Riff

    The swish of tires rolling through puddles at the mouth of the alley recalls mallets thrumming a ride cymbal. A woman whose distinguishing characteristic is that she's over six feet tall, closes her eyes, takes a long, hard drag, and assembles a rhythm section from the available sounds. She tips her head back, draws in fresh air, and while she holds her breath she picks up a bass line in an idling Porsche, brightens a Cadillac's horn to the metallic plink of a Fender Rhodes.

    She improvises a languorous melody, which she hums, then she parts her lips slightly to release the smoke and the slow arpeggios resonate through the block-long alley, the notes rise with the stream of smoke. The asphalt shines under the glare of a streetlamp; water collected in a pothole reflects the light bulb and the hub of a car. She strolls deeper into the narrow passage, reaches her arms out toward the sooty, windowless brick walls as if to touch them, swings her bare string-bean legs to the sides, then back around in front of her with each step, clacks her heels for rim shots.

    She sidesteps around a mound of cigarette butts that someone formed with a toe while waiting for someone to emerge from the stage door. She stops singing. Listens. Song continuing in her head.

    It is a moment of calm between a raucous night and its aftermath.

    The alley fills with the noise of a dissonant engine she recognizes without turning around to look, but she does turn and holds her ground, her legs spread wide, two sides of an isosceles  triangle; arms akimbo, form two half-diamonds at her sides. The bedraggled white van stalls close enough to the stage door for the driver not to restart it and far enough away that the musicians, who now have to haul their instruments and equipment five extra yards, will complain. A man, his shape an 0 to the lady's 1, opens the door, drops to the ground, and slams the door at a point so far off the beat that the woman smiles. He walks by without appearing to notice her, pumps his beefy arms to help his short legs propel his squat body inside.

    "Hello, Joseph. Yes, it is a good evening. Nice to see you, too." She draws her hand to her mouth, inhales deeply and a peal of soprano laughter carries amorphous puffs of  smoke to the sky.