This Year

 Once again I find myself inside Revolution Hall, the high school-turned-concert-venue where I saw Henry Winkler talk exactly two years ago. This time I’m here to see beloved indie-rock legends The Mountain Goats perform. John Darnielle, the band leader, lived in Portland for a brief but potent time. Decades later his albums are still filled with references to the city.

It’s been pouring rain all day, and all the gutters between the bus stop and the concert venue are overflowing. I considered not using the scooter, but decided not to risk it. Not when I’m so close. 

So I cautiously wheel through the black puddles, moving slowly along the uneven sidewalks. Traffic is heavy and people are blasting through red lights and ignoring pedestrians, and by the time I get to the venue I’m soaked and exhausted and frazzled. 

I take the elevator upstairs and find that the woman at the door is someone I met years ago on a dating site. At least I think it’s her. I haven’t seen her in nearly twenty years, but she has a very distinctive body type –she has what I assume is a form of dwarfism- so I think it must be her. She doesn’t show any sign of recognition, and when she scans my ticket I tell her I have a seat reserved. She asks if I got an email confirmation and I say yes. She calls a man over and i give him my name and he leads me to a seat with my name on a sticker on its back. He says that tonight he’s seen the most special seating requests they’ve ever had. 

The accessible seats line both sides of the hall. I’m near the back, but it’s raised above the crowd, so I don’t have any trouble seeing. A rotund woman hobbles past me on a cane and takes the next seat over, unfolding a strange combination back brace/seat cushion to sit on. All through the show she waves and twists her manicured hands in front of her chest. Her shoulders are enormous, and covered with tattoos of stalks of grain.

The show is great - they play a bunch of songs off the new album, which I haven’t heard yet. It’s a concept album about three men shipwrecked on a desert island. Darnielle is as joyous as ever, playing as if he is exactly where he wants to be, doing exactly what he wants to be doing. The last time I saw him perform was six years ago, right after Jasmine died. I had sobbed uncontrollably when they launched into their trademark song. 

I am going to make it through this year

If it kills me

I don’t cry this time. Instead I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for being able to experience live music despite my limited mobility. A string quartet accompanies them -only at their Portland shows, he tells us- which provides extra vibrancy to the desperately defiant lyrics. 

I am going to make it

through this year

if it kills me

This time last year, I was getting patches of umbilical cord pasted onto my foot. The year before that, Henry Winkler was assuring me that I could do anything I put my mind to. I’d like to give him a piece of my mind. 

When it’s over I squeeze into the elevator with a family of fat, blissful fans, every one of them wearing Crocs and clutching an LP of All Hail West Texas. I cautiously make my way back to the bus atop, skirting ruts and bumping over uneven pavement slabs, skirting the deeper puddles, and nearly getting hit by careless drivers speeding recklessly through the night, thinking only of themselves and their own destinations, never considering the devastation they might leave in their wake.