The thrill of a live show is by far the most enthralling and disturbing experience, in my opinion. I don’t mean the great gigs, famous, almost famous, once famous acts… Never cared for those, would rather buy me the album, if I cared.

This is what I mean, an unknown band, a band you’re friends with the drummer, a band you’re in.

A school auditorium, a broken theater, a public space, a garage bar.

A crowd would be a few hundreds, many of which you know at least by sight, the crowd you’re in, or no crowd at all.

All kinds of nuisance, delays, hot beer, improvisation.

Sounds more like a nightmare? Maybe but when you are inside it, people, gear, skills, everything so within your own possibilities, it feels real like you could be the next to step up the stage.

And to whatever extent you have or will experience it, you will be poisoned by frustration with the mere notion of something bigger you can’t grasp.

“Here, let me get you a cold one…”

“Leaving too soon…”

(shoulders high in the room, I whispered the words as they came to my mouth)

“Pardon?”

No, I didn’t say anything, I just… I’m just… (wondering aloud)

“When Walter Williams told me you were coming, I thought I would have the chance to get to know you a little bit… Stay…”

(Boingo! I told him there was something in the air, he told me to stop acting like Mr. Jones!) I’m so tired. (I lied) I haven’t slept (a wink… Words were flowing out, like endless rain, drifting through my open mind again, filling the cracks in my ceiling and… I was starting to worry about me. I thought I was cured.)

“Come on! I’ve made some guacamole, there’s sour cream, W.W., it’s how you call him?, brought every different type of Doritos…”

(I looked inside over her shoulder to the top table, then away into the falling rain, as if my decision depended on a precise calculation which did not include her wish, hoping maybe that a distant thunderbolt and lightning made the call. She had made an undisguisable move to make me stay. She must have rushed through the saloon, catching everyone’s eye, she somehow let me know that she knew that I liked Mexican food, she got completely exposed… I was trying to minimize it, so that she would not feel so vulnerable. As I would soon find out, there was no reason for that)

Ok then, I could get a taste of your guaca.

(She smiled, grabbed my hand and said to W.W., who came to see what was taking place between us.)

“Here, look who was leaving without paying the bill…”

(“Let him go! Bismillah”) (I could hear he screaming silently…)

I was just catching a view of the rain… But if there’s a bill to pay let’s make it worth it!

(W.W. took her other arm, laughed out loud because it was the one thing he hadn’t been trying. People looked at us kind of strange, as if they were suddenly abducted from Mexico City to Paris.) (France, not Texas…)

“I’ll pass by your house and give you a ride.”

My friend W. W. knew how I feel about first days at school, meaning every first day attending any new classes. I actually have all kinds of nightmares, from not finding the classroom to not realizing what I’m going there for in the first place.

But I was planning to stick around downtown after work until 19h30.

“Good, I’ll catch up with you and we’ll grab something to eat, then. What about the old place? It’s been a time, uh? I’ve heard it might be closing doors for good…”

What a pity, for so many time we have hanged around that hot corner of the city, until there was only one last bar left.

I have strolled around for a bit longer than I expected so when I reached W.W. he was halfway through with his sandwich and mine was being served by Wally Gator, my favorite waiter. Perfect timing after all, if not for the fact that he gobbles his food at least four times faster than I played with mine.

That left him a lot of idle-mouth time, which he filled with loose conversation with the waiters, trying to keep up to date.

Two guys, whose ages combined exceeded a century, like getting ready for school. I could sense he was agitated and I was trying to stay cool.

Although it meant to me nothing but an excuse for staying out long enough to avoid finding my wife awake when I get home, I was feeling an unpleasant tightness in my stomach.

My friend’s excitement was evident and I have tried to warn him to disguise it. I knew he would not listen and he knew I was really worried about myself.

Ok, let’s do it.

It was about the seventh time my friend W. W. insisted that I joined him in the night philosophy course held by some obscure not-church run association.

It was all he learned about it, since he first invited me. Then he knew nothing and totally didn’t care. I had plenty of good reasons for staying out that foolish attempt to socialize with younger people, being this his only reason in. He was not ashamed of it at all.

I could have told I was never really into socializing but he knew that already, and for years tried unsuccessfully to change my ways.

He also knew that my philosophical distresses belonged in the past and that, rather than confident, I would be uneasy among less learned people. And ashamed, of course, that my intentions and his were seen as one and the same.

But he appealed to my loyalty to an old friend, newly divorced, so I had to appeal to something higher, my utter rejection of anything minimally resembling religion.

After feebly putting away that risk, that they would be twisting logical arguments to undermine human reasoning capacities and come out with some sort of mystic solution, he didn’t offer me any more details on the whole thing.

Although I knew the reason I was doing it, I was as much surprised as he when I said yes, let’s do it.

He looked at me quite intrigued but no question came out of his mouth. I thought he preferred not to ask me why I have changed my mind in fear that I would back down. But I’m almost sure now that the look in his eyes, and the way he hugged me, meant he was aware of my motivation then.

I was about to leave the party after a short stay and a brief conversation. I stood in the hallway for a few seconds, watched the rain outside and decided. It was already stopping but it wouldn’t soon, and I have always enjoyed walking in the rain. Even though there would be no one around to rush me in, hold my head beneath the towel, scold me for always not hearing but ruining all those educational efforts by giving me

I don’t remember if it was her calling or her touching my shoulder that stopped me.