Last Dance

On Sunday morning, I awoke to the strains of music, though I knew not where it came from. I dressed and made coffee and then set off down the sidewalk for my bank, which is only a few blocks away. With every step, the music grew louder, louder, louder, until...

The source came into view. Beyond a small fence, a guy sat on a stoop with an accordion in his lap. A FOR RENT sign grew out of the grass a few feet from where he played, and I realized it was one of the apartments I'd wished had availability back when I was hunting for an abode nearly a year ago. I took a good look at the man. A bowler hat perched askew atop his shaved head. He had a tattoo on his neck and wore a ratty band t-shirt and pin-striped pajama bottoms and his feet were bare. He looked like a clown. A coffee mug sat next to him on the stoop, ignored, the contents most likely half-drunk and cold. He played on, oblivious or indifferent to my passing presence. I continued towards the bank to make a deposit.

On my way back, the man was still in the same exact spot, pressing and crunching away at his instrument, louder and louder and louder to ensure that everyone in the neighborhood could hear. I was struck by how similar it sounded to my organ, how haunting and creepy it was.

"Paris!" shouted another man from a balcony across the street, a smile spread across his nondescript face.

Paris, indeed. The accordion reminded me of Paris, and how could it not?

I remembered the Locks of Love Bridge, as Jacob called it. We purchased a small, brass padlock from a shop near our hotel, and with a sharpie, I carefully wrote our initials on its body, as well as the year. Then we journeyed up and down the city streets until we reached the bridge, walking across the wooden planks until deciding on the perfect location for our memento. I hooked it onto the chain-link fence, where it joined hundreds of other locks that hundreds of other lovers had secured there to commemorate their bond, their shared presence in the most romantic city on Earth. We photographed our hands with the lock. Then I removed the keys and threw them off of the bridge into the Seine, where, presumably, they remain at the bottom of the river to this day.

Five feet from us, an elderly French gent played an accordion oh-so-beautifully, hunched body swaying in time with his own chord changes. Jacob took me in his arms and we slow-danced cheek to cheek, my hands clasped around his neck, his hands on my hips, stopping only to kiss deeply, sweetly, sadly. Jacob tipped the musician generously, nodding respectfully.

It was our last dance and we didn't even know it.

Pretentious Indie Song of the Day: