“You’re not gonna give up on this are you?”
“True love persists, my friend,” Julia said, starting to whisper, since Marroney was adjusting the microphone. He was wearing a maroon button-up shirt that had full sleeves, for once, and though his jeans appeared to have zippers all over them, he was also wearing a fedora that actually looked good on him, even with his mullet poking out the back. He ran a thumb and forefinger in opposite directions across his mustache, smoothing out the hairs or simply preparing for his performance. Then he pulled out a little red notebook from his back pocket and cleared his throat in that resounding way that only the middle-aged can. A shriek of feedback rang out through the coffee shop.
Then he closed his eyes and the coffee shop quieted down with anticipation.
“Everything about me was shaped by the boy who died.” He paused for effect, letting the silence thicken the room. “No, no, don’t be sad, this was a long time ago and all the tears that were meant for him have already been cried. I was little, too, a tiny blob of a human being, not yet formed, life’s pounding fists had yet to tell me who I was going to be. I’ve seen parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts die, but it was the first funeral I attended that taught me to love life.”
Marroney had the confident, assertive cadence of slam poetry down perfectly, which was bizarre to see from a guy who looked like Marroney. He was more animated than Dave had ever seen him, although Dave had never had him as a teacher, and it made him wonder if that’s what he was like in class. At one point the crowd let loose a round of applause, whistles, and Ohh!s that Dave knew happened only when the poet had said a really good line. Julia was smiling wildly, whooping along with the crowd.
Marroney snapped his fingers and the room quieted back down. “This is going to sound like a cliché, but what’s that matter when it’s true.” He snapped again. “It takes less than a second for the sound of the friction between my fingers to reach your ears.” Another snap. “That’s the line between life and death, and you can’t see it but you sure as hell can hear it.” Another snap. “Listen.” Snap. “To.” Snap. “Every.” Snap. “Second.”
When Marroney left the stage to the sound of applause, the emcee, a fat guy in a bowling shirt and a rainbow-colored tie read out the scores from the judges. Then he announced that they were going to take a short break and the last round of poets would have their turn. “First up after the break is Julia,” he said, reading from a clipboard. “So, Julia, get ready to slam.”
Dave turned to Julia. “You’re not.”
“Oh, I am.”
“You’re going to embarrass yourself, aren’t you?”
“Not at all. But if Marroney doesn’t fall in love with me tonight, I might need to hire some outside help, because I don’t know what else to do.” Julia pulled out a folded piece of paper from her pocket. Before she unfolded it, it looked a lot like the Nevers list had, her loopy handwriting showing through on the back of the page.
Dave caught a glimpse of the title. “He’s going to file a restraining order.”
“That or a marriage certificate,” Julia said, grinning. “After his performance, I really wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t know if it was that good.”
“Dave, it was so good, you’re probably pregnant right now, just from the sexiness of the words.”
When Julia took the stage, with her bare feet and pink hair, she looked like someone who belonged at a slam-poetry reading. She was wearing a high-waisted skirt and a soft cotton gray T-shirt with the words PURA VIDA printed across the front. Dave glanced over to see Marroney’s reaction, but he didn’t have a good angle.