I wanna throw up snakes!

The last band of tonight is no different from the others, spewing pure nonsense, playing along to the lead singer's high-pitched snarls with no coordination in sight. The redheaded punk jumps from side to side of the wooden stage, flashing the chains hanging from his pants and neck. The rest of the band bangs angrily on drums and plays dead chords of broken-down electric guitars.

"It's not like when I was a kid." I shake my glass of spiked cherry cola, flexing rhinestone-coated black nails. "Then again, maybe it's better that way."  

This place has seen its share of foggy days, becoming a living graveyard for both the souls who marched to war on floors covered in broken beer bottles and flags of equality that had been ripped to shreds by the claws of some of the evilest monsters to walk the earth and those forced to remember that tragic night. Their eyes still glow with rage and sickly flame even after five years.  

On the stage where the punkers play, I remember playing with my own band. I remember the night that the white men dressed in pure white like ghosts of death came through the doors, dropping their flags and taking up arms. I stood with the Black Panthers, my friends who'd watched their kin and mine drown under the cold waters of Thunder Bay and turn the frosty waves red with blood. 

The night that Sunset Note Cafe became a place so ugly that I knew that nothing would be able to keep me away from the spirits that wrap around me and watch their legacy die like the naive part of me that held hope that things would get better. Every day feels like another dream, another day I'm gliding through life without a path. 

The song goes out with a low note, two heavy bangs on the drumset, and a howl to the fluorescent lights above flashing gold and blue. A few people clap and rush to the stage to complement the act, two men flick balls around the pool table with matching afros and the rest watch a black and white fuzzy news program.

A man at the other end of the bar holds his bud light to the air, blazing with rage at a recap of the Stonewall riots as the one beside him outwardly hurls at insults. I cringe and turn my back on their ignorance and the scent of stale ham, cigar smoke, and liquor. They burst into a drunk laugh before screaming a bellow to the top of their lungs. 

"Ivy!" A voice calls from behind the bar, followed by a clack of billiard balls and a cheer. I lift my head to acknowledge what I think is either a fan from way back when my band was still playing late nights here or a regular now working as a bartender. 

Or maybe a ghost. 

Like a flaw in a painting, she stands above me in the weirdest clothes I've ever seen on someone in the eighties and that's truly saying something. Not a flint of flash or glimmer or splotch of color. Just a stain of bland brown and dim green with dotted patterns dancing from the top of her skirt to the fringes. The wrinkles under her eyes tell me she's elderly as too the cloud of grey curls crowning her head.

I shift my gaze from one side of the cafe to the other, noticing that not a soul in the place even hinted at her existence. They go about their night, enjoying liquor until all of it would be replaced with coffee and tea for the slowly approaching day. The drunk men are frozen, their eyes stuck on the tv which now shows an image of the same grey-haired woman. Her eyes bare down on me from both her image and physical being.

"Who are you?" I slur my words, standing in a fear-stricken defense. My legs shake and I hold on tight to the marble countertop for support. "What are you?"

Her grey eyes stare at me blankly as if she can see through me and know everything that has led to this one moment in my life. I wouldn't be shocked if that's the case. Her fingers twist around of crimson ribbon holding together the contents of an ancient scroll tinted in a beige yellow as if she's descerning if I'm the right person to give it to. 

"I asked a question, you demon." I point at her, just enough for her to take a quick step back from me. My body shakes from either the alcohol or the fear I've been trying to hide since her sudden appearance. 

Like if the same trance that had taken the men at the end of the bar had taken over, I hold my hands out and they tremble under the weight of a worn fabric bag and the scroll. At every attempt to move out of it, my muscles restrict and my body shakes agian. On the edge of a panic attack, grey smoke takes over where she'd been and everything is right again.

The television goes back to the news special in a grey and white blink and the men wake with a few blinks and go back to drinking as if nothing happened. The panic fades and with another flash of beautiful dazzling silver, the stroll lays open on a menu card with exactly the same amount I'd paid for my drink in quarters beside it. 

"The hell?" I hiss. 

Nobody answers. I look around the cafe before burying my eyes in the words written in perfect cursive. 

I keep one eye on the words and the other on my surroundings.

Words in bold stand out among the rest, demanding for me to drag myself from the bar stool and onto the path to a place marked in red by a tiny check. Under the words is a crappy drawing with street names outside of the bar with a long arrow running through them.

Something about the red mark draws my finger to it, where it sits on the parchment. I allow it to stay their for a moment and let the words urging me to find myself downtown sink in.

Would I allow myself to be controlled such a strange situation or let it pass me by?

Would I let the fate of this building's past keep me from the part of myself that would push at the promise of adventure?

As if the ghost of my friends who died and lived for unity gave me the okay, I stand again and push myself through drunkards and dancers.

I feel more confident with each and every crunch of confetti and beer cans.

Maybe this is my chance to bring the old Ivy back alive.

Just maybe she isn't dead.