His eyes are tied to the piece of paper. He stands as closely to the music stand as possible. His fingertip is running over the lines of words. He quickly gathers the lyrics. His hips are circling, his knees are bending with the beat. While the crowd is sipping Venezuelan Polar beer from the bottle, he looks up from his song book and pretends to know every word by heart. Nobody cares that the performanence has a karaokesque character.
But the singer is nevertheless a pro: His microphone echoes every word he sings and says. On purpose. His anouncements are full of joy and laughter: "Hahahaha", it blasts, "Are you still enjoying the songs??" He waits for the applause. The reaction is somehow hesistant. But he doesn't give up: "Oh yeah, that's why we're here... we are not here for ourselves", he says winking through his gold-rimmed glasses which have time traveled from the 80s. He has styled his hair in a special way: It looks like a hybrid between an American quiff and an unicorn's horn. He requests requests and people request. "Solo tu, nada más", he is singing and his band is joining in, the beautiful female singer is elegantly moving in her tight denim pants and ther extra-tight strapless top, dancing on her high heels, the keyboarder in the back starts the artificial trumpets to make the song sound as Latin American as possible. He hollers trying to imitare some Mexican cheering sounds.
There is no sign but everybody knows "Serka Norman". In Papiamentu, the creole language of Curaçao, it means something like "Norman's place". "There is no place like Norman's place", the singer announces over and over again through his echoing microphone closing with his diabolic laughter. The snack bar is situated right next to fishing docks and does not only attract traveling fishermen, but also locals and tourists alike. The bookshelf in the back tells a strange story of everybody who has ever been here and left his or her finished books at Norman's place.
Tonight is a Friday night. The "EQ Entertainment Band" is playing. "Een beetje verliefd" whispers the beautiful female singer in her microphone and the group of middleaged Dutch guys join in and sing along. Their skin is seriously sunburned, but they don't care. They have their song and a bottle of gin. People start to dance salsa on the street. On another table, an old Curaçaoean guy is eating the delicious krioyo-style food Norman prepares in his tiny kitchen from a plastic box. It seems like he originally ordered it to take away, but then spontaneously decided to stay. Whitney Houston is sitting at the table next to him. It must have taken some time to first straighten and then tease her hair, to pick this long, green dress from her wardrobe, to combine it with the perfectly matching rhinestone earrings and the wedges in the exact same color.
While chewing their fish bites, rice and beans, they are rocking to and fro to the rhythm. "Hahaha!", the singer is laughing again enjoying himself. But he is grateful and thanks the audience after every song in every language he knows: Papiamentu, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, German, English. Then he detects some Italian tourists and starts to chitchat with them in their mother tongue summing up the afore said words with his happy "hahahaha".
The echoing sound of his microphone really works when he starts to sing another requested song: "Marvin, Marvin, Marvin... he was a friend of mine". Some people start to form a background choir. This time, the singer is staring on his cell phone for the lyrics. He doesn't look up until he has finished the song proudly concluding with a punctuating "hahahaha".
There is no place like Norman's place.
