Sam I Am: Part 4

In his element, Sam is sublime. Perched on a diminutive wooden stool, acoustic guitar resting on his thick right thigh, a single dull spotlight casting eerie shadows beneath his lowered eyes, he sings with the soulful baritone of a Chicago blues singer.

He doesn’t know I’m here. I’ve stopped by a small Holborn pub on my way home. A sign, scrawled in permanent marker, sits in the window and reads, simply, “On stage tonight: Sam Minor.” The scene inside is typical—wooden walls, cracked tiled floors, pale-faced men and women in scarves and dark jumpers sipping pints around dimly lit tables. In the far corner of the pub sits Sam and his guitar. His voice is striking—deep and urgent and strangely haunting.

As I enter, he is finishing a song. Then he clears his throat, looks shyly out at the crowd and mutters into the microphone: “This next one’s called Blue Became Scarlet.”

He sings:

Eliza Doza
Dazed in Ibiza
Chasing tropical hazes
The blind never raises

Major Minor
Croons in a diner
He only finds her
Buried in liners

They held hands in the fire
The ghost is a liar
The day lambs became harlots
The day blue became scarlet

M’am with a plan
A kaleidoscope damned
Seeking colors and light
Finding just black and white

Jack of all trades
With fury in spades
He was the sun in her weather
She was just wax and feathers

They held hands in the fire
The ghost is a liar
The day lambs became harlots
The day blue became scarlet

As he finishes the song, striking a final melancholic chord on his guitar, Sam raises his head and looks out at the crowd. His eyes focus on a single spot, and his face suggests a shared knowingness. I scan the crowd, searching for the recipient of his soulful gaze. When I see her, her slight frame strikes me as being as ghost-like and unimposing as Sam’s giant form is large and concrete. If I hadn’t been searching, I might not have noticed her at all.

Elizabeth Mendoza. Eliza Doza, I think wryly. Her impossibly straight blonde hair hangs half-way down her back; on her face, it's cut in a severe line that comes close to obscuring her dark brown eyes—the only remaining physical evidence of her Spanish ancestry. Her pale skin is translucent, a feature that is exaggerated by her simple pink shift dress and the long cream cardigan she wears belted over it.

Detecting my gaze, she turns and looks at me. She raises a small, pale hand and waves, offering a wan smile. I wave back, forming a single word on my lips. “Beth,” I mouth. She nods once so slightly it’s almost imperceptible, and turns her attention back to Sam.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three