Open Mic at the Hole in the Wall by Patrice Sarath

JP slung her backpack over her shoulder, waiting for the Guadalupe Express at Lamar and Airport. She glanced up the tracks. The white light of the distant train looked like it was standing still.

The next instance, red streaked next to her, then slowed and banked along the curve, spoilers extended. 

One…two…three…

She fell forward between the spoiler and the vent and was sucked backward inside the train. 

She thudded to the floor hard, and rolled to a stop against a pair of legs. 

JP looked at them. Black dress shoes. Blue serge trousers. Her gaze traveled up. 

The conductor looked down. “Damn kids. You could get killed that way.” She reached down, pulled JP up and tapped her radio. “Rail jumper. Toss her at Dean Keaton.”

The train screamed as it went underground on Lamar and a second later rocketed out onto Guadalupe. 

The conductor kept a tight hold on her, and when the train slowed at the University of Texas, she pushed her off the train. This hurt worse than getting sucked inside, and JP kept rolling as the train thundered toward the central city, the whistle dopplering like a wounded demon. 

She stood on the platform, ragged, bruised, and bloody. Then saw movement – two transit cops, giving her a hard look. 

JP gave them her winning smile. “Hi, officers. How are you doing today?”

“You stay right there!”

She ran, taking the stairs to the lower level two at a time. 

But she knew she couldn’t lose them in the underground mall. The Drag, they called it. There were too many cops and too many cameras. She’d already been made – her face was all over the screens. 

She had to get to the street level. 

# 

JP pushed open a metal door that shrieked like it hadn’t been cracked in years, and squeezed through to the street, blinking her eyes in the sunlight, students looking curiously at the bloody ragamuffin who just came out of a door no one ever noticed before. She needed a place to hole up.

She almost didn’t see the small building, squeezed between shiny high rises. It had dark windows, a tattered awning, and paint that had once been yellow. The door was ajar and she went in. She looked around in the dusty twilight. Broken furniture. A corner stage and an abandoned bar. She closed the door behind her and found the rest room, covered with decades of graffiti and tattered band flyers.

Glass Eye. Joe Rockhead. Two Nice Girls. 

She latched the door and sat with her back to it.

A knock made her jump. 

“Well,” a man’s voice drawled. “You comin’ out to sing, or ain’t you?”

JP cracked open the door. A bearded old man smiled at her. “We figured you was here to sign up for the open mic.” At her expression, “Don’t worry about the cops. They think this place is closed.” 

JP followed him out to the main room. Now there was a warm light, a full bar, and a bouncer checking IDs at the door. The room buzzed with people, music, and energy. 

A band warmed up on the stage in the corner. 

“You play?” the old man said. 

“A little. What’s happening?”

“Open mic at the Hole in the Wall.”

JP sat at the last seat at the bar. The bartender pushed over a beer. JP went to take it and her hand went right through.

And only then she saw the faint flicker of the crowd and the band. 

The old man caught her expression. “Not holograms. Something better. Hush now. Poi Dog’s starting.”

The music started, there was a cheer, and people poured onto the tiny dance floor.

The old man handed her a bottle of Shiner Bock. When she hesitated he just nodded with a twinkle in his eye, and she took it. This time it was solid, and the beer was cold, and by the time the next band took the stage, JP was in the middle of the dance floor with the others. Sometimes she imagined she could feel the pressure of other bodies.

Shoulders. Coffee Sergeants. Reivers. 

Only when the last band flickered and vanished did she see that the bar was empty again. It was just her and the old man. 

“What was that?” she asked.

 “Resonances. Some places have ’em. All it takes is for the right person to come inside, and it all comes back.”

“Are you—”

“Nah. I’m something else entirely. Not sure what – I never did understand it.”

She looked around. “When was this?”

 “1970s, 1980s, mostly.”

“That’s a hundred years ago,” she said, feeling stupid. 

“Feels like yesterday. But you say you play.”

“I mean, not like them.” 

“No judgment,” he said. 

She opened her backpack and pulled out her mini keyboard and turned it on. She played a few chords. 

He reached over and picked up a guitar, tuning it. 

They played until dawn lit up the place. JP buzzed with tiredness. 

“Welp. Closing time,” the old man said.

“Are there other places like this?” She asked. “With resonances.”

“City’s full of them. Gone places, but they live on for the right people. Saxon Pub. Threadgill’s. Liberty Lunch. Club Foot. Anywhere folks gathered and created art and music.”

JP stowed her mini keys and picked up her backpack. When she looked up, the old man was gone. 

When she pushed the door open, she blinked at the morning light and the cool, wet air. 

A local train rumbled past her, and in its wake, a single sheet of paper flew in the wind, plastering itself against her boots. 

JP picked it up. 

Open Mic at the Hole in the Wall, it read. Every Monday. All welcome.

JP stuffed the flyer in her backpack, and took one last look back. But she knew she couldn’t stay. There were other gone places to find, and she had a train to catch.

The End

Open Mic at the Hole in the Wall (c) Copyright 2026 by Patrice Sarath