Concerning The Tin Ear Town

Up the street, along the river, into the neon shadows and fuzzy cacophony of blues clubs stacked upon one another. Hoell made his way up the gutter, past the curious not gone to bed, the intoxicated not gone to ground, and the true inhabitants on this coruscating midnight fantasy land.
True musicians never really sleep. It’s as if the pull of the night, the melody in the blood, and the potential of the next progression gels together to take and sustain them, even when they finally lay to close their eyes.
A sweat-worn combo was still playing through a fog of smoke, seeking the heartbeat of the night, keeping it moving as though the clock of the city would stop if they did. The baton of time passed from one ancient hero to the next, a duty older than life.
The ghost of Chick Webb had possessed the drummer as Hoell sipped in on the alcohol-slick wooden floor, trying to avoid the eyes of the bouncer. His fingers were moving to the tune the pianist, half drunk and bloodshot, was finding in ivory starlight.
At a table in the corner sat a ghost boy, Jean Lafitte bred from Anne Rice stories, languid in an absinthe haze and the slow moving smoke of a black cigar. He was pale, and dirty, eyes unfocused like the undead, never quite managing to look at you. Hoell seated himself with a grin. The blank eyes slid over him without any sign of life, then drifted into the lingering wreaths. “I got it,” Hoell said. He set a small, worn leather book on the table. The ghost boy registered no response. Then white fingers pulled it close, and set a grimy envelope in its place.
“Someone was looking for you.” The words slid sibilantly, a breath of wind in the graveyard. “Someone who wishes to speak with you.”
Hoell’s hand froze upon the packet. “Is he near?”
The eyes flicked over, settling in time for a peal of trumpet to split the air. Hoell staggered from the table and left by the rear entrance.