Nearly every Wednesday Night for the last several years, I've been taking part in an open mic event in the village of Florence, where I briefly lived for a spell. This being an eccentric and vibrant arts community, all types of performances have been welcome over the years, I've seen Beat poets, washtub players (sometimes as the same performer!) along with performance artists, comedians, and players of just about any kind of instrument you could imagine. A few performances were difficult to watch, not because they were bad, but because I couldn't grasp what I was watching. I have occasionally been a host for open mic events (usually as a fill-in) so I have learned to roll with whomever shows up, because you don't want to be rude, and you especially want to encourage as many people to participate, and tell their friends to show up and watch. That's how you build a scene.
This latest Wednesday, I was waved over to a table by an older gentleman, who was sitting alone at a small table, with a scattered assortment of newspapers from another time in front of him. He had just seen me playing bass to support another performer, and mistook me for someone else. He wore thick glasses, and appeared a little frail and nervous. After that briefly awkward introduction, he then asked me if he could come up onstage and recite some poems and stories about his time stationed in Vietnam.
"Yes!" I said, in a louder-than-I-probably-should-have-said-it voice. "Go talk to that guy (pointing at Shawn, near the sign up sheet) and tell him you want to be included!"
"Okay. Thanks" he responded, as he slowly made his way to the table to meet Shawn.
Usually no room is left on the sign up list, but a few competing nearby events took away a small portion of our usual performers for this night, but I later realizing that he was going to be the last person on stage, and this might be a very heavy and somber experience. I offered to switch places with him and I could close the night out with something upbeat. Both he and Shawn were in agreement. As the night went on, and it became this gentleman's turn to take the stage, things got very quiet in a hurry.
Clutching a few newspaper articles, some typed out sheets of poems, and a small poster for a veterans memorial event - He started talking about his experiences in the Vietnam war, and immediately started to choke up on his words and holding back tears. As he continued, I could feel the emotions stir up inside me as well, and soon knew that I wasn't going to be able to hold it together much longer myself.
I went downstairs to close out my tab, and get one last drink to prepare myself for going on next.
When I came back upstairs a few minutes later, the gentleman was now completely sobbing as he tried to recite the poems his friend had written about being stuck in Vietnam. About feeling forgotten, despised, and waiting to die rather than stay and suffer through a war they didn't understand, but were nonetheless pressed into service to fight. Everyone's faces were frozen in the same sad. compassionate look of attention. Nobody was looking at their phones anymore, but a lot of people like me were blankly staring at their tables, listening patiently, yet uncomfortably, as this poor, sad, broken down loveable man finished his last words, and said "I'm sorry" before totally breaking down and leaving the stage.
I was the first one to get up there, put my hand on his shoulder and say, "Thank you for doing that, it was really moving." Several other people followed and did more or less the same thing. He said he needed a ride back to his assisted living place, and left with someone shortly after.
How do you follow that?
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