Llewyn was halfway between the putrid depths of the subway, and the roaring city street, when the notes first reached his ears. The sound of an acoustic guitar drifted on the breeze, accompanying a sharp, brazen voice.
Hearing music out of the blue was nothing new, especially around Washington Square Park. As soon as the weather turned warm, students often came out in droves to practice the same four chords over and over on their secondhand guitars. On Sundays the park was especially thick with them, a collective of singers from all ages and genres who kept themselves entertained for hours on end. In the past Llewyn might have wandered down and added his voice to the mix, but after spending a year and a half in the merchant marine, music seemed too precious to waste on uncaring passersby. There wasn't much time for singing onboard a ship, especially after an unfortunate incident that left Llewyn's guitar waterlogged. After such an extended deprivation, Llewyn now absorbed music through the skin, with eyes closed, at full attention. He'd learned to quicken his pace or change his direction when a couple bars from the musicians wafted his way, lest irrational anger overwhelm him.
However, this voice wasn't easy to ignore. Raspy and abrasive, it cut through the din of the city like a knife. Turning around, Llewyn quickly spotted the singer, huddled up on a park bench with his guitar in hand. Surprisingly, a few people were actually standing around listening. Tourists, probably. Public parks usually operated at slower tempos than most spots in the city, but this was still New York. Very few of its residents were given to ogle at oddities.
And yet… Llewyn was painfully familiar with the rapturous expressions, the involuntary immobility. Like any exceptional nightclub performer, this man held his audience in the palm of his hand.
"Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter… Away, you rolling river…"
Lifting his head, the man afforded Llewyn a glimpse of his face. Pasty white skin, long nose, dark hair… and eyes shut tight. Llewyn had never seen any buskers close their eyes as they sang. And busking was clearly the name of this man's game, judging from the open guitar case at his feet. Most seemed to beg for tips even as melodies poured from their lips. But this performer appeared to have been transported to another world. He swayed back and forth, each word infused with unbelievable intensity. Somehow, without even making eye contact, he had formed a connection.
Without really meaning to, Llewyn diverted his course. His feet carried him over to the park bench, where he stood with open eyes and ears as the man finished his rendition of "Shenandoah." He opened his eyes and gave a broad grin as his audience clapped politely. Llewyn joined in, and the man glanced his way, meeting his gaze for just a second. Up close, his blue eyes appeared almost translucent. The sun set the red tints in his hair aglow.
"Thank you," the man said, warmth coloring his words. A hard edge settled into Llewyn's stomach, the urge to scoff at his earnestness. But the man's lingering smile dissolved Llewyn's urge more quickly than he cared to admit.
"My name's Mike Timlin. I'll be here all week, folks!"
Soft titters of laughter arose from the assembled onlookers, and a couple fished out dollar bills and tossed them into the open guitar case. The man- Mike Timlin- turned to Llewyn, who held out his hands, palms-up.
"I got nothing."
Mike shrugged. "Your attention's more than enough." He lifted his guitar from around his neck, and the onlookers took that as a sign to disperse. They split off to find a new source of cheap entertainment, leaving Llewyn standing over Mike as he collected his meager earnings and packed up his guitar.
"You sounded great," Llewyn said, after a moment's awkward pause. Part of him felt that he should just leave it at that and take off. No use hanging around shooting the shit with some amateur performer who hadn't even gotten his act booked. But another part of him, the dominant part, was still electrified by Mike's voice and presence, like the sun streaming into a bedroom the morning after an all-night bender. Despite his unassuming choice of venue, Mike was clearly doing something right.
Mike laughed. "Thanks."
"Are you really here every day?" Llewyn racked his brain for any vague memory of a lanky musician with a jarring voice, but came up drawing a blank. Maybe he hadn't been paying enough attention on his jaunts 'round the Village. A voice like Mike's seemed difficult to forget.
"Not every day." Mike buckled his guitar case and stood up, taking the case with him. "Not always here, either. I've played all over the Village- any bench or sidewalk that'll have me." He smirked. "Sounds pretty impressive when taken out of context."
"Yeah, real impressive," Llewyn muttered. He thrust his hand out, before he could convince himself not to, and Mike heartily shook it.
"Llewyn Davis. I'm a musician too." Llewyn hoped the statement didn't come out as the side-eyeing, calculated aside it was. Shamelessness was not an art he cared to perfect.
"You don't say," Mike drawled. He cocked his head, sizing Llewyn up. "Hang on, let me guess. You're just like me."
"Uh- sorry, I-?"
"Guitar and vocals," Mike said, rescuing Llewyn from his own words. "You play-" He gestured to his guitar case. "And you also sing?"
"Ah… yeah." Llewyn scratched an imaginary itch on his face, self-consciousness suddenly stealing over him. Somehow, Mike's accurate guess was a little too unnerving. "You're right. Just like you." Eyeing Mike's guitar case, he forced a chuckle. "How'd you…"
Mike shrugged. "Oh, you just struck me as the type. Not to mention I saw the way you were looking at my Gibson L-5." He cast his gaze fondly in his instrument's direction. "Figured someone so absorbed wasn't just hooked on the tunes. She's a beauty, isn't she?"
Though it wasn't the guitar Llewyn had been admiring, he hastily assented. "It's gorgeous."
"Would you believe I picked 'er up at a garage sale out in Sayville?" Mike said. "Hardly needed any restoring, too. You ever play around here, Llewyn?"
Llewyn wasn't sure how he felt to be addressed by name so soon after making Mike's acquaintance. It was almost too intimate, a privilege to be earned instead of immediately assumed. However, he couldn't deny that his name sounded sweeter when Mike said it, dancing from his lips like the notes he'd just sung.
"No… not yet," he said. "I've been away, and… well, I kind of just got settled. Haven't really had the time to look for gigs." No need to mention that he also hadn't had the time to look for a place to permanently reside. Or that he had little to no idea of how to go about securing either.
"Well if you ever get the chance, I'd like to hear ya," Mike said. "Maybe you could come out here and join me sometime. Together, we could both get some experience. I'll show you all the best spots to sing in the Village- the ones with free admission." He smirked briefly. "What kind of music do you play?"
"Um… Folk songs." Such a succinct descriptor generally covered all the bases of explanation.
Mike's eyebrows shot up, and he treated Llewyn to another wide grin. "Same here. Would you be down to collaborate sometime?"
Collaborate? Llewyn's first response was to wriggle out of the offer. Outside of jam sessions, he'd never joined musical forces with anyone, and chances of success were slim if his participation in high school group projects was anything to go by. Yet as Llewyn turned Mike's words over in his mind, a fog seemed to lift inside him. As if his heart, once chained up, was now shaking off its bonds.
Maybe… maybe this was what he needed. Even though Mike was far from a big name, he already possessed two hard-hitting factors- experience, and charisma. The thought of basking in even an ounce of said charisma was intoxicating. Not only could playing with Mike secure Llewyn's dream gig, but maybe… maybe he'd be able to soak up Mike's vibes like a sponge, disguising himself in the trappings of fortune which had thus far eluded him.
He tried not to sound too excited when he answered. "Yeah, I'd be down for sure."
Mike's face brightened further. "Tell ya what-" He plunged his hands into his pockets, fishing for an unknown item. "If it's not too much to ask, why don't you come to my apartment sometime? We'll jam together." From his pocket he withdrew a small notepad and a pencil, its tip worn down to a stub. He scribbled down a few lines, evidently an address, before ripping the page out and offering it to Llewyn, who stared at it.
"Tomorrow at noon would work," Mike said. "If you're not doing anything."
The speed at which the decision had transpired was so swift that it brought a dry chuckle to Llewyn's lips. "Yeah, sounds great." And surprisingly… it did sound great. After countless soul-sucking months paying service to the good ol' USA, Llewyn's life was resuming its proper path.
"Great," Mike said. "See you then." With that, he nodded to Llewyn and turned away, heading off down the sidewalk. Bemused, Llewyn half-waved in the direction of Mike's back.
He had a great smile, Llewyn decided as he walked away. Wide and warm, it radiated joy from every pore. A guy like that's probably never told a lie a day in his life.
The moment Llewyn set foot in Mike's apartment, he nearly tripped over one of several cardboard boxes strewn about the floor. He caught himself before he lost his balance and gazed, perplexed, around the room. Sofa… coffee table… Beyond that, a fridge, sink, and little else. The walls were bare, but a single plate in the sink and the marks of dirt on the floor suggested Mike had been living here long enough to make himself at home. Which… doesn't explain the boxes.
"Sorry for the mess," Mike said, shutting the door. "It's my record collection. I just brought the rest of them down from my parents' house. Haven't found a shelf to display them."
"Huh," was all Llewyn had to say. But no record player? It seemed odd to prioritize records over more furniture, but, well, Mike was a musician. He's got more of a right to the title than me anyway. Llewyn wandered over to the couch and gingerly sat down, opening his guitar case.
Soon they were playing together, Mike seated atop the coffee table and Llewyn kicking back on the sofa. Well, playing together might have been a stretch. Both guitars were in use, but the uncertain musical session mainly consisted of figuring out the other's repertoire. A verse, a chorus was attempted before the song morphed into something new, and Llewyn had to ask Mike for the chords.
"You've gotta know 'Shenandoah,'" Mike said, already beginning to pick out the melody. Llewyn shrugged, running his thumb along the metal guitar strings.
"Not fondly. Reminds me of my school's choir. Sang soprano when I was a kid. Bad memories."
Mike grimaced in sympathy. "You serious?"
"Well maybe not soprano, but pretty close," Llewyn mumbled. Close enough to be picked on for it…
Mike hummed in the back of his throat. "How about…" He fluidly switched from "Shenandoah" to a melody Llewyn didn't recognize, without missing a beat. Llewyn sat and ran his fingers through his hair, close to flabbergasted. For someone who'd made his start singing for cash in public parks, Mike sure had talent in those fingertips. His picking style was so precise that Llewyn suddenly felt inadequate.
Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all. What could Llewyn have to offer Mike in partnership? Essentially he's just a better version of me.
"That's enough of that," Mike sighed, his hands stilling. "Here I am showing off… Why don't you play something, Llewyn? Show me what you got."
Llewyn. Slowly Mike was breaking in Llewyn's name, like a new pair of shoes. Llewyn positioned his hands on the guitar, unable to resist the temptation to take center-stage. If only in order to impress Mike. "Y'know 'Green Rocky Road?'"
"Don't think so?"
Llewyn played a few bars, but all he got from Mike was a blank expression. He sighed. "No? How about 'Motherless Children?'"
Discomfort emerged behind Mike's polite interest. "That one doesn't really do it for me."
Okay. Fine. They couldn't just keep shooting down each other's songs, or they'd never make progress. Llewyn scratched behind his ear. "Okay, what about… huh…" He idly strummed an A major chord. "What about 'Dink's Song?'"
Mike's eyes widened, giving him the impression of an awed child. "Oh, now you're talking. What've you got?"
Without preliminaries, Llewyn began to strum the chords, trying not to look at Mike. Musically, "Dink's Song" was rather simple, at least once he'd gotten the strumming pattern down, but the singing was another matter entirely. God, please don't let my voice crack on this one.
"If I had wings, like Noah's dove, I'd fly up the river to the one I love…"
Mike leapt in, his voice overpowering Llewyn's. Startled, Llewyn almost hit the wrong string, before recovering himself. Mike's harmony was high, higher than Llewyn normally sang, yet it seemed to sit comfortably in his range.
"Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well."
Llewyn glanced up at Mike, who nodded once to continue. Obligingly, Llewyn began the next verse, his eyes locked on Mike's. The force of his gaze nearly caused Llewyn's fingers to slip again, but he couldn't look away- nor did he want to.
"The woman I love is long and tall…"
Staring directly into Llewyn's eyes, Mike added a new harmony part, this time a little softer and sweeter. "She moves her body like a cannonball…" A small shiver went up Llewyn's spine. It had been so long since he'd sung like this… too long since the power of the music enveloped him…
"Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well."
Eagerly Llewyn began the next verse, but Mike spoke up, stopping him short. "Hang on. I don't know those words."
Llewyn let his right hand fall, wishing he could cross his arms. "Well… that's folk music."
"You're using a different strumming pattern," Mike said contemplatively. "Different meter too."
A barked, rusty laugh escaped Llewyn. "Shit, what does yours sound like?"
"Uh…" Mike reached up to scratch the side of his neck. "Actually it's… it's my own arrangement."
Jesus. He's a top-notch player AND an arranger? Throw in some songwriting skills and Mike was a catch for any venue. Or any label, probably. How was it fair that he'd chosen to collaborate with Llewyn of all people?
Now that the topic of arranging had been mentioned, Mike's intent focus was lost. His eyes darted downward, staring at the guitar in his hands as if he wasn't sure what to do with it. His apprehension didn't befit the talented singer who'd matched Llewyn note for note mere seconds ago, and Llewyn wasn't sure he liked it. But all concerns disappeared when Mike began to play.
It was "Dink's Song," surely. The opening was similar to the main melody, and the chords seemed right, although the time signature shifted them. However, it wasn't like any rendition Llewyn had ever heard before. This was… faster, lighter, as if the singer had found their wings instead of longing for them.
"If I had wings," Mike growled, "like Noah's dove, I'd fly up the river to the one I love." His voice boomed as if to stir up the dust specks from the corners of the room. Neither the volume nor the raspy timbre seemed to line up with the pale, brightly-smiling man who had introduced himself to Llewyn yesterday. He sounded gruffer, perhaps with a touch of darkness, of the sort that Llewyn had only ever recognized in himself.
"Fare thee well, my honey." Mike's voice transformed the words from a lament to an outcry. "Fare thee well."
Llewyn had fully intended to enter the performance the same way Mike had entered his, doing his best to harmonize on the verse. However, as Mike returned to the verse, Llewyn found he couldn't open his mouth even to draw breath. Lifting a finger was equally out of the question. Just like that, Mike had exerted the same influence he had in the park, even though he was playing to an audience of one.
Llewyn wasn't sure how long he sat, spellbound, fully absorbed in Mike's playing, until Mike abruptly stopped and dropped his hand. "If I ever got the chance to play this with others, I'd add a few solos here. Guitar, maybe. Mandolin. I don't know what else…"
"You're not telling me you play mandolin," Llewyn blurted.
"I've got one in my room," Mike said. "Next to the bass guitar. 'Course, my playing's not stellar… I've hardly practiced since I got it…"
His mind reeling, Llewyn couldn't have cared less. Fuck, he's a multi-instrumentalist too?! How had Mike not made it to bigger venues? Or any venues at all? What the fuck is he doing with ME?
"Do you… D'you write out all these arrangements?"
"It's all up here," Mike said. He tapped his temple. "I guess I'd write 'em out if I had to get other people."
Llewyn laughed, gratingly. "Yeah, well, good luck finding them."
Mike frowned, bereft of amusement. "It shouldn't be difficult. I found you."
Llewyn snorted. "And I'm a real catch, right? Let's face it. You don't look around these parts for musicians who want anything to do with you. Give me a call when you actually find 'em."
He'd aimed for a joke, albeit one tinged with salt, but Mike didn't laugh. Instead he stared blankly, openly, as if wondering why Llewyn would say such a thing. In a flash, Llewyn realized how much Mike wore his heart on his sleeve. Someone's gonna trample that heart flat if he's not careful.
"Okay. Thanks for the vote of confidence." Mike slipped his guitar strap over his head and pried open his guitar case with his feet, effectively drawing the session to a close.
…Wait. No. A frantic bolt shot through Llewyn. He watched Mike's face, hoping to pick up further clues, but Mike didn't even meet his eyes. Shame overwhelmed Llewyn, thickening his throat. Here he was, talking to a potential collaborator, someone with whom he could get a leg up in the music scene- someone with whom he might actually enjoy playing- and he'd blown it before it even got going.
Well, there was only one way of which Llewyn knew to dismiss the awkwardness- ignore it and change the subject. He cleared his throat and strummed another A major chord, causing Mike's gaze to flicker back to him.
"Hey, c'mon. Don't call it quits so early. We haven't made it through a whole song yet."
At first Llewyn wasn't sure Mike was going to respond, but then Mike murmured, "'Dink's Song?'" His hands clenched against the guitar's neck.
"Yeah," Llewyn insisted. "With your arrangement. That sounded damn good."
Mike didn't verbally acquiesce, but when he pulled the guitar strap around his neck once more, the action spoke louder than words.
"You want to try the harmonies too?"
"Yeah," Llewyn murmured, plucking a random string and listening as it vibrated into oblivion. "I think I can handle 'em."
A soft smile appeared at the corners of Mike's lips. "All right, Llew, let's see how you hold up."
Nothing was the same after Mike's death. In one fell swoop, Llewyn had lost a friend, a musical collaborator, and even the roof over his head. Some experts spoke of an adjustment period, following a great loss. Llewyn just hadn't realized how much was left to adjust.
But after the initial shock, once Llewyn had convinced himself and his manager that he needed to continue his career, once he'd established, for the time being, a secure rotation of couches to sleep on ("until I'm back on my feet," he'd told his friends, though he wasn't sure when that would be, if ever) …
After all that, the most crushing blow was the music. Music, more than anything else, was not the same without Mike. As Llewyn went over his album's proposed tracklist, he found himself growing more and more frustrated with his selections. So many ideas he'd had stored away that were now impossible to execute.
His finger underlined the first track on the album, the one he'd wanted to record more than anything else- "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me." The problem was, Llewyn hadn't wanted to record it alone. In his head, Mike's voice echoed in a soaring harmony every time he sang the title line. Who was going to bring that harmony to life now?
"Tell Old Bill" had been one of Mike's favorites, a piece he'd wail on wandering home at 2 AM with Llewyn by his side. He could have turned in a killer performance in the studio. And just the thought of finally teaching Mike "Green Rocky Road" was delightfully spine-tingling.
Not to mention, Llewyn had hoped to have a greater hand in arranging and song choices. If We Had Wings, as proud as it made Llewyn, had been Mike's baby from its genesis. He was no prodigy like Mike, surely, but he doubted Mike would have turned down any of his ideas. Or so Llewyn assumed. You think you know a person…
But Mike was gone now, and Llewyn was making a solo record, full of traditional arrangements that were heartfelt, but sparse.
For a moment Llewyn considered that maybe it was better this way, but he told that thought to knock it off. In a split second his frustration rose to the point of incensement. Bastard had to go and kill himself before recording vocals with me. What was that old saying… "if everyone jumped off a bridge, would-"
But even the bitterest jokes hurt, so Llewyn resigned himself to what fate had given him. It wasn't like he could go back to the way things were, anyway. Things change. People and places change. It was only natural, and Llewyn had reluctantly learned that lesson too many times to count.
The only constant, Llewyn reflected, was himself. No matter what advice he was given, or who it came from, there was no reason to become anything he wasn't, just to sell records. He'd found his voice already. There was no changing that. He had nothing left to do but sing and play, because it was all he knew how to do. So he might as well make a damn good job of it.
END.
AN: I recently read The Mayor of MacDougal Street by Dave Van Ronk and I now recommend it to anyone trying to depict this era of music in NYC (whether for fic purposes or just in general). That being said, I knowingly fudged a few details on this fic's depiction (particularly Llewyn's opinion of the scene as being non-collaborative- although that could be chalked up to his personality/how he interacts with people).
There will be one more fic for this film coming up, but otherwise I've pretty much exhausted all my ideas.