Epilogue: Into the Glare

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Epilogue: Into the Glare

On April 29, 2011, I went with Tim and my father to Jazz Fest at the New Orleans Fair Grounds.  The day was sunny and warm full of beer intentions and oyster Po Boy day dreams.  We were a triad of men enjoying the slow voodoo cottonmouth of Coco Robicheaux and the Joe Krown trio with the blues of Water Wolfman Washington and Russell Batiste.  We saw the Mardi Gras Indians singing “Eliza Jane” and “Let’s go get ‘em.”  Who got the fire?  George Porter Jr. was slapping his bass.

The highlights of the day started around three p.m. Mumford and Sons followed by the Avett Brothers on the Gentilly Stage.  We walked up to the ocean of humanity.  Thousands of humans dotted the grounds from the stage to a hundred and fifty yards back like a coral reef of swarming colorful faces.  Thousands of others were scattered at other stages with Wyclef Jean, Justin Towns Earle and Robert Plant with his Band of Joy on other sections of the horse track infield.

We came up on the left hand side of the front of the stage trying to inch our way towards the middle.  We squeezed into the randomness.  Some chose to shuffle off for space.  Others relocated in or tried to discover breathing room from the blazing sun.  A girl passed out along side of me.  Her friend called out to the sky, “Does anybody have any water?”  I handed the remnants of my strawberry lemonade to my dad to pass the cup forward.  Previously I was using the straw to suction droplets like a humming bird and squeeze over the nape of my neck to cool off with the slush of melted ice.  The cup was gone in a flash.  I was glad I had my K’naan fedora.

Our movements were slow and conditional, uncertain.  I had waited months for this day to see these bands, especially the Avett Brothers.  I was engrossed in the deep-hearted lyrics and genuine sentimentality.  The Avett’s made me want to fall in love with a girl from the Blue Ridge Mountains and find a Carolina home.

Tim and my father were bird-dogging me.  We found an intermediate spot for the Mumford and Sons show.  I reveled in emotional connection with “Roll Away Stone,” “Timshel,” and “After the Storm.”  The mandolin and banjo strummed an English folk connection with the crowd. 

In between the sets, Tim, my father and I began moving.  Our human legs attempted to march on the seafloor of the Caribbean sway of human kelp-bodies.  We inched forward in tidal surges until we were about seven people back from the front barricade.  The show was not going to start until about 5:30.  We still had about twenty minutes. 

We shifted two or three times as people entered and exited.  Comers and goers swore to be seeking friends and acquaintances nearer or farther from the stage depending on the current.  We finally washed up with me standing directly behind this six-foot five gangly basketball playing bipedal polar bear.  My father leaned over my shoulder and said, “As soon as the show starts we’ll switch.” 

The differential in my father’s elevated height aside; I appreciated the gesture to get to see the Avett’s.  The Avett Brother’s started with “Colorshow.”  My dad and I swapped places.  I was jumping up, singing along and alive in the moment.  There was a pair of women standing to my left, but slightly to the rear based on the obtuse angles of the crowd.  I heard the women talking before the set.  I remembered noticing the red-haired member of the duo.  She had to be around my age in the whitest sleeveless dress shining off the sun.  I noticed an Auryn tattoo on her shoulder.  Her aviator sunglasses were raised to her forehead showing her green eyes.  She was shorter than me, maybe five-foot one and whisking to the beat.

By the third song of “Talk of Indolence,” I saw her dancing in the side of the first two songs stymied in consternation of a similar dilemma with another elevated giant panda member of the audience.  I offered her this circle of space next to me to step up into after talking for a brief intersection of discussing the perils of height at events such as life.  I gave her a high-five and said, “People like us need to stick together,” as the Avett’s played on “The Perfect Space.”

The Avett Brothers show birthed a crowd in full emotionalism, the massive thousands, gave me hope for the beating heart.  The orchestra of the heart lives, silently in so many screaming in a cage of flesh on a coat rack of bones; to love alive.  Suns were blazing in a youthful church choir of NOLA infield.  This was a beautiful revolution of emoting flocking people.

We danced parallel the whole concert.  The Avett Brothers started playing the piano on, “Head full of doubt, Road full of Promise.” Life was hanging in the sway. 

“There is a darkness upon me that's flooded in light. In the fine print they tell me what's wrong and what's right and it comes in black and it comes in white and I'm frightened by those who don't see it.”

“When nothing is owed, deserved or expected and your life doesn't change by the man that's elected if you're loved by someone you're never rejected decide what to be and go be it.”

I looked up and spotted a cable running from a part of the sound system to the main stage like a high wire stretched over the crowd and the humanity was the net.  A crow sat on the wire perched, listening alone over us sea-people.  The sun was setting and blinding me as I stared right into the orb behind the silhouette of the raven.

“There was a dream one day I could see it like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it.  And there was a kid, with a head full of doubt

So I scream til I die or the last of those bad thoughts are finally out.”

“There's a darkness upon you that's flooded in light. In the fine print they tell you what's wrong and what's right.  And it flies by day and it flies by night

And I'm frightened by those who don't see it.”

A tear rolled from under my sunglasses.  My brother Tim patted me on the back like a bump acknowledgement of there to here looking up into the glare and everyone singing along.  I guess he could see the darkness.  I danced and let go. 

There was this beautiful woman next to me.  At one point, I asked aloud, “Where are you from?” but she could not hear me over the music.  I let the moment pass into not bothering her concert with my words.  I remember thinking I would ask her, her name or something more forward requesting.  I wanted to.  When the last song ended I looked over and the tide of the crowd had shifted in initiated departure.  She was gone.