Like Gravity(35)
I rolled my eyes and felt a smile spread across my face. I had a best friend who actually gave a shit about me. And I was ready to kick some musical ass.
***
By the time Lexi and I walked into The Blue Note, open mic night was well under way. A boy wearing a dark fur vest and white leather pants wailed into the microphone on stage, accompanied by a willowy girl with shoulder-length dreadlocks who occasionally beat her tambourine in time with the chorus. I immediately felt like I’d been transported back to the 1970s; it was painful to watch.
Lexi stifled a giggle as we sat down at a small round table near the back of the room. I settled my guitar case on the ground by my feet and surveyed the club. It was dark in the audience, the only light cast by flickering jar-candles that had been placed on each tabletop. Dim halogen lamps illuminated the stage, creating a halo around a solitary stool and microphone stand.
Lexi headed to the bar to grab our drinks while I staked out our table; more people poured in through the front door with each passing minute, and the seating was limited. The club may have felt intimate, but was bigger than it had appeared at first glance. There were probably close to a hundred people scattered around the different booths and standing at the bar.
Watching as the room quickly filled, I began to reconsider coming here. Maybe performing wasn’t such a good idea after all. I could always try a coffee shop or – what had Dr. Angelini’s other suggestion been? Oh, right. A street corner.
Lexi arrived back at our table just as the next act stepped up on stage. A girl dressed in all black, covered in tattoos, and flaunting multiple facial piercings approached the mic. It was no great surprise when she began screaming out the lyrics to an angst-ridden Alanis Morissette song.
Sipping the lemon drop martini Lexi had gotten for me, I decided this wasn’t the right venue for my debut. I wasn’t nearly angry enough at the world to fit in amongst these performers. Nor did I have a fur vest or dreadlocks.
“Guess what?” Lexi exclaimed, a huge grin spreading across her face.
Oh shit. I knew that look. I felt a leaden weight drop into the pit of my stomach, dread mounting in anticipation of whatever she was about to tell me.
“What did you do?”
“While I was up getting our drinks, I may or may not have signed you up to perform! Isn’t that great?” She was giggling uncontrollably at this point, no doubt amused by the murderous expression thundering across my face.
“Lexi! Why would you do that to me?” I whined.
“Because I knew you were about two seconds from bailing as soon as we walked in and saw Sonny and Cher up there—” she nodded in the direction of the hippie couple who’d just left the stage, “—reliving their seventies glory.”
I didn’t respond; I hated when she was right.
Thankfully, several more acts were called to the stage before my name was announced, giving me time to gulp down my martini and slightly calm my ragged nerves.
“Let’s give it up for Brooklyn, everybody!” The MC was a blur as I walked to the stage and settled onto the stool, holding my guitar to my chest like a lifeline. My feet didn’t quite reach the ground, so I propped them up on the bottom rung. Lowering the microphone stand so it was level with my face, I looked out at the crowd. The dark room was a blessing; I couldn’t see anyone’s faces. It would almost be like I was back in my room, playing alone.
Almost.
“Hey, you guys, I’m Brooklyn. I’ve never done this before, so cut me some slack, okay?” There were some appreciative chuckles from the audience, helping to put me at ease. “I’m going to sing one of my favorite songs for you tonight. This is Blackbird by The Beatles.”
I strummed the opening chords easily. I’d been playing this song for so many years it was ingrained in my soul, a melody my fingers had memorized long ago. And though I had the upmost respect for The Beatles, I couldn’t help putting my own spin on the song.
I’d slowed it down to fit the acoustic atmosphere, raised it up an octave, and tried my damnedest to infuse my voice with all the emotions that the lyrics conveyed. Hope, sadness, love, rebirth: this song embodied them all.
The crowd faded away as I sang about learning to fly with broken wings, losing myself to the music. Of all the songs in the world, I’d always felt that this one fit me best. The lyrics gave me hope that maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been shattered by death and loss and sorrow. That maybe everyone’s a little bit broken inside.
As a little girl, I remember watching Peter Pan one night with all the other foster kids in the group home. The other children, most of whom were to old to be entertained by Disney, were making fun of the movie or ignoring it altogether. I alone sat quietly, transfixed by the scene where Peter chases his shadow around the room and tries to wrestle it back into compliance before Wendy finally sews the damned thing to his shoe. That scene had always resonated strangely with me, and after a time, I’d come to see my grief as a sort of disobedient shadow. I’d dragged a wraith of misery around for fourteen years and damned if it didn’t kick and scream the whole time, refusing to be ignored.
I was tired, so tired, of fighting my shadow every minute of the day. My grief had become a living entity, personified by years of self-blame and incarnated by my refusal to confront it. Like Peter, I’d chased my specter for years and repeatedly forced it into submission in a never-ending battle of wills. Too often, though, the grief broke free – and I broke down.