Humidity wrapped around the town and stifled the sound of a car door slamming shut, which did not startle the buzzing of the cicadas and the croaking of the frogs that sang for those who were still awake. Like Elijah Broussard, who strolled toward the entrance of the only bar in town. Climbing onto the porch, he stopped and took a seat on the empty chair frame. They must have taken the cushions inside in case it rained. It was uncomfortable, but he wasn't one to complain.

He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes, pulling one out of the box. He rolled it around in between his fingers— considering. The idea of smoke filling his lungs and the tang of tar on his tongue allured him. Always had ever since he had his first one at fourteen.

The paper felt smooth against his calloused fingers. He flipped it between his knuckles, gently so he wouldn't snap it in half. That would be a waste. He slid the cigarette back into the box.

Smoking was nice, but tonight, he wanted a drink.

The bar wasn't crowded, he noted as he counted the cars in the parking lot, but there were still a fair few. Despite the late hour, a weekend attracted the same crowd: Working men who went to the bar instead of going home because they didn’t want to be good husbands.

His bones ached, and his sore legs protested as he pulled himself from the metal frame of a chair. He stuffed the cigarette box back into his pocket and grabbed the door handle. The cool metal comforted like the feel of the paper rolled around tobacco. He pushed the door open and was immediately met with drunken chatter and a sweet guitar weeping from the janky Wurlitzer.

The regulars sat around the bartop, guffawing at the bartender's jokes. Detective Jimmy Murdock's daughter. She was just trying to get some money before she went off to college. He pitied her, she had no mother to show her how to live. How to love. Just a deadbeat cop for a father.

As Elijah approached, the men sitting at the countertop downed their drinks, then got up and left to go to the back. He didn’t grumble, nor did he bemoan their decision. If they wanted to hate him for whatever reason, he’d let them. It wasn’t worth the fight.

"There he is! Man of the hour," the only man left at the bar called to him. Samuel, as Elijah recalled, had recently divorced his wife, Ethel. He spent most of his time at the bar, making it his new home. Elijah did not pity him. He had heard the late-night calls that came into the precinct. A woman's desperate voice crying and pleading from the receiver while pots and pans clattered in the background.

Elijah was no fool.

So he didn't say a word. The bartender gave him a smile. Seems like she pitied him too.

"What’ll it be, sir?" she asked even though she didn't have to. Elijah always ordered the same thing, every time he visited the place.

“Sazerac,” he grunted.

She hadn’t waited for his reply before she started making his drink, already coating the cup in absinthe.

"Michael, get him an extra shot, on me," Samuel ordered. "Gotta make sure the pride of Domrémy gets the best."

Elijah smacked his lips together and refused to let his brow furrow. He looked down at his hands instead, but good ol' Samuel kept on running his mouth. Something about how the chatter on his police scanner had been quiet lately.

He had a moment of bliss when Samuel shut up to take a sip of his drink. Whiskey. Neat. Elijah hoped he’d choke, but the man only slapped Elijah on the back. His hand lingered there too long for Elijah's taste.

“But you know, if there’s anything I can do, I’ll be there in a cocaine heartbeat.”

“Yeah, sure,” Elijah said absently, wringing his hands together as he waited for his drink. He glanced to Michael, who stared at the two of them with a nervous look on her face, her knuckles white as she gripped the glass.

“We’re all out of rye whiskey, but we have Bourbon, is that alright?” she asked, her voice so quiet that Elijah struggled to hear her over the new Eagles song that played from the jukebox in the corner.

Something would be off about the taste. It wouldn’t be quite right, just a bit smoother and just a tad sweeter.

Elijah opened his mouth, but Samuel opened his trap.

"Damn girl, how’d you run out of liquor in a bar?" Samuel slammed his glass down so hard that Elijah was surprised it didn't shatter. He didn’t react, but the girl flinched, her eyes wide with worry. He caught her gaze and she stared right back at him with big blues. Her lids shimmered in the dim light. The smokey-eye look was too old for her. She was barely old enough to vote, let alone taste what she was serving. But tears had started to well, the corners of her eyeshadow smudging. He didn’t want her mascara to run. It had never looked pretty on his mama either.

Elijah stared at Samuel as if he had cut her. And with the look on her face, he might as well have.

"It's fine, Sam," Elijah clapped him on the shoulder a little too hard and took a sip of his drink, “Bourbon is just fine. Isn't that right?" Michael nodded frantically. “Just remember to put in that order tonight so they get it first thing in the mornin’,” Elijah said as he offered his handkerchief to the girl.

Michael visibly relaxed and accepted the cloth. She dabbed the corners of her eyes gently and handed it back to Elijah. He curled her fingers around it.

“Keep it.” She nodded and pocketed it, then leaned forward until she was elbow-deep in the sink as she focused on washing the glasses from the men who had long since gone to the back to play a game of drunken pool.

Samuel leaned back in his seat, finally quiet. He busied himself with another sip of his whiskey. But he still stared at the young girl, eyes ablaze. His gaze wandered down to her chest, her cleavage peeking over her shirt as she washed the drinking glasses.

It was Elijah’s turn to slam his glass down on the counter, catching the attention of Samuel. He looked over at Elijah like one of them puppy dogs, waiting for its master to give him a damn bone.

"Why don't you go pass a good time with the gents in the back,” his voice rumbled from his chest, anger broiling in his gut. "They're playin' billiards." Elijah stared at Samuel, waiting for him to get up out of his chair and leave. Samuel downed the rest of his whiskey and left his glass on the counter to scurry over to the boys in the back of the bar. When Elijah turned back, Michael had a great big grin on her face.

"What're you smilin' at?" He grabbed his drink and pulled it closer to him, looking down at the ice cubes. They twinkled in the dim light.

"That's just the most I heard you talk since I met you, Mister Broussard." Michael leaned on the counter, her elbows pressing into the old cherry wood. It had been the same counter since Elijah was a boy, when his mother would drag him along when she would meet with her boyfriends. She never could find a sitter.

"Don't get used to it," he mumbled in response. Elijah twirled the cup and watched theamber-colored drink swirl, listening to the ice as it clinked against the glass. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Michael wipe down the counter with a damp rag. He grunted as he heard Samuel in the back getting rowdy with the boys. He was always trying to impress Elijah for whatever reason. He couldn't quite give a damn why if he was honest. He was always trying to be buddy-buddy with the law enforcement in the town, as if that would get him special treatment.

It made Elijah sick. So he took another sip of his drink.

Elijah looked up to find Michael polishing an empty glass. She stared at him expectantly, like he was about to pull out a case file and start working on it.

"What is it?"

"Well, I'm lookin' into colleges now and I just..." She trailed off as she turned around to shelve the dried cup. He downed the rest of his drink and slid the cup towards her. When Michael turned around, she grabbed the glass and started to make another drink for him.

"Spit it out, kid," he grumbled.

"Every night I come into work and all I hear is talk about the force. Who was arrested, who's got a warrant out on 'em. You know, all that stuff." She fixed his drink up, washing the glass out with absinthe first, then grabbing the cup she had just shelved to make the rest of his drink. "And then I go home and hear my pa talk all about whatever case he's workin'." Michael handed him his second drink. "I've been hearin' 'bout crime all my life. I think it's about time I do something about it."

Elijah nodded his head in thanks for the glass. He sat there as Micheal started to tell him about all the colleges she was applying to, what her grades were like now, and how she couldn't wait to get into a program.

He didn't drink, his gaze focused on the cracks in the wooden counter. The water damage. The chipped wood.

He listened until the phone ringing cut her off.

"Hold on, Mister Broussard." Michael threw her bar towel over her shoulder and twirled around to grab the phone off of the hook. Elijah watched as she twisted the cord around her index finger. Her nails were painted red. It was a shade brighter than what his mother wore when she went out to see her boyfriends. Bile burned the back of his throat. Red nails were for hookers.

"Well Daddy, as a matter of fact, he's sitting at my counter right now," Michael chirped. She wilted as she listened. "Oh, okay. I see. I'll tell him." She let the cord slip away from her finger. "Alright, bye now." She hung the phone on the receiver and turned around to face Elijah again, her eyes sad.

"Guess that's my cue, huh?"

Michael nodded.

"My daddy said that there's been a fire at Daley's old barn right off of Charlotte Drive. The firefighters called him and asked for you to go on down and take a look," Michael explained as she grabbed Elijah's cup.

"Don't dump it. Have it for yourself," Elijah told her with a lopsided grin. She looked at him with wide eyes and looked around the bar. The usuals were all still playing billiards in the back. No one else was upfront. She turned back to him with a wide grin on her face.

"You're sweet. Thanks, Mister Elijah." She set it on the shelf next to the bottles of liquor. Elijah stared at her intently.

"You aren't gonna drink it now?"

Michael shook her head with a laugh. "When I finish my shift, I'll toast to you, the pride of Domrémy," she said mockingly while she raised her hand and pretended to clink glasses. "Go on now, go catch the bastard who keeps burning things down 'round here."

Reaching into his pocket, Elijah procured his wallet, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and set it on the counter. Getting up from his seat, he cleared his throat and threw on his jacket.

"Major in psych."

"What?" Michael looked at him, her big blue eyes full of confusion. "What'd you say?"

"If you want to catch bastards, major in psych." With that, Elijah turned on his heel and left. If Michael responded, then he didn't hear her.

The gravel crunching under his rubber boots, the thick humidity wrapped around him, but it wasn't the kind of warmth that he preferred. Putting a hand on his belt, he sauntered over to his old pick-up truck. He shoved the key in the door to unlock the driver's side and climbed in.

One hand dug into his pocket, finding his matchbox and an open pack of cigarettes. He grabbed one and placed it between his lips. He held it there as he threw the box onto the passenger's seat and grabbed a match. Striking it, Elijah's eyes brightened as he saw sparks and smelled smoke. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. He inhaled deeply, the puffs of smoke rising to meet the inside of his nostrils and dive deep into his lungs.

The flame’s dance flickered in his eyes. He felt the heat approaching his fingers as the match ate away at the wooden stick. But before it could burn his fingers, he brought the flame to the white tip of the cigarette and watched the flame engulf it. His body shivered, a series of shocks shooting down his spine. Arousal pooled in his gut, like waves inching up the shore and swallowing up the sand.

He shook out the match and tossed it out the open window with the flick of a wrist. With scarred hands, he took the cigarette from his mouth. He opened his mouth and let the smoke seep from between his chapped lips. The taste of tar complimented the sweetness of the Bourbon, his mouth rejoicing at the taste of brimstone.

With one hand holding his cigarette, he fished his keys out of his pocket and, shoved them into the ignition. He turned the car on and brought the butt of the cigarette to his mouth again. He inhaled deeply, smiling in satisfaction. The smoke drifted out of his mouth from in between his teeth.

He hummed softly as he ran a hand across his thigh, the jean material rough against his calloused fingers. His hand trailed to the steering wheel, palming the leather. He set his cigarette between his lips and scratched at his beard before he brought his hand to the gear shift. He backed out of the driveway and put the car in drive to pull out of the parking lot.

He smoked as he drove until the cigarette burned him.

Downtown Akron in 2012. Image courtesy of Ken Lund via Flickr.

Gold is still incredibly interested in the musical DNA of Akron. Highlighting the success of the Black Keys, the industrial sound of Dink and the recent rise of his granddaughter’s band Detention, he still thinks of Akron as unique.

“Culture follows money. And there was a period in Akron because of the rubber factories that there was really a lot of money. It wasn't just money amongst the elite who worked as executives at the rubber shops, it was the middle class,” Gold said. “Mothers had raised expectations [for their kids] to go to the [Cleveland Orchestra], to go on trips to the museums, to be educated. It was really that American dream of wanting everybody to do better than the previous generation, to go to college. Then when the rubber shops left, it created absolutely—and very quickly—a real schism, a cultural dissonance, an economic dissonance. But you still have the kids, [who to this day] have that cultural, aesthetic hunger as part of our DNA.”

Gold believes blending that cultural schism with the sound of progressive music at the time was the perfect recipe for what was coming out of not just Akron, but the post-industrial Midwest.

“You had some pretty strange bands coming out of Cleveland. You had some really high-intensity bands come out of the Detroit, Ann Arbor area because of the car industry going down. Everything in the steel industry went down in Pittsburgh. The effect is a little different in each town; there's a certain recipe that each one of them had that was a little bit unique. If you take that and then throw in the herd mentality of the record labels—you got yourself the Akron Sound,” Gold said.