Tiger Eyes (Chapter 01)

Chapter One: The Dreamer In The Jungle



His rose-leaf eyes scanned the ivory keyboard thoughtfully. It was as if he could not even hear the sounds it continued to make beneath his skilled fingers which so gracefully glided over them, the way they had been for hours now. Still, it felt to Billie as if it had been only a few moments. That's what the music always did to him, to Time. It made the clock's hands turn with such speed Billie could scarce keep track, the world around the man becoming a blur from the secluded realm in which he resided with that black grand piano.

One final note, the one that always caused him pain, rang out in the dark room, and some polite clapping was heard from the crowd before him, along with a few genuine cheers. He looked out from his spotlight, finally emerging from his reverie to smile at the congregation before him. He still couldn't believe he'd gotten here. A job at The Mahogany! It was one of the most coveted spots among performers, short of those ready for big crowds and concerts. And Billie had gotten to play there, though for how long he was to stay, he wasn't sure.

He didn't want to play concerts anyway. Concerts left you unable to look at people. You couldn't walk off the stage and have a conversation with the strange bartender or the sarcastic waitress. You couldn't mingle with the crowd and hope to gain friends. It was like solitary confinement for the sake of recognition. Why would Billie do that when he could be here?

"Thank you," he said softly to them with a little bow of his head. He rose from his seat, allowing his fingers to linger on the keys for only a moment before exiting the stage quietly.

He paused to allow his bright eyes to adjust to the world outside the spotlight. He felt nearly invisible now that it wasn't on him, and the inhabitants of the room seemed to have forgotten him. That was just as well, he supposed. It was okay to be normal. He could look around, and indeed, he couldn't help but do so. This place was so beautiful behind the musty smoke of cigarettes.

It certainly lived up to its name. The seats and tables were all made of a dark and finely polished mahogany, the booths covered in red suede and inhabited by occupants of all walks with drinks on stained coasters, talking in hushed and raised voices to one another. It seemed all they had in common lay in the money they posessed which brought them to this expensive bar at such a time of night.

He walked by the flocks of wealthy businessmen with their significant others clinging arrogantly to their lovers' arms with one hand and their fancy martinis with the other. They seemed to chat endlessly in that strange professional way the rich tend to do, their jokes all appropriate, their laughter rehearsed and musical, their dark eyes showing nothing to the average onlooker but possibly an equally rehearsed expression of happiness and plastic goodwill. They looked at Billie and smiled, told him they enjoyed his performance as he strode by their comfortable booths or highly visible groups scattered around the room. And he returned their smile, casting his own genuine light upon it, and he thanked them.

The next table he walked by was inhabited by a group of men, all dressed in their best blazers and collared shirts to look acceptable to the high-end crowd of The Mahogany. Their sharp eyes were pulled inward as their low conversation progressed, only stopping for a moment to send a warning stare in the direction of the pianist watching them. Billie took the cue and moved on.

He sat down on one of the dark wooden barstools with the red suede seat, telling the bartender to surprise him as the man loved to do. A maniacal grin enveloped his face as he began mixing his latest concoction of liquids which Billie didn't feel the need to inquire about.

"Try that," said the man with the red faux-hawk, his gabble ceasing for just a moment to catch his friend's reaction. Billie took a cautious sip only to have his eyes widen and nearly spit his drink out.

"Christ, Tré!"

The man only laughed loudly, mentioning a few extra ingredients he'd added this time to have Billie shake his head in disdain and ask for something weaker, to which the bartender grudgingly agreed before returning to his work and chatting amiably with the customers.

There were, of course, the few younger denizens of the bar, groups mingling together to look for a way to spend the night in their little games of dancing and careless flirtation, to whom Billie's eyes had now wandered. His own music still resounded in his head as he watched them. He shot a smile to a few young girls with bright clothes and light hair, and they giggled and began to rattle excitedly together. Billie knew they probably wouldn't come over though. They never did. He didn't care.

His thoughts turned to his own girlfriend now, his beautiful doe-eyed Adrienne. He could practically see her standing there with her timid smile and cautious affections, that shining engagement ring on her left hand, waiting perhaps for him to come home or already fallen asleep within the soft sheets of their bed. He could hear her hurt voice scolding him when he waited so long to return to their apartment, when he hardly spent time with her, when he paid attention to their old piano rather than the bills or the housework. He heard her calling him a dreamer, saying he didn't love her, saying he was too obsessed with his music to pay attention to anything she wanted.

He closed his eyes, letting the music fill his mind over her voice, picturing her smile, her soft arms enclosing him. His sweet, beautiful Adrienne. She wanted to be his world, like any woman really wants in her heart. But Billie simply couldn't let her. He needed his music too much.

"Hey, Elton John!" called a man from across the room to snap him out of his thoughts. He looked up at a group of men coming closer and buzzing with inebriate laughter.

"Hey, Elton, where's that boyfriend of yours, you fag?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," Billie muttered.

"Oh, so you're single?" One of them reached over, resting a mocking hand on Billie's shoulder and squeezing it roughly. Billie swatted it away.

"Don't touch me," he said acidly, rising to his feet. He hoped he could walk away. There was no way he'd risk this job for anything, much less in defense of his less than definite sexuality. He was used to it, anyway.

"Oh, he's got claws," the man remarked. "Whatcha gonna do, piano boy? Hit me?" He pushed Billie backwards into the bar, sending a few glasses clattering backwards as the smaller man's back hit them. The men continued to laugh themselves to tears in their drinks, uncaring of the stinging pain in Billie's back.

"Come on, hit me, little boy. Or are you too scared to mess up that cute little bowtie of yours?"

"I don't want to fight you," he mumbled, casting his eyes downward and trying to push past them. But he was shoved promptly back against the bar.

"Wait just a minute, Elton! We're not done with you."

"Sirs, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Billie felt his heart nearly stop. Leave? Leave here? He couldn't! His frightened eyes snapped over to the man from whose mouth it had come, but he was a little relieved to see the bouncer whom he'd come to know as Jack standing there and eyeing the hecklers sternly. Jack was much taller than him, with pronounced muscles and a face that looked as if he were carved of stone. Billie would certainly be afraid of him. Why wasn't he talking to Billie, anyway?

"What do you mean, leave!? We- we have a right to be here!"

"You're causing a disturbance. I have a right to make you leave. In any way necessary." Jack rubbed his fist, a gesture which seemed to get his malicious meaning across.

"Disturbance! This is a free country! I can say whatever the hell I want! Get your hands off me! You can't throw me out!"

But he could. Soon, the man and his friends were thrown unceremoniously to the street, probably earning a few bruises along the way, as Billie's shocked eyes followed their progress.

Billie couldn't help but think how strange that was. Never before had he worked in a place without hecklers to pester him. It was a fact of life, as sure as sand on a beach or bugs in a jungle. But then, The Mahogany was no beach, certainly. It was too hard for that, too diverse and uniquely beautiful with its warm, stuffy atmosphere and the constant music flowing in and around its mingling occupants. A jungle, yes. Raw beauty permeated through everything here, things which were dangerous and things which were fake and things which were simply too alive to know they could be someplace better. Billie loved that about this place.

"Hey, thanks for that," he told the man who had taken his spot at the door again.

"Don't thank me." Jack glanced to him. "Thank the boss. His orders."

"The boss?" Billie furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, and Jack pointed somewhere behind the shorter man with a little smile.

The man Billie saw next seemed to fit all too perfectly into this setting, but there was something different. Something that stood out in his clean white button-up shirt and the vain little smirk emerging from those thin lips. In his shocking blue eyes and the way he held his cigarette. There was something different, something purely frightening and alluring about him.

And he knew that as Billie looked at him, walking closer to meet for the first time the man in charge of it all, the one who could choose to fire Billie or to keep him forever. Billie felt like this man held his life in his long-fingered right hand as he stopped in front of the table to speak.

The boss held his hand up to stop the pianist, who promptly closed his mouth in a confused frown. The man took his time in finishing his cigarette and snuffing it almost elegantly onto the crystal ashtray before standing to meet Billie's eyes.

"You have talent. Don't let them push you around," he advised, and Billie found himself speechless by the unexpected compliment and the sudden close proximity to those bright eyes, eyes no longer shrouded by the smoke of their owner's cigarette. They were like a tiger's eyes, Billie thought. Like the eyes of a prowling white tiger, bright and fierce and beautiful. Billie nodded, feeling the man's breath in his lungs as he finally inhaled.

The man smirked, quirking his eyebrows in that smug way which afforded Billie no doubt of the man's knowledge of his strange effect on those around him. The pianist felt the man brush by as he walked away, leaving him only with the lingering smell of those strong cigarettes.

"Hey, wait. What's your name?" Billie had turned around now.

The brown-haired man rotated calmly to face him, showing off those shining blue eyes and flashing his pearly teeth in a little smile. "Mike Pritchard," he said to him as softly as he was capable of in such a noisy room, a room filled with idle chatter and false laughter and whispered secrets, with warm colours and dim lights, with drinks and music, with love and hate and every feeling imaginable in such a jungle of a room. It was all a blur to them though, to Mike and Billie, the proprietor and the pianist, with the few moments they shared of burning eye contact.