by Shawn Hill
CHAPTER 6 - THE FIRST TIME
Music was blaring while Thomas watched two friends bounce back and forth to the ear piercing beat produced by a band he wasn’t that crazy about. The group was one of four sharing the stage at a concert that night in the Springfield Massachusetts Civic Center. Thomas was only interested in the fourth band playing later on. A push here and a shove there kept him on constant guard while trying to pretend his ears didn’t hurt from the speakers only twenty feet away.
His friend Richard insisted on being right in front of the stage, so the three arrived early and battled the crowd for position. You had to try and hold your ground, but the people were like an ocean carrying waves of powerful force which made you move whether you wanted to or not. Every now and then a funnel opened up, and you would do everything possible to avoid being drawn into a sinkhole called a mosh pit where people collide with one another just for fun.
Luckily, the third band’s set was almost over and Thomas’s reason for being there in the first place would be taking the stage. Before finishing their last song, the lead singer decided to let a young boy from the crowd join him on stage. He let the kid hold a guitar while his dad took a picture. The young kid shouldn’t have been at a concert like that, Thomas thought, but how nice the guy let him on stage. After a bit of goofing around, the young boy was led off, and the lead singer announced that the next song would be their last. He also called out for the crowd to split down the middle and create two groups which would run towards each other when told. Something the band called “The wall of death.”
Thomas had thought, Ohh, just great… Can’t wait for this group of drunk, high, and uncoordinated individuals to run towards and bash into another group of drunk, high, and uncoordinated individuals. What could possibly go wrong there?
He started moving to the left side of the pit, saw a large gap opening in the center and couldn’t help but feel like a cow being herded somewhere.
This is the last hard rock concert I’ll attend, Thomas thought. If I survive, that’s it; I’m stayin’ home from now on. I made it all the way to this point and now we’re going to run into each other like morons and get smashed.
Thomas lost his view of Richard, but was pretty sure he was at the very front, ready to collide and rumble with the other side. The band started jamming and the lead singer was yelling out lyrics like he was angry at the microphone. Suddenly, the music stopped, and he yelled: “GO!”
“Crap,” Thomas said out loud. “Already?”
The mass of people he was stuck with gave him no choice but to run towards the other mass of people only feet away. There was no stopping that momentum. He knew if he tried to stay still, he would have been trampled. It’d be better to flow with the force and try not to fight it. To his surprise and delight, no one was hurt and he may have actually enjoyed the adrenaline rush. The band left the stage while Thomas was swimming through the ocean of bodies back towards the front. He wanted to see the final group up close knowing it will be worth the effort. Much of the crowd had been drinking and smoking throughout the concert, so the level of rowdiness continued to escalate. Thomas just kept telling himself that it would be worth it.
Twenty-two minutes of “excuse me, excuse me, I’m sorry, pardon me” and trying to catch a breath of air not filled with the smell of marijuana was beginning to take its toll, but finally the last band took the stage. The first song started without warning, and the crowd turned back as the lead singer rose from a moving platform behind everyone. Now that’s cool, Thomas thought as he smiled and moved around to the beat.
Three songs in and the people had started crowd surfing from the back to the front of the pit. Some were lucky enough to make it all the way, but some were not and were left to kiss the ground as they get tossed in the air with no one to catch them. That’s gotta hurt, Thomas kept thinking. Man that has got to hurt when you’re seven feet high and just plop to the ground on your back or neck, ouch! He couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the people risking life and limb for a totally unsafe joy ride to the stage. He realized that the odds of making it all the way were about one in three. Enjoying the sideshow with some great tunes had made the situation tolerable. Thomas looked to the left and then to the right for more people riding the waves of hands. A quick look behind and BAM! Thomas immediately grabbed his nose.
“My nose! My nose!” He said. “Damn! Damn it!”
Blood poured out as he held it and uncontrollable tears had begun to flow from his eyes. As bad as it hurt though, he thought more about how embarrassing it was to look like he was crying.
“Ahhh, this sucks,” he mumbled as a little space formed around the unfortunate projectile that landed on his face and broke his nose. Thomas tried to focus with the endless supply of tears spilling from his eyes, and finally, after blinking twenty times in a row, was able to see. The projectile was a thin girl wearing a light pink hoodie, blue jeans, and black boots with extra thick soles, lying on her back laughing. The girl was helped up by a couple of drunken crowd members while she looked around to get her bearings. She saw Thomas covering his face while blood dripped down his hands and arms.
“Ohh my God!” She said. “Did my shoe do that?”
Thomas looks down at her boots, back up to her face, and simply nodded his head.
“I think my nose is broken,” he yelled out over the music.
The girl, still with a hood over her head, grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the crowd to the left towards a corral space reserved as the concert’s triage center. Another poor guy holding his nose was walking back into the mob of bouncing fans as they were leaving, so Thomas gave him a thumbs-up as they passed each other. A few people with staff t-shirts seemed to be prepared for injuries and had plenty of large gauze type bandages to hand out. One staff member gave the girl two and a cold bottle of water to help clean up the blood. They took a seat in the corral where the girl dropped her hood back, ripped open one of the bandages, and poured cold water on it. She proceeded to pluck Thomas’s hands away to see the extent of damage her shoe caused.
“Ouch, that looks like it hurts… I’m so sorry,” she said. “Try to stay still. I have a little medical training and I’m gonna clean up your nose, okay?”
Thomas was in awe as he noticed every detail of the girls face and skin. Again he nodded while the girl wiped away the blood from his upper lip. Her black hair was long, but she had it pulled back in three cornrows on the left side just above her ear. Thomas thought it looked really nice. It showed off her perfect ear, perfect nose, and perfect lips.
“What’s your name?” She asked.
“Thomas,” he replied.
“Well Thomas, I’m Juliandra and my friends dared me to try crowd surfing tonight, and I really thought that I was gonna make it all the way up to the stage. I guess I was wrong, huh?”
“Yeah, but you probably didn’t expect a giant nose to block your ride,” Thomas said as he tried to smile.
Juliandra giggled and continued to wipe his face. “Ahh… Well, your nose isn’t that big. I think my foot may have pushed it in a couple of inches so you’re not half bad looking now.”
Thomas chuckled and thanked her for the help as she unwrapped the second bandage and separated it into two pieces.
“It’s the least I can do, Thomas. After all, my foot has already made out with your face, so we’re practically dating, right?”
Thomas laughed causing his nose to start gushing blood again. Juliandra took the two pieces of gauze and held them out.
“I want you to keep your head back and put one piece of gauze in each nostril to stop the bleeding.” She said. “I’d do it, but I only go so far on a first date, and plugging nostrils is where I draw the line.”
Thomas took the gauze and proceeded to shove both pieces in his nose then turned to look at her and smiled.
“At least we can still enjoy the music from here,” he said. “I bet you didn’t think you’d be on a first date with someone that looked like this.”
“You’re right; I was hoping I would’ve landed on a big, ruggedly handsome man with gauze stickin’ out of a smaller nose.”
Both smiled and continued to talk for the rest of the concert as if the music was nothing more than a radio playing in the background. It took a while, but Thomas was finally able to remove the gauze and wipe his face clean which allowed him to continue the conversation with some dignity. He learned that Juliandra had driven to the Springfield Civic Center from Maine just as he did with his friends. She was studying to become a nurse, and currently doing clinicals at Eastern Maine Medical Center, but was thinking about working to help people break their addiction to drugs.
“I’ve seen the damage it does firsthand,” she explained, “and I’ve seen the hopes and dreams of my brother, Brighten, lost and forgotten. I just want to help people. Even if I can only help one person, you know?”
“I understand,” Thomas replied. “I came from a not so great family life where I was around people who drank morning, noon, and night, did drugs, and committed theft. Somehow, I came outta that okay and I try to teach kids good values through martial arts because it helped me a lot. I don’t like to drink and I’ll never use drugs. I just don’t believe they’re good for anyone.”
“You’re a good man, Thomas.”
“I try,” he said.
“Now, I just have one question…”
“What’s that?”
“Well, if you teach martial arts, shouldn’t you have seen my shoe coming? You know, ninja stuff, like poof! And you’re out of the way, then Hi-Yah!”
Thomas just laughed. “Well, I’m gonna have to work on my skills, no doubt about that.”
As the crowd thinned, the two parted ways to meet up with their friends, but agreed to regroup after the concert to talk more. A while later, Thomas walked into a local all-night diner to see that Juliandra and her three girlfriends had arrived first, and were sitting in a large corner booth waiving to him and his friends. He walked towards the booth and told the girls that he needed to get washed up in the bathroom and would be right back. After washing his face and hands, Thomas looked in the mirror and thought he was almost good as new, outside of the swollen nose and bloodstains riddling his shirt. He made his way out and over to the booth where the girls were laughing at something Richard said.
The questions really started to fly once they got past some awkward small talk, and after a few more laughs from Richard’s dorky comments, it turned out to be the best night of Thomas’s life. His broken nose was a small price to pay for the chance to meet such a wonderful girl. The more he learned about her, the more he wanted to know, and the more he just couldn’t keep his eyes away. How could someone so beautiful be so nice and awesome? He kept thinking.
Every girl he had ever dated up until that moment was a nightmare. He always expected one thing but got another, and was either friend zoned or used in some way by all of them. He remembered his thoughts drifting a bit that night as he reviewed some of the unsuccessful dating attempts from the past. One in particular named Audrey came to mind. She had asked to borrow his car, and he let her thinking it would score some points. Maybe it would lead to a date or something he thought. Unfortunately, when she returned the vehicle and thanked him, she started talking about how important it was to get a phone to her boyfriend before lunch.
That was the last time that ever happened. He went further back in time to remember another girl named Sean, an old co-worker, who would give him rides home because he didn’t have a car back then. She flirted with him throughout the day and they bantered back and forth constantly. One night when she drove him home, he asked if she wanted to kiss. She simply smiled and said that her boyfriend probably wouldn’t like that.
Wow! He thought. If you’ve got a boyfriend, why are you flirting with me every day?
He was too embarrassed to say anything as he opened the car door, got out, and walked away. It was the last ride home he ever accepted from a girl. His mind continued to go even further back. Second grade and Thomas was playing outside. It was free time during school and all the kids were running around, jumping rope, and playing kickball. He was kicking rocks around by a tree when a girl he had a crush on named Robin came right up to him.
“I heard from Joey that you liked me, Thomas.” She said.
“Yeah, I do.” He replied.
Robin put her arms down by her sides, took a breath, and loudly belted out “Well, I don’t like you!” Ouch!
His mindset shifted again to analyzing all those social failures and then suddenly his inner voice screamed out “Oh My God! Do I have some kind of complex from the past? Holy crap, I have to let this stuff go and move on!” Those bad experiences which made him all but give up on finding the perfect girl, that special one, that person you think you’re supposed to be with, your soul mate, are now in the past. The sound of Juliandra’s voice drew him away from his stray thoughts and made him forget about every other girl he’d ever met. The group’s conversation continued on for over two hours before everyone had paid and begun to make their way outside.
God, I hope this girl doesn’t have a boyfriend, he thought while walking out the door. Once in the parking lot he and Juliandra were pulled away by their friends, but each resisted to get a few last words in. Juliandra’s group was staying at a nearby hotel but Thomas and his friends had driven to the concert with the intention of going home that night.
A moment of awkwardness occurred and Thomas tried to get the nerve to ask Juliandra if he could call when she got back to Maine.
“Come on, Thomas, let’s go.” Richard barked out. “We’ve got a long ass ride ahead of us.”
“Hold on, hold on. I just wanna ask Juliandra a quick question.”
“Ohh, really? A quick question, Loverboy? Are you in love, Thomas? Ohh, that is so… Cute!”
“Umm, you guys can head to the car and I’ll catch up.”
Richard crossed his arms and stood firm.
“Uhh, no can do, bro. I have to hear this, so I can judge and make fun of you later. Make no mistake; I will judge you, and I will make fun of you. You may ask your question, sir.”
Thomas pushed him off balance. “Alright, asshole!”
He looked at Juliandra and took a deep breath.
“Juliandra, I was wondering if we could maybe umm…”
Richard interrupted, laughing, “Get it on! Ride the wave maybe?”
“Ahhh, you butthole! Shut up! GOD! You’re such a dink!”
Juliandra, also started to laugh then handed Thomas a card.
“My number’s on the back. I’d love to talk again. I’ll be back in Bangor on Monday, but won’t have any time until Wednesday. Just give me a call, okay.”
Thomas smiled and Richard started bumping him along continuing his laughter.
“You’re going to be a man someday, Thomas, I can feel it.”
He put the card in his pocket and looked at Richard.
“Well, you’re an asshole right now, Richard, and we can all feel it! Oooohhh, does it hurt? Ahhhwww.”