Bad Moon Rising
It’s a good night tonight.
Good, that is, if you’re in the mood for your blood to warm up, to get your heart beating a little too easy in your chest. Half fear, half excitement with just a dash of adventure mixed in. I don’t know what it is about nights like tonight, but they just call out to the innermost depths of everyone.
It started when I came home from work, the whole time dreaming about being on stage and rocking out with my good friends — my dreams always fall back to that at one point or another. I run into Chance almost literally (again) when I reach the building, and we stand outside bathed in the warm, balmy air and cigarette smoke talking about the things we usually do: literature, stories, past experiences. We noticed a young punk giving us shit from the safety of a glass door, a young couple fighting on the sidewalk, a group of friends arguing about something or other with only a petite little lady there to try keep the peace.
Everyone fighting. Everyone who isn’t was just looking to start.
One kid, a kinda skinny fellow, was the only one standing there, trying to keep an eye on everyone — especially the fighting couple. The guy knows that he’s the only one there, really. He’s all on his own, but some part of him isn’t going to just go inside and go to bed when he knows that someone’s potentially going to get hurt or hurt someone else when he could try to stop it.
Something about that kept me from winding down for the night. I dropped my stuff off and grabbed my jacket and took over for him. Must’ve walked all across the city, making sure that everyone was okay in my own silent little way. Everywhere, the same little dramas played out. A pair of drunk boys getting ready to fight, a group of young girls complaining and sad about someone or other hurting a friend of theirs.
I was astonished at how unafraid of it I was. Still am, really. I wasn’t worried about me — it was everyone else I was worried for. All this, and music was still on my mind.
I have to do it. It’s what I was bred to do — born to do. In the face of all this adversity and turmoil in the world, everyone at some point or another “will look up and shout ‘Save us!’”
…and I can’t bring myself to whisper “No.” The best I can say is “Wait for me. I’m on my way.”
I can’t play along with everyone else and ignore the dream of being in a rock band, making music, distributing albums, making people who I’ve never met, who I’ll probably never meet — perhaps sitting somewhere on the other side of the world — feel like everything’s alright. Like there’s something good.
Wait for me. I’m on my way.
xo.
J
2 years ago