A gay story: Failing Upward Ch. 17
There was Sid holding the bucket out with one finger.
I didn’t understand why until the next moment when my stomach turned inside out, and I thrust my face inside that bucket. I threw up twice. Once after I looked out over the stage and wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. The second time after I registered the thousands and the media. Men behind camera cranes spidered overhead.
“Thought you’d be needing it…” Sid pulled a Kleenex from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. Wasn’t sure if he meant the puke pail or the hanky– I wiped my mouth off with shaking hands, giving Sid a pathetic smile. After, I wobbled off and stood on the edge of the stage. He shadowed behind.
“Here, you might need this again,” Sid said, setting the bucket off to the side. Les handed me my guitar, and I struggled to tune it, whispering to myself, ‘Don’t look up, don’t look up.’
What a jinx. Of course I was going to fucking look.
I did. I lifted my eyes. All those people. The Silverdome spread out into an ocean of bodies. Sweat trickled down the small of my back. My vision clouded. My guts wrenched, and I turned tail, handing my guitar into Jimbo’s waiting outstretched arms, and tried to puke into the bucket again.
Nothing left.
The world slowly focused. It was like that world was a video with someone else controlling the remote. It wasn’t the first time I felt my life was some bizarre video– I watched helplessly as it played, paused, then fast forwarded.
I picked my guitar up again, threading my head and arm through the strap, chanting: “I’m Wesley Grant. I am Wesley Grant. I am Wesley Grant.” I was beginning to buy into Sid’s theory that we became our predecessors. I… I didn’t feel like me at all.
I rested my back against one of the amps and watched. The people around me I thought I knew even smelled wrong. It was like we were taping some over-rehearsed comedy routine. When Les bounced up and handed me a warm coke, I tipped it up to my lips like that was part of the routine too. One, two, three sips, most dripping on my shirt. Smith broke wind. Jimbo jumped back. John held his nose while Sid shook his head in disgust. All steps carefully choreographed to calm my nerves. Then I starting choking. So much for calming me… I bent over gasping and hacking, grasping my knees so they wouldn’t buckle and leaving me to fall, splat, on the stage in front of thousands.
“What are you trying to do Smith,” Les asked, slapping me on the back, “asphyxiate him?”
I opened my eyes to see Sid’s polished loafers staring up at me.
“Not Smith…” I gasped, “Nerves.” Les stepped away, giving me room. Sid leaned down, meeting my eyes.
“Breathe, Wes,” Sid said, placing his hand on my back, fingers pressing lightly against my spine. “Breathe, like I taught you.”
I nodded.
“Slow and easy,” he reminded me… in through my nose, out through my mouth. Over and over. “That’s it,” he coaxed.
Not sure if this part of the routine was what worked or if I just didn’t have anything left to barf, but I straightened up and bit my lip. I did feel better…
“You’re sure I know all the songs?” I asked.
“For the hundredth time, yes!”
I nodded again. As I looked out into the sea of people, I slowly pulled charged air in through my nose and out through my mouth again. It worked. First I mentally made my way to center stage– then I took the eighteen hollow steps to the middle of the platform. I still didn’t feel myself; I was the invisible man… the yellow stage lights were barely enough to see my own hands and feet. The whole arena was black; the audience hidden. I could still hear them, feel them. The air dripped; the auditorium swelled and writhed. I felt like I’d been swallowed up by some monster– Not to compare myself with Jonah, but for a moment there I think I knew what he felt like inside a whale.
Yeah, I was inside this monster– not a whale, more like a dragon. The roaring, the flickering lights like fiery breath, the careening masses like open jaws– all just on a sliver of my physical senses– I felt a chemical charge. No more queasy stomach, no more panic. Just uncoiled energy and want. I fell in love with the moment. On stage, pumped, I felt pitted against this deep desire a musician has to be heard, to be known, to be famous. How could I stay me? Fuck, that wasn’t new. I didn’t want to fight this dragon. I heard the story about how fame destroys people. I stood euphoric. Maybe this was what Sid warned about.
I looked to him off on the right hand side of the stage. Standing arms crossed, legs apart, feet planted between snaking wires, observing me behind the roadies– he looked anything but lost. He belonged. He was Mr. Manager.
I wondered who I was.
Jimbo started. I heard him counting. I heard Smith’s guitar and Les sing. Their attention rested on at me. I closed my eyes, played and forgot all but the sound. Only the music. The music took me. I let it.
This was different. New. I opened my eyes and looked around at the rest of the band. To them this was just another gig. To me, it was deifying. On an alter, god-like. Or maybe I was just some supreme sacrifice. Either way at that moment, I didn’t care.
It was the best time of my life.
When we took a break to change sets and take a breather, I found I didn’t want to let go. I went to speak, but I couldn’t, my voice cracking uselessly instead. I approached Sid, and he seemed to avoid me. He looked nervous. Maybe I was spoiled from all his attention before. He kept busy attending others the way he had me– I felt slighted. I knew he was stepping back. Not getting too close. For those moments I grew afraid– I became less sure that this was part of the act, and fearful that this might be what he wanted.
I needed to stop thinking, put these doubts out of my mind. I became impatient to get back on stage, to feel the way I did before– where I was wanted.
When Sid ordered us, “On! Now!” I bolted out, not looking behind. This last set, the applause, the stomping vibrated through me. As I played, I felt a shift, a transformation. Making music had always been intimate for me– like making love– a minogue et toi between myself, the band and the audience. The experience was never crude or rough. This was different. It was more like being fucked hard, so hard that I hurt– so hard I couldn’t think.
Tonight, that was good.
It ended too soon.
It didn’t occur to me until off stage and running back to the bus, how I still felt high. No withdrawal. As I climbed up the steep bus steps, I wondered how long before I bottomed out.
Most of the band and roadies were already aboard. I took a seat in the back and watched for Sid as I listened to the bus idle.
I sprawled out, legs in front on the seat. I closed my eyes for a while, now and then glancing out the window and waiting. Jimbo came up the isle and sat down in back of me and patted my back. I heard Smith laugh. Les looked nervous. That got me nervous.
“He played better than average today, wouldn’t you say?” Smith commented. I turned my head and looked back. Les stared at me, looking more like some analyst than my brother.