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Scenes from my real-life
Aug. 2nd, 2012 02:57 amSo, the 'Reading'. I skip out on doing a bowl, decide to play it straight. Give it a 100% and all that. Then I walk out the door with my piece tucked and folded within my copy of 'Bonfire' to make my way up to the MLK Station. The whole time I keep telling myself it wasn't too late. I reminded myself that I could turn around now, go back, hop in the car and drive down to Lil 5 to score my pull list at the comic shop. But I knew that wasn't an option, but still it made me feel better to believe it was. Instead I trudge forward, down Jackson past slow crawling squad cars and cats in mechanized wheelchairs hollering deals on weed by the dime.
I stood on the eastbound platform at MLK station. A digital sign flashed the next train would be along in 9 minutes. Two stories up the platform is fenced in with these thick slabs of granite that are spaced from each other just enough to filter in a breeze and allow a slotted prisoner's view of Oakland Cemetery with the tracks running parallel to its southern wall below. The platform's not packed, but it's not empty. Folks in uniforms ranging from scrubs to fast food aprons worn in an off the clock casualness. Good practice for the stage fright. I pull out my piece. I walk between two of the mounted slabs and peer out into the cemetery. I see the statue of an angel I used in the flyer I made for the event. I take it as a sign. I slip out my piece and read it just as an old CSX comes rambling beneath me. And I read it with poise, with confidence, with beats emphasized and hand gestures timed. I read with a voice much deeper than the one I use normally, I use my doorman voice, my telemarketer voice, my 'Navy' voice.
And the words just flow so smooth from my lips, as smooth as the rusted tracks pouring before me as I stand nine minutes later within the front cab of my eastbound train, where through the conductor's door I watch the world blur by all humidity gray and kudzu green. And I know, I just know, I got this shit in the bag. I'm gonna rock that fucking mic and I'm gonna rock it hard. Just wait 'til they see me up there...
... and about an hour later, my tin bravado now long crumpled under the gravity of my fear, I mount the stage. The hostess, her face painted up in a Santa Muerte sugar skull, introduces me. Polite applause. Heart pounding, the wine's cut some of the dread but not enough. Suddenly I very much want that bowl I so 'valiantly' declined earlier. The timer is set for five minutes. 300 seconds. The light on the podium make a moderately packed house into a gallery of blue tinged silhouettes. I'm asked if I'm ready. I try thinking of something clever and mutter a 'yep' instead.
3, 2, 1...
... and the words just stammer, stutter and stall in my throat. My voice cracks, the subject matter hits me in ways it didn't sans crowd. The audience goes from amused chuckles to dead silence. I'm bubbling over with nervous energy. My consciousness seems to have become bifurcated. One part of me is reading the words trembling in my hands. Another part is listening distantly to the sound of my own voice - making snap edits a split second before uttering the words even while fighting to try not to go too fast that I just melt into a mumbled incoherency or go too slow thus blowing the deadline. But eventually, by the second and last page, I slip into a sort of trance where the 'listener' and the 'reader' finally overlap into a working symbiosis and I manage to pull the whole thing off in under five minutes. Don't really remember much here to be honest.
Next thing I know, more applause, bright lights, a sheepish thank you and I sleepwalk off the stage before saddling up to the bar. I order a house red and wait for the blood to stop pounding in my skull.
As for how I did up there, I don't know... guess we'll just have to wait for the podcast to come out and 'see'.
I stood on the eastbound platform at MLK station. A digital sign flashed the next train would be along in 9 minutes. Two stories up the platform is fenced in with these thick slabs of granite that are spaced from each other just enough to filter in a breeze and allow a slotted prisoner's view of Oakland Cemetery with the tracks running parallel to its southern wall below. The platform's not packed, but it's not empty. Folks in uniforms ranging from scrubs to fast food aprons worn in an off the clock casualness. Good practice for the stage fright. I pull out my piece. I walk between two of the mounted slabs and peer out into the cemetery. I see the statue of an angel I used in the flyer I made for the event. I take it as a sign. I slip out my piece and read it just as an old CSX comes rambling beneath me. And I read it with poise, with confidence, with beats emphasized and hand gestures timed. I read with a voice much deeper than the one I use normally, I use my doorman voice, my telemarketer voice, my 'Navy' voice.
And the words just flow so smooth from my lips, as smooth as the rusted tracks pouring before me as I stand nine minutes later within the front cab of my eastbound train, where through the conductor's door I watch the world blur by all humidity gray and kudzu green. And I know, I just know, I got this shit in the bag. I'm gonna rock that fucking mic and I'm gonna rock it hard. Just wait 'til they see me up there...
... and about an hour later, my tin bravado now long crumpled under the gravity of my fear, I mount the stage. The hostess, her face painted up in a Santa Muerte sugar skull, introduces me. Polite applause. Heart pounding, the wine's cut some of the dread but not enough. Suddenly I very much want that bowl I so 'valiantly' declined earlier. The timer is set for five minutes. 300 seconds. The light on the podium make a moderately packed house into a gallery of blue tinged silhouettes. I'm asked if I'm ready. I try thinking of something clever and mutter a 'yep' instead.
3, 2, 1...
... and the words just stammer, stutter and stall in my throat. My voice cracks, the subject matter hits me in ways it didn't sans crowd. The audience goes from amused chuckles to dead silence. I'm bubbling over with nervous energy. My consciousness seems to have become bifurcated. One part of me is reading the words trembling in my hands. Another part is listening distantly to the sound of my own voice - making snap edits a split second before uttering the words even while fighting to try not to go too fast that I just melt into a mumbled incoherency or go too slow thus blowing the deadline. But eventually, by the second and last page, I slip into a sort of trance where the 'listener' and the 'reader' finally overlap into a working symbiosis and I manage to pull the whole thing off in under five minutes. Don't really remember much here to be honest.
Next thing I know, more applause, bright lights, a sheepish thank you and I sleepwalk off the stage before saddling up to the bar. I order a house red and wait for the blood to stop pounding in my skull.
As for how I did up there, I don't know... guess we'll just have to wait for the podcast to come out and 'see'.