A few minutes later, I heard the sound of a saxophone and finger-snapping and saw the crowd of sweaty bodies parting to make way for two vastly different oddballs: a tall wild-haired saxophone player named Spyder Mittleman, and the very short Chuck E., who was hunched over, snapping his fingers like a Beatnik in a dark seedy poetry bar who has just heard “Howl” for the first time. They both wore sunglasses, and they took their time sauntering through the crowd, whipping them into a frenzy before they climbed onto the stage and launched into their witty-Louis Prima-New Orleans-style-rockabilly-blues. I slid off my barstool and started to dance and didn’t finish until they played their very last song, Goddamn Liar. Chuck E. would stand onstage, smoking his cigarette, wearing his sunglasses, and every time the band would pause, he would say, “Goddamn Liar.” Then he would usually shout, “Get the hell out of my gas station!” and exit the stage to exuberant screaming and applause.
As I drove home that night in my bug, my ear drums muted from the loud music, I rolled down my windows so that the warm gardenia-scented air could cool the glistening sweat off my arms. I thought my co-server was right: Chuck E. was God, and if not “the” God, he was “a” god, an insanely talented, mischievous version of Dionysus, reigning over Monday nights in Hollywood.
