her lover’s face and slowly moved down the stand, easily 

forcing the men into an upright position. “The skies above are 

blue.” Her hips swayed from side-to-side. The light rippled from 

the subtle black sequins strategically sewn on her deep blue dress 

and worked its way through the sheer blue sleeves, giving her a 

perfect silhouette. “…For you are mine at last. Oh, yeah yeah.”

During the pianist’s cool melodic solo, the incarnation of a 

Shakespearian sonnet slowly moved her hands up the slits in the 

sides of her gown that rose a little past her knee and removed two 

pistols she had strapped to her thighs. Although, some seemed to 

notice the shiny, black handguns, it wasn’t until she fired the 

first shot into the crowd that her hypnotic trance was broken. “I 

found a dream, that I could speak to.” Without ever losing her 

place in the song, without the slightest change in her breathing, 

she fired shot after shot into the panicked crowd, singing acapella 

after the pianist ran off.

Never losing her innocent, come-hither stare, she shot the people 

in the back of the room first, making it hard for the ones in front 

to reach the exits. In raging desperation, many of her unsuspecting 

victims tripped over the bodies they didn’t see and were trampled; 

their last moments being filled with fear, confusion, and pain as 

they lived briefly through the torment of crushed hands, skins, and 

vertebrae. Over the sound of rhythmic gunfire and screams was her 

voice, still singing in that same honey tone.

Before her performance was over, no one was left alive, no one was 

in the club save her and her husband of ten years who was holding 

his mistress of four, cradling her bloody, cracked and punctured 

skull in his arms. They were sitting more than 20 feet from each 

other, pretending to ignore each other’s presence, trying to hide 

the affair from her husband and his wife; but everyone knew. 

Everyone knew about the affair, knew there was a possibility the 

baby was his, knew that his wife had found out, but no one wanted 

to say anything, no one wanted to acknowledge her pain.

“You smile. You smile,” she sang as she dropped a gun and walked 

off the stage like a classic-movie star, taking the microphone with 

her. Her high-heeled hips moved in a figure-eight motion befitting 

a woman of her coke-bottle stature as she stepped over bodies and 

into pools of blood, and broken glasses and dishware, with hardly a 

downward glance. “Oh, and then the spell was cast.” She continued 

to serenade him in unassuming, horrific, elegance.

With the microphone amplifying her harp-like vocal chords in one 

hand and a gun in the other, she kneeled to her husband. With 

brown, prismatic eyes she stared into his like a loving wife ready 

to open herself to him where they stood; but in the back of her 

mind she remembered his promise to stay with her even though she 

was incapable of bearing children.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. It was as if she’d gone from 

being real to some bodiless spirit imagined in his mind. “And here 

we are in heaven,” she sang. She was a great white light calling 

him. And he was no longer able to focus on the quiet carnage around 

him, the bullet holes in every wall and bone. He could no longer 

hold the head of his precious heir-bearing side-item relaxing and 

letting her head slowly slide down his chest forever soiling his 

suit with blood and brain. He was unable to say, “no”, to not 

follow, to not go with her, to not go in to her white light.

Like the memory of a dream, she retreated from him, slowly rising 

to her feet. He watched her fade away and wanted to reach for her, 

to stop her from leaving him, but he couldn’t move. He was a living 

man in a dead body. “For you are miiiiiiine,” she sang as she 

focused her gun on him. When she was ready, she fired her last five 

bullets landing them in his abdomen, chest, and head. She dropped 

her last gun, closed her eyes, and wrapped her fingers around the 

microphone. “Aaat laaaast.”