The way some of the curtains in some of the campus classrooms hung, powerlessly, like on the gallows, resigned to their eternal hanging fates, broke my heart. And the fluorescent lighting throughout many of the public rooms seemed to bring into harsh, stark relief all the sadness and ugliness and barbarism and pain that ever was, in the millions of years of the history of civilization.
I would hold myself together during soundcheck, and then afterward I would saunter off to some quiet, relatively hidden space — behind one of the tall, thick, floor-skimming industrial curtains shading the big long glass windows behind the stage in the auditorium at Brandeis, for example, or lying down under the table in the small classroom being used as a dressing room at Amherst — and just sob. Chest-heaving, face-drenching, hour-long uncontrollable epic bawlfests. I would wait until my guys were off exploring the campus or going to find dinner so I could do my crying in private in the dressing room. Or if I happened to be in the auditorium, I would make sure, before I cried, that no ticket holders had been let in yet and couldn’t catch me in the act, with splotchy cheeks and snot dripping off my chin.
Once in a while, one of my guys from the tour would find me and would rub my back for a minute or ask if I needed anything, and offer unspoken sympathy. I wanted to explain what I was going through, but I couldn’t explain and I felt there was nothing anyone could do to help me, anyway.
At Amherst, I went outside and had a walk around the campus after load-in. The air seemed heavy, pressing on me from all sides, like I was under deep ocean water. My mind kept repeating, “The world is a dark and lonely place. The world is a dark and lonely place.” I found a wooden bench along a brick walkway among some bushes and under a tree. I sat down, looking out over a grassy hill that led down to a soccer field.
I felt as if I was made of very thin glass. I was afraid that the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees might knock me off my bench and send me falling to the bricks, shattering into a million tiny shards.
A twig landed on my pant leg. A spider scurried up its web between two bushes next to me to check on the bug it had snared. A grackle squawked and I winced. Nature’s sounds and stirrings went on harmonizing discordantly at full force, broadcasting their harsh indifference to my wretchedness.
It was very clear to me at that moment: the night falls and the day breaks and they don’t stop for anyone. And sometimes a baby bird falls from its nest before its little wings ever have a chance to fly, and it’s dragged away to some shaded spot where, before long, its bones and feathers and black sunken eye-holes are covered in leaves, and forgotten, as if it had never even existed.
How could I get up onstage and sing “Spin the Bottle” knowing all this?
Through the looking glass
I became fixated on windows. There was a lot of downtime spent waiting, hanging around before and after soundcheck and before and after the show, while equipment was being set up and broken down, and while opening bands were playing. I began spending all of my spare time studying the windows in the campus buildings we were stationed in each night. The first thing I would do as soon as I came upon a new window was to see if it opened, and if it did, how and how far. Some didn’t open at all. And some opened wide enough for a person to fit through. I would nestle myself as comfortably as I could right up next to the glass and gaze out, pondering what would happen if I jumped and hit the ground below. I envisioned the blow knocking me unconscious, and thought how wonderful that would be. How wonderful it would be to sleep, I mean, and to not wake up for an extended period of time, until my depression had lifted.
“I’m gonna do it. Now, tonight. I’m gonna,” I thought, every night after the show, as the others were packing up the gear and I waited in the dressing room, looking from my chosen window out at the ground. But every night I would lose my nerve. I would worry: I could break my neck or my back and then wake up paralyzed, if I woke up. What if I died? I didn’t want to die. There was no question about that. I just wanted to feel better, and in my severely depressed, muddled head I honestly believed that the only way for me to make this happen was to jump out of a window.
