The Magic Theater

G and I were ready to implement a temporary escape plan to get away from the logistics of our reality. The internet in our cottage (which we thankfully borrow from some kind neighbor) had stopped working, leaving us with one more restriction. In truth, it did not affect my ability to do work for the paper that day but it provided a wonderful excuse to temporarily ignore those obligations and concentrate on my own chosen and preferred projects of work. I busied myself with art for a while, wasted the afternoon one might say, alone in the cottage as G waited at the courier company in hopes there would be a package to deliver. G’s business of couriering has been sorely affected by the dire state of the economy, and he waited around the dull and unkempt office with two racist, lazy and vulgar managers, Jay One and Jay Two, that took to playing video games and making (even more) gay jokes since business was slow. We both spent the day not earning our livings. And at the end of all that, the both of us found ourselves at separate libraries—he in the large, old library of Manchester and I in a study room at the bright new library in Hampstead, which did not even smell of books yet. G greeted me via G chat and told me a couple of musicians, Avi and Celia, with whom he want to school (he knew Celia because she began her career as a blues and folk musician by performing at G’s open mic night), are performing at the Press Room in Portsmouth tonight at nine and would I like to go.

Just the escape I wanted, needed even. And having just finished reading Hesse’s Steppenwolf, I was in a peculiar mood where I desired to laugh at the world. (I who is so serious sometimes, and often quite bipolar—seeking misery the one day, and then pleasure the next in attempts the next to escape my assigned lot as a human person) I was desired to laugh at myself. At G. At our neighbor Kurt, the retired old New Englander who endlessly fought winter, like a bullfighter, but with an ice pick and shovel and plow instead of a cape. I wanted to laugh at my poverty, at the way it has been causing me worry and anxiety lately. To what end? To laugh at my silly employers who themselves can not afford to pay me a living wage for the respectable work I do. At least they allow me to do respectable work. To laugh at my fear I had not proved myself worthy of acceptance in an MFA program thorough the application packet that I sent out, and still find much fault in and scrutinize over. I wanted to laugh at the deer that smeared his own face with my car, invented a spider’s web shatter on my windshield, dented a door, left fluffy tufts of fur in the cracks and caused my rear view mirror to dangle limply. At how that deer stood for moments, staring at G and I blankly, even after we exited the car, until it realized it was not right to be standing on the side of the road, staring at humans, and limped to join his friend, who was already nearly to the woods. So sad, all the damage one acquires if one packs it away in her bag of life.

I was tired of creating my own misery and then stupidly marrying it like it’s something to which one ought to be faithful. I saw Steppenwolf’s tiny, smiling and immaculate teacher, Pablo, the musician, and his sad, warm eyes and head shaking slightly. “So serious, my Rebecca,” he says. “But you will learn, yet. You had a rough start but you will learn how to laugh if in death!”

After dinner, I got myself made up, not much but just a little. I wore a nice shirt and put on a little mascara to make myself feel different than the bum in sweat clothes writing articles from her couch I had become (woman desire to be desired as much as men desire to have sex). As we drove, we had the most interesting conversations about the differences between writing a novel and a short story, our fears as writers, and contemplated some pretty little quotes famous writers, Wells Tower and Henry James and William Saroyan, put together, and sounded smart about writing (Wells Tower said the work of a short story writer involved seeing how much one can simplify a story—how much can be left out. Wells tower said a wise teacher once asked him of a story “was it written in good faith,” meaning to Wells, “do you believe what you’ve written?” Henry James said something to the affect of, “A story can be an anecdote or a picture and I prefer the latter.” Another novelist said of the difference in crafts, “give me a novel any day. All one has to do when he does not know what happens next is write, ‘And the next morning…”’ We contemplated these all and more).

We came to the bohemian little port town that had grown over the years into somewhat of a clean and strategic yuppie town with flower pots in from of streets of retail stores punctuated by restaurants that served the heaviest of New England food. There was still the occasional independent book store, art house cinema, busker who attracted a small crowd of pleasant toe-tappers. And, best of all, Portsmouth has retained its support of local original music, unlike Manchester, which seems to shun and fear all things new and untested in preference of the generic rock or pop cover band. Portsmouth was still a lively retreat. It was still a treat, indeed. The air was warm for a coastal New Hampshire night in February, but the weather was in a feisty mood and the wind whipped in rough play and made everything seem light, magical and adventurous. G took my arm and without knowledge of an address to guide us, we set out to find the space called the Press Room and whatever it had in store.

When we finally found the sign for the Press Room we entered a foyer through a heavy wooden door. There, a paper sign posted on the next set of doors, glass and wood this time, said “enter through the curtain,” and had a little arrow pointing to what was indeed a heavy curtain. It seemed just like the entrance to some circus tent or magician’s show. The room glowed with warm dim light and people walked or sat or sat and talked. There were people, so many people looking good in their collared shirts, blazers, skirts, tight jeans, old men with dreadlocks and glasses in sleek black shirts, middle-aged women dressed sharply and displaying unique jewelry, groups of upper-middle aged executive men toasting, trying so hard to enjoy themselves while eyeing all the women they did not have the gall to approach so they could really enjoy themselves. I was immediately hit by the sweet and lively melodies coming from a far corner of the bar. But my first thought was, People! Real human people like me! Young people! Human people being lively, not at work but at play! And I am here as a part of it! Yes, I needed this. My second and more lasting thought was an emotion, really—an excited attraction to the music.

After we ordered our first drinks G and I found a way to the back of the room and took the only empty table that was right in front of the players, to lay down our coats. We stood (I could not sit) and tapped our feet and watched the musicians. I immediately found true what I told G earlier in the kitchen—when I was a child I always said that if I had a voice, I would give up dancing at once and just sing forever. Watching that singer, with her round cheeks, smiling eyes and voice (what a voice!) I could have died. And with the guitarist’s magnificent flying fingers that played impossible strings of notes, I could have died twice.

I knew immediately that the person with the instrument was always the most attractive person in the room, no matter what. This filled me with both a sorrow and a content, anonymous feeling that one gets when she is the observer, rather than the observed. No more than two hours later I would be filled with an equally true and intense sense of pity, rather than envy, for the musicians, who then seemed only servants to the dancers and listeners.

The musicians played one or two songs then were finished with their first set so G and I sat down to talk. We shared our table with the musicians and their smiling friends who ate and talked and replenished themselves in preparation for the next set. G asked me what I had thought about a particular scene in Hesse’s novel where the protagonist gets to enter a magical box where he is able to love every woman he ever pined for the way he wanted to love them in real life, but ever had the gall. I began and went on the way I often do, by speaking too much. To G I said that it was all well and good that he got to experience what he missed, and in doing so understand regret for his inaction towards his own emotion, but in real life it could never happen. A person can not love everyone he pines for so fully, I went on, because you always have to leave to go on to someone else. And in leaving, emotions always change. If one was to love each person fully and equally, he would end by hurting them because he would happily leave them there, and they would feel much abandonment because they were not the same caliber a lover as he. They would not understand the departure. I supposed a man could love like that if he thought his actions might teach his lover’s something, like how to really love. But people do not learn these lessons easily and more likely, it would just hurt them instead. Moreover, if a man is going to love all his lovers fully, isn’t that just the same as loving one lover fully and continually. Why the need to change lovers? He may as well stick to one. One none! When I finished my silly monologue, G said, “Yes, but I was thinking more along the lines of missed opportunities in all of life, not just in love.”

When the musicians came back, again I could not sit. I stood where there was a bit of empty floor, and danced a little contained dance in my spot. G, still sitting in front of me at the table glanced around and smiled before pushing his chair back to where I stood, so he could sit next to me as I danced and we could but our hands on each other’s back. When he realized the waitresses could not get through, he abandoned his chair altogether and stood by me.

My little contained dance was not satisfying my need. I needed to move in a way that would fully express the music’s affect. I was surrounded by lots of smiling people but nobody danced. And at last when I couldn’t restrict it any longer I broke out completely. Soon G joined me and we danced together in the middle of the room, attracting glances from all the smiling happy people and making them smile even harder. A plain looking man and a tall girl with a short brown bob cut joined us quickly and in minutes we had a regular dance party going—so many people moving in so many ways, but together.

I knew then why my mother was always so proud of herself for being the first one on the dance floor. G and I turned and twisted and jumped and spun. I think I even tap danced a little to the folkier songs. At tables old men were happy to sit and watch. The man who before sat and sketched the musicians now drew dancers. G noticed we were dancing in front of a man with a camera set up on a tripod. He leaned to the cameraman and asked him who he was filming for. He responded with a big toothless grin. “I’m filming for the guy sitting there and the musicians and that guy and those people.” And G asked, “So I can find it online?” he smiled and said to just look on YouTube. It reminded me of Hesse’s narrator’s distain for Jazz music and radios. Hesse’s narrator, who was so in love with the greats for the past that he cold not see what was great at present. He could not understand that musicians must play what they know and as best and as passionately as possible; the must play people want and what the times require. And at that moment I felt it so silly that all generations of man cannot help but believe that the preceding generation’s art and culture is a degradation of their own. How stubborn we are.

The music finished and G and I were on are way out through those magic curtained doors. While we navigated through the stuffy crowd a man tapped me on the shoulder lightly. I turned to him. With his white hair and metal rimmed glasses he looked about fifty. He said, quite unselfconsciously to me, “You’re beautiful, you know.” I thanked him and smiled, knowig fully that I'm not usually so beautiful. It was just my mood. It was just circumstance. I moved quickly to catch up with my G, who was nearly through the curtain.

Outside the wind still whipped and I could tell G felt cold. Still, I enticed him to walk over the bridge to Maine. And although the cold bothered him, he agreed, so long as I assured him I knew the way. This is what I liked about G just then. He accompanied me in my impulses and silliness, like the time I enticed him to join me into the ocean one January during the second time we dated. (He humors my impulses when he knew I needed it, but all the other time he is so very good at calming me and making me less in need of them).

"I’m going to tell you now,” I said to him halfway to the bridge. “We’re going to get to Maine, take one look at it and decide there’s nothing there and that it’s better on this side. Then we’re going to walk right back.” On the bridge I asked G where he wanted to live the most. He responded with, “so many places!” And I told him I felt it too, and that the only way to know is to go and live there.

Walking back to the car, we discussed the conflict we both deeply felt about the sacrifices of choosing to be either a Jack of all trades and Master of none, or a Master of one, or at least very few. We couldn’t come to ay conclusions, but at least both decided to become great at things, one must decide to work, and then do it.

When we got to the car, G shivered and rubbed his hands together. I told him it was nice to walk ad he told me he wasn’t so sure about that. “It’s cold!” he said. “It’s not cold!” I shot back, “It’s nothing but neurons shooting from your brain.” He looked at me. “It’s no different than warmth,” I continued. “Yes it is!” he said. “It’s just neurons. Think of it as just that.” I don’t want to think of it like that! I want to fully experience reality.” I was silent then, but I could have said, “But it’s not reality. It’s what restricts you from reality! Let it go.”

We were both tired driving home, but the night was still alive for me. We remained mostly in silence during the second half of the drive. But we held hands and I looked out the window. It shocked me then, still, as it had been for weeks, to see the magnitude of damage December’s brutal ice storm caused the trees. Everywhere limbs lay broken on the ground, or just about so snap from where they hung limply from the still living parts of trees. Trees had large, raw gashed and open wounds all over them. It was a regular battle zone. A wasted land. The destruction was everywhere. As I looked, I noticed something. The trees were moving, swaying. A few at first, and them more, and then all of the trees bent to grasp their fallen limbs. And then playfully and giddily, they swung at each other. They were children playing a child’s game. They shook with laughter. I looked at G. He looked at me and smiled sweetly. From the forests, the smeared-face deer I had hit pranced light-footed to the side of the road. He was joined by his friend, the one who had been lucky and got away. The smeared-face deer bled heavily into the snow. And as he bled the two deer danced and laughed. As the trees played and the deers danced and G and I followed the narrow road home.