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THINGS HAD NOT GONE the way Joe had envisioned them. He had a sold-out crowd and they were getting restless. Two acts had not shown up and several of the performers stunk. Fortunately, one or two of them had the grace to cut their routines short. At the intermission he had gone through ten acts; almost two-thirds of his total performers. He had booked fifteen acts and number twelve was on stage now. Joe turned and saw Aaron walking toward him.
There is a God!
Joe was glad to see Aaron when he arrived. He walked over and spoke to Aaron.
"You're just in time. You're on next."
"Okay, but I need to talk to the band for a moment before I can go on."
"That's fine, but don't take too long. By the way, when I introduce you, where do I say you're from?"
"Well, I came here from Abilene. That's a good a place to use as any, I guess."
"Okay. By the way, you look different."
"Yeah, I clean up nice."
Joe went out and explained the judging again to the audience to give Aaron a moment or two to talk to the band. When he saw Aaron standing next to the curtain, he knew it was time to introduce him. Aaron had removed the leather jacket he had been wearing and placed it over a chair backstage. He had turned up the collar of the white silk shirt and tucked his hair inside the back of the shirt. He had placed a brown paper bag on the chair.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce to you a singer who hails from Abilene, Texas. Since he's from Abilene, let's show him some Wichita Falls hospitality and give him a warm welcome. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Aaron Jones."
I hope the old guy doesn’t have a heart attack!
Scattered applause sounded from the audience. Aaron walked out to center stage, adjusted the microphone, and addressed the audience.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you very much for allowing me to sing for you tonight. What I’m going to do is what we used to say as ‘cover’ some songs by a couple of well-known artists. I used to be an impersonator. I think you’ll recognize who I impersonated right of. For my first number, I'd like to perform a number which was written and performed in the late forties and early fifties by Hank Williams. I think it's probably the saddest song I've ever heard."
With that, Aaron cued the band and began singing the Hank Williams standard, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Die". When he started, his voice had a nervous, trembling quality about it, hesitant, but as the amplified voice filled the building, it built in strength. His unique voice reverberated throughout the audience. The band seemed loud at first, downing him out. He reached behind his back and used his palm to signal them to tone the volume down. Things quickly reached a balance between them.
Later members of the audience would say they could actually hear the wail of a whippoorwill crying in the dark, others said they heard the train whistle as it traveled through the darkness, and others in the audience felt stirring of loneliness bringing up old feeling, frustrations, and agonies. Later, some of them would say, after the fact, they knew the voice as soon as they heard it.
In truth, they would all agree; familiar or not, that voice had a fantastic quality to it. The voice made the song even more poignant and enhanced the surreal quality of the lyrics.
Janet Osgood did recognize a familiar quality to the voice. A grandmother, Janet had come to the talent contest because it gave her an opportunity to see and visit with some of her other friends whom she didn't ordinarily see. When Aaron came out on stage, Janet noticed a familiarity in his manner. She felt she had seen him before. Something about the way he had introduced the song reminded her of a phrase another artist had used to introduce the song at a concert she had attended over twenty years ago. She had been in her late thirties had flown to Hawaii to attend the concert. The trip had been like a pilgrimage of sorts, and it was one of the highlights of her life. Anyway, Aaron's voice plucked at the chords of her memory. As he sang, she studied his face intently. When he lifted his head, a familiar chord resonated within her.
He's dead! It can't be him!
The voice nagged at her. It continued to nag ... nagging and pulling at her.
The voice had its effect upon the other members of the audience as well. When he finished the song, some sections of the audience applauded loudly, others applauded politely. In fact, Joe, listening from backstage, speculated to himself that the applause was louder for this singer than for any of the other acts. Some of the other performers, waiting around backstage, also applauded.
Aaron took in the applause, bowed and smiled. His body buoyed up. He became more animated. Some of the energy radiating from the audience filled him. He realized he could bounce that vitality back to them. He grinned.
"Thank you very much; you are a very good audience. Now, I'd like to change the pace a little bit and do a song which was very popular about twenty years ago. You may remember it, it’s called ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’" He slanted his body about thirty degrees, extended his right arm out toward the second row, and pointed his forefinger toward a girl sitting with a young man. He smiled.
Aaron removed the microphone from the holder and held it in his hand. He gave a high sign to the guitarist. After an introductory part played on the guitar, Aaron began to sing. It was a lively song where the narrator of the song asked his girlfriend not to be cruel to his pure heart. It was a bouncy tune. Aaron moved around the stage and twisted his hips as he sang. Several members of the audience began to snap their fingers to the music while some others wiggled in their seats tapping their feet to the music. The audience warmed more and more to him. They started to participate in the performance. Aaron moved around the stage and concluded the song with one hand raised. He lowered his hand slowly. He looked out at the audience, smiled, and bowed slightly. The audience exploded with applause.
There wasn't a question about an encore at this point. Aaron turned his back to the applause and walked over to the bandleader. After Aaron spoke for a moment, Charles, the bandleader, assured him that the band would be able to keep up with him. Aaron asked Charles to follow his lead and turned to face the audience. He raised his right arm, and the applause ceased.
Perspiration shone on his wrinkled forehead. He kept his right arm raised and turned so that the right side of his body faced the audience. His right arm still raised, Aaron extended the index finger of his right hand. He turned his head toward the audience for a moment and smiled. He lifted the microphone in his left hand toward his mouth, looked back at Charles and nodded.
What followed was a flurry of activity. Aaron moved his arms and legs with a controlled frenzy. He sang about hunks of burning love over and over. He would face the audience and sing and wiggle his legs, then turn to the side and flail his arms in a circular fashion in time to the music. The audience loved it. They were clapping and jumping around like a bunch of teenagers.
The man felt his age, but he remained energetic.
Janet was beside herself. Reason and logic told her this wasn't happening. Looking around at the rest of the audience, she could tell many of them were as caught up with the performance as she was. She looked at friends she had known all her life, and she could see the same rapt expression on their faces she knew must be on her face. She thought it must be a miracle. Somehow, inexplicably, HE was here - on that stage, singing and performing. She knew there must be a rational explanation. There was surely some logical reason to explain what was happening here tonight. But Janet didn't care. Her imagination soared. For the moment, she riveted all her attention to the stage. That's where it was happening now. Tomorrow, she would try to explain it; tonight, she would enjoy it. It was real. It was now. And most importantly, whether or not it was really true, just for tonight, it was HIM!
Aaron finished the number, replaced the microphone, and walked off the stage. The applause followed him. Sweat dripped off his nose. His shirt was soaked. He walked over to the chair and pushed the paper bag to the floor. He sat in the chair, taking in deep breaths. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow. He muttered to himself.
"Boy, it's still fun but I forgot how much it takes out of you."
The applause continued. And continued. And continued.
Joe walked over.
"You're going back out there, aren't you?"
"Uh Huh, just as soon as I catch my breath."
The applause continued. After a bit, Aaron walked out on stage, looked at the audience, and raised both hands in the air. A hush came over the auditorium. Aaron turned to Charles. Charles waved him off.
"Don't worry ‘bout us, we'll keep up. You just lead, we'll be there."
Aaron looked out at the audience.
"You're very kind. You make an old man's heart feel good. I want to thank you for being such a good audience. Now, I would like to sing a medley of some other popular songs this singer I used to impersonate did from the past. Maybe if I remind you of some of the songs he did, you will think, in your mind, he still lives!"
Aaron then commenced to sing a medley of four songs. After a while, the band and he seemed to merge and act as a cohesive unit. He would sing. Then, he would pause and stop singing. While the band played, he gyrated his hips and legs to the music. Then he would sing again. First, he sang "You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog", then "Heartbreak Hotel", and then "Jailhouse Rock".
During this medley, the audience went wild. They stood in their seats and clapped their hands. Occasionally, there would be a lapse in the music. Then, often as not, someone would shout, "Go, man, GO!"
Something happened unnoticed by the audience. It was one of those moments which took a millisecond-second in linear time; but, to Aaron it seemed to last an eternity. . . one of those moments when time stretches and lasts forever. That's what it seemed like to him.
As he stood there, Aaron looked out at the crowd. At that moment, he felt nineteen again. His mind went back when he was playing to crowds on the backs of tractor-trailer flatbeds, on small stages at county fairs, anywhere he could find an audience; and riding through the night to appear at small theaters throughout the South.
Performing to most people was extremely hard work, but not to Aaron. It was a true labor of love. Whatever the efforts, the rewards were worth it. He had performed in the past not for the money it brought him, not for the women his fame would attract, and not for the fame itself. He performed for the way he felt every time he sang in front of an audience. It was a funny feeling ... almost like an electric current running through his body.
Whenever he sang, wherever he was, he was able to project the energy out to the particular medium (TV, recording studio or movie set) in which he was singing. He especially felt a strong energy run through him every time he performed before a live audience. It was a sensual, transcendental, transforming, feeling. He was always able to share it with the audience. The more Aaron felt it, the more it grew inside him and the more he projected it to the audience. The audience, in turn, gathered this energy and gave it back to him hundredfold.
Aaron let this feeling engulf him, surround him, enfold him, and invigorate him. This was the feeling he had once lived for, had given up, and lost all hope of it ever returning to his life again.
Standing there looking out over the audience, he allowed the sweeping surge of emotion to pass through him. His joy at being able to perform again was exceeded only by the joy and ecstasy which overwhelmed him as the synergy which he and this audience had created ran through his body like a vibrating, pulsating hot electric current.
This audience, like thousands of other audiences, had taken the special energy he projected, fired it with enthusiasm and magnified it. Then they sent this expanded force back to him on the stage. Aaron then sucked in this expanded energy like some kind of psychic vacuum cleaner, poured it back into his performance, and sent it back to the audience. And so it went: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, etc.
If anybody in the audience had looked at him closely at that moment, they would have noticed a slight shudder and tears running down his face mingling with his sweat.
With the energy being exchanged, Aaron looked out at the audience. He realized that he had given every ounce of his being to this moment. The wave of energy had built up until it had become an overwhelming crescendo. Aaron was at once the instrument and the conductor of this controlled madness. He set the pace and served as the sparkplug. He was in charge of the moment. He felt “ALIVE.”
Aaron finished the medley and left the stage again. When he got behind the curtain, he removed the white shirt, which was soaking wet. He removed a small towel from the paper bag and began to dry himself off. He asked Joe for some water, and Joe brought it to him.
Meanwhile, someone in the audience shouted, “Man, he’s really ‘the King’ tonight.”
The audience clapped like they had never clapped before. Then they started chanting as they clapped. Pretty soon, a rhythm developed. Clap, chant, clap chant, clap, chant.
"Aaron!" Clap. " Aaron!" Clap. " Aaron!"
On and on.
Backstage, Aaron had replaced the white silk shirt with the black leather jacket. After listening to the chanting and the clapping for a few minutes, he walked back on stage. He carried the chair and the paper bag with him. He set the chair down and placed the paper bag on the chair. The applause continued. Aaron raised his hand to quiet the audience.
"Thank you, thank you, you are very kind. I want to slow things down a bit now. And I also want show my appreciation to you for being such a good audience."
Aaron began to sing a well-known ballad which used a tune composed by Stephen Foster. He followed that song with another ballad which portrayed the dilemma of somebody who has determined that his lover and best friend were lovers. He concluded the encore performance with a ballad which asked a lover to treat him any way they chose, only to love him.
The songs would have been received enthusiastically, but Aaron did something amazing everybody in the audience. He reached into the paper bag and removed a handful of cheap, rhinestone rings. These, he passed out to members of the audience, mostly ladies, who had drifted to the front of the stage. As he did, other members of the audience came up front to receive a rhinestone ring. All the while, Aaron continued to sing.
Recognition shone on the faces of the audience. If there had been any doubts in anybody's mind up to this point, Aaron's actions wiped them away.
Members of the audience whispered comments.
"It's him, It's really him."
“Nah, it’s just another impersonator. Pretty damn good if you ask me, but an impersonator just the same.”
“Well, he’s the best damn impersonator I’ve ever seen.”
"It's HIM!"
“He’s dead, you and I both know that!”
"It's really HIM!"
Aaron finished his songs and walked backstage. He was sweating profusely. He looked around and spotted Joe. Aaron walked over to Joe.
Meanwhile, the chanting continued.
"We want more!" "We want more!" ... "MORE!” ... "MORE!” ... "MORE!” .... ""MORE!” ... "MORE!” ... "MORE!”
The chanting continued.
Aaron approached Joe.
"I don't think there's any doubt over first place, do you?"
"What do you mean?" Joe responded.
"Well, I think it's pretty obvious that I've won first <gulp> place. And I would like my prize money, <gulp> NOW!"
"Well, aren't you going to sing anymore? Listen to that crowd out there! "
"My money", Aaron said quietly.
Joe sighed and reached into his pocket and withdrew the cashier's check for first place. Aaron shook his head.
“Cash is better.”
Joe sighed.
Doubters everywhere!
Joe had a strongbox laying on the floor. Leaning over, he opened the box, reached in and pulled out a roll of bills.
“Here’s nine hundred and eighty dollars in fifties and twenties. You can take it as first-place money. I’ll charge you twenty bucks as my check cashing fee.”
He handed the roll over to Aaron. Aaron placed the roll in the pocket of the leather jacket and zipped up the pocket. He grinned at Joe, wheeled around and walked back on stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, you have been a terrific audience. I haven't performed before an audience for almost twenty years. Thank you <gulp> for the way you have received me tonight. I would like to do a special song before I leave. It's a song my mother especially liked. It’s called <gulp> 'Amazing Grace'. I'd appreciate it if you would help me sing this <gulp> song. Maybe it’ll remind us there is no king on this earth."
He turned and cued the band. He commenced to sing the hymn and after a little prompting, the audience joined in. After the song was over, he took a deep bow and exited the stage. He continued out the exit door. He turned down Sixth Street headed toward Scott Street. From the auditorium, he could hear the faint sounds of the audience as the chanting continued.
"More!" "More!" "More!" ... "More!" ... "More!" ... "More!"