"You've got to try it, Bearcat. One night, one night only, one hour."
"Just fetch me a playing from the store when you return."
"You know I can't do that, hayburner. If you hear it, you'll understand; vinyl can't do it justice, and Vinyl can't do it justice."
Octavia tightened her eyes shut, but opened them quickly. Displays of vex shan't become a priority over the machine that whirred a displeasure greater than a clucked tongue could warrant. The fabric moved under her hooves, sliding and feeling it all over as it was assembled from the silk chiffon that was fed into her Singer, creating beauty ex nihlo. And here was Vinyl, the most flapper of flappers, demanding she leave to pet and giggle with her. Even now she was dressed for an arrangement Octavia hadn't agreed to, in a scandalously knee-high scarlet dress and hair that barely surpassed her cheek, with a pair of spectacles perched on her muzzle.
"Awful shame, dear, I'm afraid I simply cannot join you uptown to-night." Octavia spoke without looking at her.
"Ironic for an upstage like yourself. I'm not asking for a manacle, just for you to come and have a listen with me. Mamie Smith's performing tonight, and she's no Gibson Girl; a real Jazz musician. One listen, and you won't be able to ignore it; history is happening all around us, and one of us is sitting inside during it."
"I'm sure I'll catch the next historical event."
"I'm sure the next world shaking event will be courteous enough to let you sew, more than you ever have in your life, so we've got to catch this one! No panther piss, just a rub and a bite."
Octavia sighed, wishing she had caught the draft as a teenager. "If I attend one speakeasy, will you let me formulate my own opinion on it and not bother me?"
"Blind pig, and I swear on my word."
"Speakeasy, and your word is nothing. Swear it on your Armstrong." She nodded at a shelf of vinyl sleeves, a Louis Armstrong recording closest to both of them.
"Blind pig, and I swear it on Armstrong and Morton."
"It literally will not matter in ten years, and fine. I'll entertain you."
Smoke wafted through the air, lazily drifting over the two as they sat at a wooden furnished bar, vaguely phallic taps big as monoliths churning away with each customer. Talk and clamor filled the air, and Octavia desperately wished she had her music sheets with her; something to focus on in this din. As if it weren't enough, clearly Vinyl had been lying about the panther piss; three shots already.
At least, she was fairly certain Panther Piss was alcohol. Maybe that was the rub? She hoped the rub wasn't what she thought it was.
Whatever. She was leaving, she didn't care what made up words Vinyl called her. Kringlefucker?
"Come on, Mrs. Grundy, loosen up."
Or that.
"This is quite the performance, dear. Thank you very much for inviting me, but I think I'd prefer ears that can carry me another twelve years."
"No, wait, we haven't started yet! A few more minutes, and she'll be onstage."
"Vinyl, I'd really like to- Oh."
A trumpet sounded from behind her. She didn't turn around, or even move, but simply closed her eyes. The din was beginning to die, and if she couldn't get anything else out of this night, at the very damn least she was going to get what she came for out of it.
Her voice was unlike anything Octavia had ever heard. Deep and powerful, soulful and elderly, yet youthful at the same time. And what she spoke of...
Ah. It became increasingly clear that she was singing about being bi, and how nobody could prove it. Not what she would have chosen for a topic, but to each their own.
Nonetheless, she took note of the everpresent tune. It was a slow and sad one, yet punctuated with chipper beats to never keep it from falling into a drab. It held hope in a way she had never heard in music before, and during one chorus, she was surprised to find it completely replaced by well timed... kazoo toots? Fortunately, even this was quickly accentuated by the return of the piano and tuba, both falling into a harmony; an awkward one at times, but by the time they began to treat the kazoo as an extension of the trumpet, rather then the leader, it began to flow again.
Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. The piano kept a monotony, not meant to hold and carry, but to compliment.
Doot-dooo. The trumpet became bound to her words by the end, a toot with each one at the final chorus, and she forced herself to return back to the words, listening to the emotion in the final words.
Don't have to prove it on me.
The song ended, and moved on to another. By this point she was completely enraptured; this was something entirely different from the classics she had studied, clearly derived from a different part of the world entirely. She rarely listened to the trumpet, but was aware of the emotions it could carry; in this one, it was much more prominent, front and center, just a layer beneath the lyrics.
She couldn't hear a piano anymore, even with her trained ears; just the trumpets, and her voice of course, directing each, and she suddenly realized how it led them no differently than a conductor; the music rose and fell to her beck and call, their veer offs calculated and timed, their follows loyal as dogs.
There was nothing like it.
It was nirvana.
Octavia never stopped thinking. Her soul was detached, in a world where the music was all it focused on, directing her thought just as it directed the instruments. Notes leapt from her mind, and brimmed angrily, demanding to be penned.
History was happening all around her.
She drifted for what felt like an eternity.