2020-11-05 Redemption Songs
Redemption Songs
Participants: Mizha
Bites-The-Hand
Location: Tent City - Skid Row - Downtown Los Angeles
Date and Time: November 5
Summary: A little free music for the houseless community
Mood Music: https://youtu.be/6NQ6coZq8Hg
Tent City - Skid Row - Downtown Los Angeles
Like many parts of the Row this vacant lot has been taken over and transformed into a tent city. This is one, according to word on the streets, one of the safer encampments due to the alleyway obstructions and vigilant eye of neighborhood watch. Blue and black tarps fill your view. There's almost always the scent of someone grilling around this area.
Bites-the-Hand
A dark-skinned hispanic man. His black hair is thick and wavy, his beard bristled around his jawline, his eyebrows thick. His body is alarmingly strong - he's heavy with dense, woody muscle, and there is very little fat on his frame. His eyes are dark brown, almost black. His gaze is heavy and palpable like a lead weight resting on the back of your hand. His eyes, slightly too wide, blink rarely. He doesn't smile, but his mouth is restless, sometimes yawning open as his tongue curls across his clean white teeth.
He's wearing black gym shorts, decorated with an abstract pattern of dots and triangles done by hand with blue chalk.
Mizha
Words like 'vivacious' and 'vibrant' might come to mind. Probably in her late twenties, Mizha is somewhere in the grey area between girl-next-door and gorgeous, falling short of Hollywood-beautiful. When she smiles, though, the wide and engaging expression transforms her and adds deep dimples to her cheeks. Dark-brown eyes seem to notice more than they should, usually. Then again, sometimes the woman looks distracted, as if she's off in her own world. When focused on something in *this* world, her gaze is direct, even sharp. In sun or indirect light, her eyes often have an amber gleam like the dimensional glow of tigereye.
Dark hair frames only one side of her face, in an asymmetrical faux-hawk: buzzed on one side, easing into a jaw-length angled cut on the other. Three narrow braids, longer than the rest of her hair and usually ornamented with bone and horn beads and one to three feathers, hang from her temple on the buzzed side.
Her ethnicity is hard to pin down: she has a middling-to-Latino complexion, strong cheekbones, a delicate but determined chin. Neither short nor tall at 5'5", Mizha has decently-defined muscle combined with curves that
are definitely not model-slender.
A white ringer tee with red trim hugs her upper body, bearing the "Indian head" logo of the Cleveland Indians and, in the proper swoopy cursive-like font, the words "NOT YOUR FUCKING MASCOT." Slim, worn-out jeans hug her legs, all the way down to clunky-looking vintage combat boots. Those bulky boots look like they might be fifty years old: much-scuffed black leather lined for warmth, not the slimmer lightweight military boots of today. The feathers in her hair today are iridescent black, varying from maybe 4-6" in length, and black bone beads weight the three braids.
She's also wearing a faded-red zip hoodie. The back has printed on it, in large white block letters:
OR I'LL KILL YOU
Now that the weather's cleared up, people have come up from under slung tarps and pitched tents. There's a fire somewhere, probably, and a chattering of voices. Someone dropped off a box of food earlier, probably from outside Skid Row where pretty much EVERYTHING is desperately understaffed.
And, whether any of the locals are listening or not--they most likely are, she's damn good--Mizha is sitting on a folded-up army surplus blanket, hard guitar case on one side of her, a messenger bag on the other. She's in the middle of something bluesy, her gaze distant, a little curl of a smile catching the mood of the song between lines.It's 4/4 in a blues mode, with a style people are lumping into 'Americana' these days. Something that makes one want to foot-tap a little to its steady beat, syncopations thrown in here and there. When she sings, her voice is rounded, well-trained. Richer than one might expect, maybe. The verse has quarter-notes that seem to stretch long, line on a single pitch until a little descent at the end.
"Seven times I went down
Six times I walked back
And I don't fear the dark anymore
'cause I'm become all that..."
The singer has a little one-sided smile, then, something that matches the mood of the song, which seems like... a dark folktale sort of thing, maybe? When the chorus comes, it skips faster, with syncopations and far more interest in the melody.
"I will be rocks, I will be water,
I will leave this to my daughter:
Lift your head up in the wind.
When you feel yourself get colder
wrap the night around your shoulders
and I will be with you even then,
even when I cannot see your face anymore."
Bites-the-Hand comes when you call, even if that wasn't quite what you meant to do. A man trotting out of the darkness, bare and toting very little, roving like he's looking for something. But maybe it's not something a broken creature like him can ever expect to find. The sound of your music draws him from his appointed path, and he stumbles over near, dropping to a kneel on the pavement. There's... something wrong with him, something subtle, from the way so many others of those listening scoot aside. Women turn their face from him, one man gets up and leaves rather than share the fire with him, and he creates a berth with his mere presence. Maybe it's just his smell... But he follows your music like it's in his blood, his lips moving in time with yours.
There are, in fact, some people listening. Gathered around loosely, some sitting on crates or crosslegged, one couple leaning against each other. Happily, the young pair are far enough from Biter, so the two teens get to stay.
The singer looks somewhere above and beyond them all, eyes bright. A little twist comes to her lips, as she gets to an actual snippet of story. The long quarter notes again, to start a new verse.
"Don't forget the time
I wooed him with red wine
The devil he wore such a fine, fine shirt
and it stayed so clean while he dragged me through the dirt.
Now honey, don't trust anyone who looks you in the eye
don't you take none of their kindness, if it's a demon in disguise..."
The last lines lift at the end, adamant, and then lead into-- not the chorus, but lines that hold onto that higher pitch and intensity like the wailin' blues:
"I have-- *seen* such *things*, child, I have-- *seen* such things..."
A couple of repetitions over the thicker, more rhythmic guitar chords that match its tone, and then suddenly everything drops away. With the strings still ringing from the last chord, she borrows the end harmonies of the chorus to sing, quietly,
"...on this and the other side."
There's an almost impish gleam in her eyes, when she shares that last bit.
That moment, when full raw intensity and rhythmic strums suddenly become near-silence? That is magic. So is the little quiet after, until Bill, the drunk guy, says, "YEAH!"
And then people laugh a little, embarrassed. Some of them clap their hands together.
There's applause, all around the fire. Everyone joins in, and for a moment, the embarrassment at being at something as old-fashioned and impoverished as an acoustic guitar and an open fire is gone. There's the sky, and the distant rush of cars, and the music, and the good feeling in their hearts. And the man with wild hair watches with astonishment as you work the guitar. For a moment, there's just a warm afterglow of music. And then... The wild-haired man speaks. "Can you play, ah..." He reaches for the words, but already you can tell this man is a singer. His voice is a low, sweet tenor. He's struggling, trying to remember. "Heard it today..." The others sigh, groan, scoot farther. The crazy guy! He's wreckin' the vibe!
The singer's gaze settles on him then, dark eyes narrowing just a little. Then she glances around and says, "Hey, everybody gets a voice. I played 'Let It Be' for Emmie, right?" She looks back to the disheveled newcomer, tipping her head. "It's all right," the woman murmurs. "D'you remember how it goes? Can you hum it?" A small, coaxing smile curves her lips.
Bites-the-Hand racks his memory, rubbing the heels of his palms against his temples as the rest of the crew wait for the man to put himself together. "It was a happy song. Girl was singing it... Good voice, strong voice, like a sunrise. But.." He blows, letting his lips flap, frustrated. "Forgot. Can't remember." He grinds his teeth a moment. "Wanted to sing it. Can't remember words, can't sing it," he says with a shrug.
"Ah, give it a go, Ben," says a chubby woman in a hoodie, enjoying one of the sandwiches you brought. "I bet you could sing. You got something easy for us to sing together?" ("a fuckin' singalon-") "That's right, Jay, a fuckin' sing-along."
Mizha *listens* to him, but without pressure, without intensity. She doesn't mind waiting, even when he gives up. "Hey, Ben," she says, quieter. "I'm Mizha." It has a weird sound in the middle. It doesn't show up in a lot of words. She has a kind voice. "Maybe you'll think of it later, when there aren't so many people, yeah?" She looks toward the others, thoughtfully. "More Beatles, maybe? I was thinking 'Imagine.' Or... anybody know Redemption Song by Marley?"
"Oh, god, -fuuuuck- Imagine," groans a wiry young man. "Last thing I need coming down from a buzz is more Beatles."
"I know Redemption Song," says a very, very tired looking man with hair even filthier than Ben's. "You want me to lead? Like, call and... call and response?" He picks up his sandwich from where he dropped it, dusts it off, and opens his mouth to take a bite. Yeah, yeah, toxic fallout, whatever...
Except he doesn't, because Ben gives him a LOOK, and he pauses, and wordlessly tosses Ben the sandwich, and goes to get another. "Fuckin' fuck," he mutters to himself, grabbing a fresh PBJ from the cooler.
Mizha laughs a little, shaking her head ruefully and looking down to the guitar. Then she looks across to the tired man. "You can cue people if you want," she says, "or just sing with me? Whatever you feel like." Then she bows her head and starts the first chords, a faint smile coming to her lips with the simplicity of it, the familiarity. She's chosen a middling key, something more people might be able to sing in; it sits low in her range, mellow.
"Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships..."
The crowd joins in, insofar as they know the words. Some do, some don't. But the real singing comes in on the second repetition of the hook:
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
When that comes around, everyone knows the words. They just heard em'. And they sing together, each and all, a deep resonance building between them as harmonies happen by sheer accident. It turns out: Ben can sing *pretty well* once he knows the words.
+ROLL/+DICE> Bites-the-Hand: Charisma + Performance vs. 6 -> 2 successes. (9 6 6 4 3 3 1)
Possibly just to let that chorus come around again, possibly for other reasons, Mizha repeats the second verse, improvising around the melody a little for emphasis, still more passion brought into the words:
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery--
None but ourselves can free our minds..."
And then the chorus comes around for them to sing again. This time, Mizha's face just lights up with a supernova-level smile and she skips the first lines just to hear *them*. She gives herself over to just strumming the hell out of those chords. Only at the end does she drop back in to repeat a few times after they're done:
"...these songs of freedom... all I ever had: redemption songs."
Mizha's smile turns wistful, at the end; she lets a few plucked notes die, a little downward arpeggio. Even after, she has her head bowed for a moment, smile lingering as she takes a deep breath and lets it out.
The singing rattles to a close, to applause first scattered, then sustained. The tired man looks less tired, less bent out of shape about his first sandwich. The wiry young man comes down from one buzz on to the soft cushion of a sacred circle of music. The woman who introduced Ben to you has a big, genuinely happy smile on her face.
"That was really nice," she says, giving you a little pat on the shoulder. "Hey. Thank you. You're alright, you know that?"
Ben nods. "You're good," he says, and that's the whole of the sentence. He looks at you thoughtfully, humming the end of the song.
"I'm going to sleep," says a young woman, smiling as she pulls three coats around herself. "Not gonna beat that tonight."
"Yeah, I think I'm sung out. And I'm *definitely* not gonna beat that finale," Mizha says, flashing a grin to the young woman. "Sleep good, walk safe, all that." She takes a slow, deep breath, as if to take in the lightened spirit of that small group. For a moment her eyes close, and she breathes out a strange, whispered word.
"Migwetch."
Ben catches the word that you whisper, when no one else does... ...But it means nothing to him. Why should it? He's been singing new words all day. What's one more? Migwetch, atomic, emancipate. Words are fun, and there are so many of them. He relaxes, as the group begins to disperse, returning to their tents, or breaking off in to smaller groups. Now's a good time for that. No one sleeps well when you're sleeping rough. You're never safe, not really. Even if you've got someone like Ben walking a beat... ...But that doesn't hurt. He gets up, gives you a nod and a smile, and goes back to keeping an eye on things. A little panopticon.
"Hey, Ben?" The singer's voice is quiet, unassuming. She's still seated on the ground, her guitar across her lap, about as nonthreatening as anyone could possibly be.
Ben takes a couple steps without reacting to the name at all, then stops, and turns. He looks at you with that tremendous stare of his, and doesn't otherwise move. "Uh?" God, you could use that grunt to dub a cartoon.
Mizha tilts her head, and the curve of her mouth is gentle, without the flash of teeth or the epic dimples. "Thanks for singing with us," she says quietly. "You have a beautiful voice. You can sing with me anytime."
Bites-the-Hand smiles too. "Your voice... It's good for this place," he says. "No one here is happy. But..." He nods at you. "A little good place, there." He points at the fire with all four fingers at once, and lopes off in to the night.
For a long time, she watches the fire burn down, her expression pensive.
