On 89 Guest St, there is a venue called Roadrunner. When I looked it up in the Uber, ignoring the images on purpose so that I might still be surprised, I learned it is New England’s largest general admission venue. Until then, I had been expecting something small, dingy, and maybe a little Western. Suddenly, I was worried the crowd might be too overwhelming. But when the Uber driver dropped me off in front of the venue, mumbling something that sounded like “have fun” before he drove off, and I saw it in person, I remembered just how small New England actually was.
The white, glowing Roadrunner sign lit up the dark street just enough for me to cross it without worrying about getting caught up in the front bumper of someone’s car. Just under the marquee, which read Tonight // Thee Sacred Souls // 7 p.m. Doors, a line formed alongside the building.Â
I took my place in line behind two women. The woman on the left looked vaguely like my best friend; she wasn’t, of course, but the illusion made me want to talk to her. Together with the woman on the right, who was slightly taller, they looked like the ghosts of a precious memory. When they laughed or bumped shoulders, I felt like they might be a hologram projecting a moment from my past right in front of me, like someone had set this all up. That, or they were the precursors to a horrible nightmare.
Their smiling faces made me unwillingly acknowledge the space next to me. It seemed so obvious, so loud against the buzzing conversations around me. I considered calling my friend, the one whose silhouette was seemingly just ahead of me but decided against it. Instead, I looked over my shoulder at the people behind me and searched desperately for someone who, like me, had come alone. When there weren’t any, I thought about pad thai and the Paper Tiger.
I was fifteen when my best friend (the real one) whispered across the space between our desks in English class that tickets for Omar Apollo at the Paper Tiger were going for $50. I told her it was too expensive, to which she rolled her eyes. I laughed quietly and agreed to go. The venue was so small you could easily have driven right past it if you hadn’t been watching the windows like we were. Pure excitement, that’s what I felt then. We knew every song, but when the best ones came on, we would slap each other’s arms and jump around like kids. We might have been the only people with big, sharpie-drawn Xs on the backs of our hands. When it was over, we sat outside in the warm air, shared food truck pad thai, and pretended we were older.
The warmth of the memory made me feel like I owed it to myself to have a good time. I couldn’t have known all the details back then—that I would be wearing blue, that it would be a Sunday, that the Uber would be $13.95. But fifteen-year-old me had hoped I would find myself in the very spot I was in: twenty-something, living alone in the city, and in line for something exciting. She wanted it desperately, and here I was wallowing in it.
By the time I made it inside, the stage was already glowing red and covered with instruments. People sipped on their drinks and held each other, swaying to the soft music playing over their heads. I watched the band play the familiar first notes of the song, “Lucid Girl.”
There was a girl who wanted change
Something different from what she knew
One day she had to choose (had to choose)
The world and all its views (all its views)
Our whole world and that’s how she flew
Closing my eyes, I just let myself be alone. Completely and utterly alone.
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