The heat -- sounds something like loose change -- jangles through the pipes, not caring if it keeps a beat or keeps me awake.

Earlier, before the shower, before she said, "I'm not that light," before she bought a six pack of Bud Light from the Korean couple on the corner, before the five long necks found themselves unopened on the bottom shelf of my fridge, before we left her friends (two straight, two dykes, and a tall guy) at Doc Watson's chit-chatting their regular chit-chat with the Irish behind and around the bar, before it started to snow, and we agreed, "It's like a movie," I put two bucks in a fishbowl on the piano at Brandy's and requested some Billy. New York State of Mind.

She explained to me, as we sat at the bar, me to the left, her friends to the right, "Everyone who works here is in musical theater. They're all actors. The waitresses get up and sing songs." She put her lips against the small glass mouth of her Amstel Light. "Isn't it cool?"

Of course, I nodded, then I stirred and sipped my Absolut Mandarin and Cranberry.

"We have a request," the piano player leaned into the microphone and ran down the keys, like he's supposed to do -- that's how the song starts. "A little Billy Joel for ya," he had to mention, so our group could blow some curt claps and affirmations off the heads of their beers.

I watched the player smile, his eyes downcast on the keys, his hair-a dirty, trimmed mop, and a slight twitch in his neck. Finally he looked up, shook a string of hair from his face and became, along with his piano, an extra in the scene.

The dialogue around me read:

Yeah? That's him, at the end of the bar-that's Doug from Trading Spaces. Holy shit! No, I got this round!

Then somewhere in there:

Isn't it cool?

Of course I had to nod. But that wasn't Billy up there. That wasn't his song. It wasn't a song at all. It was something else. It was a part of the paraphernalia, like the posters and playbills that hung comatose on the chipped brick walls -- it was a state below furniture, below candleholder, table, stool -- below chatter and the resonance of a glass.

The dialogue around me read again:

Yeah? That's him, at the end of the bar -- that's Doug from Trading Spaces. Holy shit! No, I got this round.

Then somewhere, I think I said:

Isn't it cool?

Later, before I tried to wake her into laughter, before she said, "I'm not that light," before the shower, she sat on the sink and I was inside her, inside her, eyes closed, only the sound of our bodies, clapping, clapping, clapping, applauding something, out there, in here, clapping, clapping, clapping, paying close attention to some detail, to some request we both made -- two bills folded in a fishbowl -- and there was nothing but clapping. For a moment, everything stopped to listen.

The heat wavers in its cadence, the change rolls steadier in the pipes.

When we were out in the snow, she had said, "It's like a movie." And I nodded. Isn't it cool?

When she wakes up maybe we'll grab some breakfast. The room will already be aired out.

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