Small success.  I earned applause from people predisposed to giving it.  Leaning in, I sigh.  That overwhelms and silences the crowd.  Breaking the silence, I whisper, “Thank you.”  It rips through the air like a sad echo, eliciting more hands slapping hard together.

Dog meets me at the edge of the stage, nearly knocking me down.  “Sorry.”  He mouths the word without saying it, then pats me on the shoulder.  A moment later, he's at the mic.  “Let's hear it for Mars.  What a character.”  More clapping.  “Stay put, you mutants.  We'll be back in a minute with more tunes . . . that is, if I find the rest of the band.”

I stagger to my table, taking care not to trip over a third leg or an artificial tail, avoiding every satyr and saint.  A young woman's stretched out in my seat, legs spread wide to reveal translucent black stockings under her witch's skirt.  Not more than twenty, she has firm, shapely legs, chest and abdomen, topped by an amusing face seeming devoid of expression even as it tries to force a smile.  Her pale right hand extends to long, slender fingers wrapped around the neck of a bottle.  The other hand rests on her leg, rubbing softly in a way that could either be a weak attempt at seduction or a massage for an arthritic joint.  Even her disguise falls short of her intentions, encompassing black fingernails, lipstick, and eye shadow, all of which look more trendy than haunting.  Still, she might actually appear to be a witch if seen at a distance through drunken eyes while walking alone down a darkened alley at midnight.  Another witch, I consider.  I consume her image, ready to fall for any clumsy spell she might lay down.

“You're a wonderful poet,” she says, giggling falsely.

“Historian,” I explain.

“I really enjoyed you.  Your voice touched me . . . here.”  She lifts her right hand, aims poorly and points at her left breast.  Too drunk to notice, she goes on.  “Name's Lysa,” she says, “with a y.”

“Pleased to meet you, and to hear you enjoyed the show.”  I sit across from her, uncomfortable with my back to the crowd, eyes unable to observe the goings on.

“I'd love to read one of your books,” the young witch says.  I can't tell whether she means it or just wants to extend the conversation.  “I'm a poet, too.”

“Ah,” I sigh, trying not to be condescending.

“I'm not smooth like you, but I guess I write pretty good.  Want to hear a poem I wrote?”

“Sure,” I say, passively.  “Whatever you want.  Have at it.”

“Wonderful.”  She sips her beer.  After a deep breath, she begins to recite, giggling between words and after each simple rhyme.  She offers trite verses as if pouring out fake tears.  

Even so, I accept the poem as I would a poisoned berry in the woods.  “I taste your spirit,” I tell her. 

The young witch keeps giggling.  “I don't understand you,” she says.  “But I like you.  It's strange.  You're so much different than everybody else.”

This time, I laugh.  Her words are both redundant and perceptive.

“What'd I say?” she says, launching upright, eyes glaring.  “Why you laughing at me?”

I take both her hands in mine, massaging wrist veins in slow circles using my thumbs.  That tenderness disarms.  “Better,” I tell her.  “Relax.  Let yourself be moved by touch.  I've nothing else to offer, nothing more to give.”

She coos like a pigeon savoring crumbs I've thrown her.  She seems elated like a trick-or-treater opening her pillowcase to accept my gift of candy corn and chocolates.  “You're good,” she replies, pretending to pull away without slipping out of my grip.  “Talk like that, a woman could almost melt.”  Pretending, she shivers.

“Some do,” I tell her, flashing the evil grin.

“I'll bet.”  This time, she really pulls away.  “Tell me about yourself,” she says.

“What would you like to know?”

She hesitates.  “How does it feel to be the way you are?”

“Touch me and find out,” I whisper, watching her blush.  “Afraid?”

“Not a bit.  Just, you know, that's not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

“So?  Tell me.”

“You want me to describe how it feels being an albino.  Well, it feels. . .”

She nods, hooked.

“. . .the way it feels.”

A ghastly frown.  “You're impossible,” she groans.  “It was a simple question.”

“And a simple answer.”

“That wasn't an answer.”

“I'm afraid it was the ONLY answer.  I can't tell you how it feels to be albino any more than you can tell me how it feels not to be one.  I've never been anything else.  Nothing to compare it to.  If I ask how it feels to be a brunette, you might tell me that you like being a blonde better.”  I hesitate, wondering if I offended her.  “But what if I asked you how it felt to be a woman?  Or how it felt to be a mammal?  Maybe a guppy?  Impossible to give an honest answer unless you've been a man, a frog or fish.”  I pause, then add, “You haven't, have you?  Been a fish?”

Slowly the grin breaks across her face like a glittery rash.  Giggling like before, she says, “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I accept your answer.”

Still smiling, I reply, “Good.  Then we can move on to the important things.”

She sighs, seducing even as she fractures the seduction.  “Afraid not,” she says.

“Scare you off?”

“No.”  She shrugs.  “I have to go.  My boyfriend just came back from the little boy's room, and I know he's looking for me.  Time to go back to the old ball and chain, you know?”  She points behind me across the room. 

Turning, I follow her finger to a caricature of a man with a thick, black beard and rotund form not well concealed by his royal blue wizard costume.  “Your boyfriend,” I mutter, accepting the word the instant it crosses my tongue.  As she vanishes without so much as a friendly kiss on the forehead, I curse the moment, a rare tactic for a man who loves and lives with such a passion for each moment.  Sliding around the table to my usual seat, I add voice to my silent damnation, shouting over the first fresh chords from Dog's guitar.  “Fucking fuck!  If there's any girl in here who digs poetry and doesn't have a boyfriend, now's the time to say hello before I lose my pretty poet's mind!”

Staring straight ahead, I see that not one person heard my voice beneath the mad bellowing rock song the band keeps playing.  An original song, I think.  Something about “nobody listening to the prophet when he speaks.”  Sort of appropriate, I guess.  I especially love the chorus.  It ends with a really pained repetitive phrase: “Nobody loves you when you're gone.  Nobody love you when you're gone.  Nobody. . . .”  That song was meant for me to hear blaring all around me at this specific moment in my history.  Wow.  What can I say?  Only this, I guess. “Nobody loves you. . . .”  I sing the line through the whole song, not hearing other lyrics and not caring.  That line feels so damned good to sing.  It fills me with the most wonderful melancholy.  I hear it even after the song ends and the band moves on to something more familiar like “Dead Flowers” or “Brown-eyed Girl” or whatever.  Still, I sing, “Nobody loves you. . . .”  I already know this night and Halloween are bound to fade from my thoughts a long, long time before that song does.  “Nobody. . . .”