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You hadn’t intended to fall in love with a stranger, but that’s what happened at The Gaslight Cafe one night in 1961.
You had been drowning your sorrows, glass after glass of whiskey being slid across the bar to you by a bartender who couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off the dip in the top of your low cut shirt. You were barely keeping it together, the more liquor you swallowed the harder it was to hold back the dam of tears threatening to spill over.
It was during the fourth drink (or was it the fifth? You couldn’t remember) that you heard the sweetest, softest, saddest voice. The singers up until that point had been generic and boring but this voice was emotional, meaningful and had you spinning in your barstool to look at the man it belonged to.
He was wearing browns and blacks that made him blend into the background of the poorly lit stage, and it frustrated you that he wasn’t in something more vivid that would force everyone in the room to pay attention to him, because he deserved that, you thought. His voice was powerful, not in a loud, commanding sense but in a I have something to say sense that spoke to your soul. His eyes were squeezed shut, concentrating wholly on the world he was building up in song. His deft fingers were flying across his guitar, pulling and strumming but if you were being honest, you would have been equally happy to listen to him without the instrument.
You wanted him to look up, catch your eye, sing to you, sing for you. You couldn’t stop staring, your glass long forgotten on the bar whilst you went about committing him to memory. He had a dark mop of curls on his head, some of them bouncing on his forehead when he moved to the rhythm he was creating. His beard was thick but neat, and shaped his face in a way that made him look soft and approachable.
He finished the song about love lost and memories of a better time and said a witty one liner that was more self-deprecating than funny, you thought. He lit a cigarette and left it to hang in the corner of his mouth then went straight into the next song. You felt disappointed when he didn’t notice you, as though he should have, considering you were giving him the most attention. You felt silly for thinking that and downed the rest of your drink. The guy behind the bar raised an eyebrow at you but you shook your head to decline another. You wanted to be sober to listen to this man you were fascinated with.
Time went too quickly as you were absorbed in his voice. You noticed the permanent crease where he pulled his eyebrows together in concentration, and the way his left leg, the one his guitar wasn’t perched on, bounced quicker or slower depending on the tempo of the song.
The audience clapped politely when the song came to an end and the folk singer began to stand from his seat and put his guitar away in a case. You sighed and spun back around to face the bar, holding up your empty whiskey glass to demand another. You supposed the singer would find his friends and enjoy the rest of his night, never the wiser about the part he played in your evening.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” came the sound of the man from the stage, except he was now perching on the stool to your right and looking at you with a curious frown on his face. “Did you like it?” He asked, taking his drink but not taking a sip, waiting for you to reply.
“Yeah,” you nodded, trying to regain your breath, finding it only after gulping down half of your whiskey, “your voice is beautiful. And you sang with such conviction, it was like I was living the lyrics with you.” Your honest response shocked him, not because of your honesty but because everybody else’s honesty usually came in the form of shitting on him in one form or another. No, your honesty came with a genuine kindness that hadn’t been directed at him in a long time.
“Th-thank you,” he took a sip then, embarrassed by your admission and regretting asking at all. He didn’t deserve your generosity.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird,” you felt foolish for saying too much, and now you knew for certain he was going to make some excuse to leave and you’d be left alone at the bar once again to drink yourself into a stupor.
“It’s not weird,” he quickly shook his head at you, “I don’t get many compliments these days,” he confessed with a dry smile, his eyes looking away in shame.
You heard the sincerity in his words and felt a mixture of sadness and frustration, both not being helped by the copious amounts of drink in you. What sort of people was he surrounding himself with who didn’t tell him how brilliant his music was? The whiskey was definitely encouraging you to be brave, so you introduced yourself and thrust out your hand for him to shake.
“Llewyn Davis,” he replied, tentatively shaking your hand, a look of amusement in his eyes. You recognised the name, and maybe when you had a clear head you would remember where from, but it didn’t matter. “Do you live nearby?”
“I have an apartment at the end of the street,” you told him, your features brightening subtly at the insinuation.
“You want to get out of here?” Llewyn asked hopefully, swallowing the last of his drink.
He didn’t take advantage of your kindness, or your drunken state that night (except to ensure he had a roof over his head), insisting he sleep on the lumpy couch under the window that let in a draft. You piled blankets on top of him and made sure he knew exactly where everything was in the kitchen incase he needed something in the middle of the night. He stayed the next night too, this time agreeing to your invitation to join you in your own bed. It wasn’t the last time either.
And now you sit next to him in your shared house, sixty years later, watching your grandchildren playing and laughing on the floor at your feet. You’re both happy, fulfilled by the life you created together. You could still remember that night you met, still hear his beautiful singing and taste the sharp whiskey on your tongue that you associated with Llewyn for the rest of your life.
You were one of the fortunate ones that got to fall in love.