Tonight was the big Stadtchor concert at the old school. Nailed the solo, or “trumpet,” as the Austrians call it. All of my good friends were there in the back row cheering me on. Andy and Chiara recorded the whole thing for me. Giorgi even made a nice sign for the whole choir, “You are our Burgenland Superstars,” or something like that. The choir ate it up. Gotta love Georgians.
If only that could have been the end of the night. The crowd was crammed into just barely a quarter of the music hall, with the majority squeezing their way into the buffet lines and the beer/wine line. And that’s where it went all wrong for me. It was as if I was repeating spring of 2008 all over again.
In my head it wasn’t shouts of praise or congratulations. Rather it was those loud noises, unexplained sounds coming from nowhere, people sneaking up behind you to say something terrible. (Don’t touch me on the back of the arm.) I couldn’t escape. I retreated to the bench, with my friends calling me back over.
“Do you want a drink?”
“Are you tired?”
No, just scared shitless. I couldn’t move. I tried one of those semi-useless relaxation techniques where I press the finger into my forehead and concentrate on the sensation, to no avail.
(Can’t they go home now?)
(Can’t I go home now?)
Yet they kept coming to greet and thank the “trumpeter.”
“No, I’m just tired, thank you.”
“No, I’m fine. Thank you. I just had some water.”
Traumatic stress can turn anything special into something unpleasant. I’m fine up there on the risers. It’s just me, the two baritones next to me and the sheet music in front of me. Yet, off the risers and into the crowd, there’s nothing to concentrate on. It’s just the continual calculation of the nearest path to the meat sandwiches and away from the maddening crowd.
The walk from the school to Haus International was pretty damn miserable. I got out without visible panic, but the damage inside was already done.
(Quickly now, up to my room to take the red out of my eyes and pop a couple of pills.)
It’ll all be over in 20 minutes.
No more of this for me for awhile. I just can’t take it.
Listen, man, I haven’t been down in this hole, but if you want, I’ll hop down in there with you. Don’t know if we’ll find our way out, but at least you’ll have some company.
Just to let you know your site looks a little bit weird in Firefox on my office computer Ubuntu .