Creating Joy

Huge, elaborate crystal chandeliers hang over the wooden bar like upside down wedding cakes flash frozen just as they began to melt in a hot wind. One wall is covered with shimmering glass mirror tiles, hand painted on the back but in front of the sliver, matched and mounted perfectly to create a 20' x 10'  Mediterranean scene. Vince was at the piano with sax, bass and drums sitting in. A black cowboy hat and black shirt with a red bandanna around his neck made a perfect spaghetti western costume for the still dashingly handsome and very Italian proprietor of the Italian family restaurant in town. (There’s one in every town in the east south of Vermont and north of Virginia, isn't there?)

His rock covers were well played and well sung, if a little ponderous, but the jazz interludes in between betrayed his true gift. The real treat was the costume contest. Contestants came onto the stairs beside Vince as he noodled around for a song that fit their get up. There was a blues number about the plumber with his crack showing (he has a sexy crack in his butt was the refrain), another blues about Betelgeuse (great costume – I’ll have to remember that one), a show tune about the Wicked Witch of the West, sung in show stopping voice by the Witch herself (Vince didn't know the words), a the Steeler fight song for a weird trio of a headless fan, a short-skirted buxom nurse, and a nightmare on Elm Street character dressed in a Baltimore jersey. The contestants and songs kept coming, as the joy and delight in the bar expanded to include those in and not in costume, with and without a partner or friends, or on their fourth round of IC lights with vodka chasers and those drinking Coke. Vince awarded five $25 gift certificates and the $100 grand prize with a jazzy little skat, then launched into a surprisingly inspired version of Elton John’s "Your Song". By the time I left, the bar been transformed by Vince's spell into a house party, and everyone felt like an honored guest.