Original Fiction: Last Call
Title: Last Call
Character(s): DeAndre (Little Boy Blues)
Summery: DeAndre helps out his barkeeper at the end of the day.
Rating: G.
Words: 363
A/N: This was a drabble prompt by gogoangelgunboy, for DeAndre and "Last Call", I went overboard a bit, trying to fit it within the TOS of Y!Gallery and I still failed. *laughs*
Two songs before the end of the last set, the barkeep gave DeAndre the high sign.
He waved Erik down, and then, with nothing but lip, he played Taps. The deliberate notes cried out over the chatter, the clatter of cutlery and glass, and cut everything to silence.
Memories flooded back.
At a Sunday shrimp boil, family buzzing all around as Uncle Renee wove notes like ribbons and silk around DeAndre's earnest eight-year-old efforts on Gran'papa's old Army bugle.
On the corner of Royal and Conti, where he'd put his case out open; and he'd sweat and blow 'til the tourists in shades that cost more than his whole kit laid bright silver and dark paper against red velvet.
Then all decked out in white, a full-out three-piece suit with hat and tie at Grand-Uncle Jaboris' funeral. All of Treme came out in force and style. Jaboris'd been a military man, and in the hospital he'd asked DeAndre's Daddy for the favor of the boy playin' his last taps. DeAndre stood tall by the fresh-turned dirt and whitewashed raised grave, and let that old brass sing.
Great-Aunt Jenny dried her tears with lace. "Jus' like Gabriel come Judgment Day."
He'd led the way out: past tombs five high, a broken angel on a roof of worn away marble, past open black-gaped concrete blocks only half filled with the dead; out, past the white and shadows. Only to meet and greet the Second Line, children in suits as white as his own carrying staffs of white flowers, teens in oversized jeans and T's, men in top hats and carrying umbrellas, old ladies in colorful dresses, all glittering with life. Souls uplifted on the breath of their music, they had all gathered to celebrate a hard, but good life.
The last low notes of Taps rang out; and in the silence of an audience entranced, the barkeep barked, "Last Call."
A moment of shock, a ripple of laughter, and folks bellied up to the bar or waved over waitresses. The barkeep nodded her thanks, and DeAndre tipped his hat.
Erik picked the beat, the band swung in, and Little Boy Blues just blew his horn.
Character(s): DeAndre (Little Boy Blues)
Summery: DeAndre helps out his barkeeper at the end of the day.
Rating: G.
Words: 363
A/N: This was a drabble prompt by gogoangelgunboy, for DeAndre and "Last Call", I went overboard a bit, trying to fit it within the TOS of Y!Gallery and I still failed. *laughs*
Two songs before the end of the last set, the barkeep gave DeAndre the high sign.
He waved Erik down, and then, with nothing but lip, he played Taps. The deliberate notes cried out over the chatter, the clatter of cutlery and glass, and cut everything to silence.
Memories flooded back.
At a Sunday shrimp boil, family buzzing all around as Uncle Renee wove notes like ribbons and silk around DeAndre's earnest eight-year-old efforts on Gran'papa's old Army bugle.
On the corner of Royal and Conti, where he'd put his case out open; and he'd sweat and blow 'til the tourists in shades that cost more than his whole kit laid bright silver and dark paper against red velvet.
Then all decked out in white, a full-out three-piece suit with hat and tie at Grand-Uncle Jaboris' funeral. All of Treme came out in force and style. Jaboris'd been a military man, and in the hospital he'd asked DeAndre's Daddy for the favor of the boy playin' his last taps. DeAndre stood tall by the fresh-turned dirt and whitewashed raised grave, and let that old brass sing.
Great-Aunt Jenny dried her tears with lace. "Jus' like Gabriel come Judgment Day."
He'd led the way out: past tombs five high, a broken angel on a roof of worn away marble, past open black-gaped concrete blocks only half filled with the dead; out, past the white and shadows. Only to meet and greet the Second Line, children in suits as white as his own carrying staffs of white flowers, teens in oversized jeans and T's, men in top hats and carrying umbrellas, old ladies in colorful dresses, all glittering with life. Souls uplifted on the breath of their music, they had all gathered to celebrate a hard, but good life.
The last low notes of Taps rang out; and in the silence of an audience entranced, the barkeep barked, "Last Call."
A moment of shock, a ripple of laughter, and folks bellied up to the bar or waved over waitresses. The barkeep nodded her thanks, and DeAndre tipped his hat.
Erik picked the beat, the band swung in, and Little Boy Blues just blew his horn.