Always The Blue Cut is dark and snuggly lit a neon-filled room, with tables and booths, a couple of pool tables. There’s always someone there to take your coat as you enter, its warm inside and since Mark took over that’s about the nicest thing I can say about it. It used to be lots of Irish, now it’s a very wide assortment of people who seem to know each other, but don’t seem to know each other. Tonight it was standing room only with a skinny path leading to those exact same people.

My father bought the building using the first floor for a bar and restaurant and the upstairs for our home. That was our family, the one living above the bar. He named it The Blue Cut after Sam and me. A blue cut is the very last note of a full night’s music, usually denoting a very long symphony like Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony #9 has been played. This particular note is known to musicians as the blue note, or the blue cut, because not everyone plays it. Usually they’ve already started loosening their bows, or pulling brass apart, to get out faster. So he named it after Sam and me when he started noticing we were the first two out of the concert hall after a long performance. A blue cut is a professional no-no, in fact, you may never be called a professional again if you ever did it during an important performance. Honestly, Sam and I joke about it now, something we used to do as kids, but not any longer.

As we were settling in, I did a peace sign at Ginger, the waitress, who hustled us two beers.
“Hey, how’d it go for Todd Kidd tonight?” Sam asked.
“Ball-buster,” I replied.
“Oh shit, no, the conductor didn’t beat it up did he?”
“Yep.”
“Ah, no, how bad?”
“Did ya ever see the movie Fight Club?”
“Ah, no, no, he’s that bad? Well now we know the winners of the composer, vocalist, chorale,” Sam said, “what’s left now, soloist and conductor. Did they schedule you for the soloist audition yet?”
“Nah.”
“You’ll get it this year, Shan,” Sam said.

The beers arrived on a tray with the hand under it attached to Mark. I didn’t want to hear about the Chagall and chose to wait and let him bring up the subject. I continued bullshitting with Sam just to see him burn up.

“Actually I believe I’m on Tuesday with the last five finalists. It’s gonna be tight this year those two Chinese guys are really good.“
“I bought the painting this morning,” Mark interrupted.
“Tell us what happened,” naïve Sam said always the fool to play to Mark’s ego.
“Well dorks, I was in a bidding war with some idiot on the phone calling in his bid. I had the ping-pong paddle thing with the number on it, I was waving it around. I practically swung it in the air like one of those big fingers you see at the Yankee games. I had the money to buy it and I know how to show the auctioneer that I am serious about the purchase.”

I moved to avoid Mark’s arm swinging; he apologized, but kept on telling the story, undeterred by my obvious disinterest.

“Where you gonna put it?”
“Well there’s only one good wall, so I moved some things around.”
“You don’t have a kitchen wall, your kitchens the bathroom.”
“I moved some things.”
“What?” Sam said.
“The bath towel rack and the spice rack.”
“You pay thousands for that studio in Chelsea and now you’re gonna—“
“Don’t look at me that way Shannon. You’re the one who’s fucked. You’re gonna get that woman conductor that’s making the rounds, the one from France, Melody Barnes.” Mark said this jabbing at me because I was not responding to his conversation. “…the one that’s all over the billboards, you know the woman that looks like the guy in the movie Tootsie.”

Their Deeds Unmistakable, IV – Tomorrow