Playing the Fiddle as Rome Burns

source: photobucket

We had already been sitting at the pub for an hour when a skinny guy in a loose leather jacket ambled up to the end of our table and started talking. I couldn't understand him at first, and figured he knew someone else.

"You need to dance to the fiddle," he told us, leaning in. "You only have so many chances to dance to the fiddle."

The live band was playing at the front of the bar, and there was some space in front of them where the crowd had given up milling.

My friend said she was enjoying the fiddle where she was sitting just fine. Dancing wouldn't add anything. She didn't mention the unfortunate blender foot injury she had acquired earlier in the day, but I got her drift. I wasn't about to ditch the group to fiddle dance with a guy whose agenda was unclear.

He persisted and then went away for a few songs. He returned with a friend, a tall unshaven man with cowlicked hair.

"You only have so many times when you can dance to the fiddle," he continued. "And this is one of them! You're just going to waste it?"

He dropped an arm onto the wobbly table making the beer slosh.

His speech was full of platitudes - the kind of tough love a boxing coach might give to an athlete one punch from a KO.

"That girl is playing her heart out. And you're just sitting there, not even clapping. All you need to do is get up. Get up and dance and forget about everything else."

My friend with the blender injury told him she had gotten her undergrad in fiddle appreciation and so the dancing was unecessary.

"You only remember half the things you do anyway," she said.

He eventually ceded. "You're good! Fine. If you ladies want to let this slip by, that's your perogative."

There's a myth about Nero playing the fiddle as Rome burned. Flames licked the sky, buildings crumbled. I didn't want to be Rome burning.

But by then the fiddle was over.

His gusto, his bravado, I thought. He would make an excellent life coach.

I need someone to rally behind me at the grocery store when I'm picking out veggies or deciding on yogourt.

But without the fiddle music, the guy left.