A Loyal Follower

I can’t keep up! I can’t possibly put all the words down about all the experiences, all the journeys—every time something worth documenting happens, every instants of enlightenment—cannot be captured. But that’s a good thing; that means that my life has been too hectic for me to take the time to sit stationary and blog about everything.
Therefore, I must pick and choose, and for those of you who’ve been on my e-mail mailing list and are now reading my blog, you know that I once wrote a poem called, “Picking and Choosing,” about this very thing. Having said that, I believe I’ve picked a good night to tell you about. It occurred the same night where I left off, when I was getting ready to go see The Derek Trucks Band at Buster's.

The show was advertised as starting at 8. But I knew from the last time I went that they’ll have you believe the show starts at 8 so they can have you hanging around buying beers, marked up 400% from what they’d cost in the store, for a couple hours. You don’t need a BA in Business (which I have actually) to figure that one out.
In retrospect, I should say: ‘I thought the show never starts when they say it is supposed to.’ Now I realize that sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t; that night it did. I also knew from the previous endeavor that there is a bus route which runs along Manchester St. (the street Buster’s is on) so I could actually take LexTran there. I knew because I had spotted some of those little blue “LexTran stops here” signs on some of the lamp posts the last time.
Leaving the house at ten till 7, I was hoping to catch the 7 o’clock bus and then downtown to switch buses, then onto Buster’s with time to spare. It must take more than ten minutes to get out to the bus stop from my front door because I missed the 7 o’clock bus. Or it may have been that weird thing that happens during the 7 o’clock hour where the busses skip a shift and the number of lines half because two routes become one “combo route,” they call it.
Either way, something happened because the bus didn’t come until twenty minutes till 8. Then once I had gotten on I wasn’t sure which bus to transfer to down at the transit center (bus station). I told the driver my destination and that I was hoping to get their by 8. He sort of scoffed and informed me that the route which ran along Manchester stopped running at 7 o’clock (which came as no surprise) and that the closest I could get to Buster’s at that time was the corner of High and Upper, which was just a few blocks from the transit center. “You stay on this bus,” he added.
But I t thought otherwise. Buster’s is at the western edge of downtown, I thought, so I need to go west, but not too far west; just before the point where West Main becomes Leestown Rd. Near Main and Jefferson, is where I need to get off. Convinced that the “Leestown Rd.” bus was the one I needed, I asked the driver to let me off so I could switch buses. He finally did reluctantly and I wheeled down the ramp and turned left. I sped in the direction of the “Leestown Rd.” bus but about halfway down the length of the transit center (which encompasses an entire block) I noticed that all the buses had already pulled away on their next loops. Doing a quick 180, I managed to make it back to the bus I had just gotten off of before it started out.
Realizing that I was coming back aboard, the driver lowered the handicap accessible ramp. “Change your mind?” he said with an incredulous sneer.
“Ahhh, I kind of have to….all the buses are leaving,” I retorted matter-of-factly.
High and Upper is indeed where I ended up getting off, which was still about a mile away from Buster’s and it was already past 8 o’clock, so I had to hurry. Unfortunately hurrying is not something I do; I can ill afford to run off the edge of a sidewalk or worse, get hit by a car. I mean, my power wheelchair is a beast—more than 350 lbs.—but it’d be obliterated like a piece of tin foil in a collision with a 2-ton vehicle.
Also, I stopped and peed. I pulled up into the rear entrance of Rupp Arena and got a container out, wedged it between my thighs, unzipped, position myself and let go. I really had my technique down. Some girls walked by during the voyeuristic deed, but I stayed focused on the task at hand.
I kept on. Turned off of High St., crossed Jefferson, onto Manchester. Manchester takes you down in to the distillery district, which is not a very well kept part of town. The sidewalks are cracked and uneven, street lights are seldom, many of the buildings are abandoned, marred with broken windows, weathered graffiti and rusty equipment or tools reminiscent of the type of business that used to be conducted there. At any given moment my path could have abruptly ended. At one point, there is an unguarded fifteen- foot drop off that looks like some unfinished city-engineer’s construction site. Needless to say, it’s a pretty treacherous stretch.
Then I heard the faint resonance of music playing, the indistinct sound of youthful chatter as patrons (smoker’s mostly) stood outside before going in; I had made it finally. By this time, it occurred to me that the show had already started, the opening band was playing anyway (it was almost 9). So right away I go to buy my ticket, which from my previous time to Buster’s, I knew you had to purchase tickets at the side door and then head back around front to enter. They never make it easy on you.
I’m all excited; these guys were one of my favorite bands, in my top three for sure! I had seen The Derek Trucks Band at least a half-dozen times, but that didn’t matter; they never play a song exactly the same way twice. In my opinion, which I know only reflex my own personal tastes and biases (that’s what makes it my opinion) Derek Trucks is one of the best guitarists—living or deceased—in any genre of music. Hands down. And I was just a moment away from forking over 25 bucks to be captivated by him and his foursome, yet again.
Then suddenly my stomach rose as I went off the edge of a curb and before I knew it, my chair had toppled off the sidewalk and landed hard sideways on the pavement with me in it. I’m strapped in, so of course I hit the deck too! In the blink of an eye there are concerned people all around, coming to my aid. Someone I know asks me if I’m alright. They raise me up. My hands are burning, scuffed from breaking my fall; better my hands hit first than my teeth.
My initial concern is my glasses; Got ‘em,” someone says and reaches them up from the ground. Then I do the check: WALLET, PHONE, CIGARETTES, LIGHTER; all accounted for. And I’m fine. My wheel chair seemed to be fine. I go down like a champ (that’s a joke, sexual reference).
But then I became overcome with anger and embarrassment so I felt the need to start bickering to whoever was within earshot: “Goddamn!” I said. “I can’t believe there’s no lights out here. They ought to have this step better marked, roped- off, something; somebody could really get hurt.” I wasn’t done yet. “And I hope nothing happened to my chair in that spill, otherwise I’ll be calling The Heavy Hitter.(a prominent injury-attorney’s tv nickname).”
Apparently, that’s all it took; not a minute later an employee of Buster’s came out to “check” on me and to console me. He said that I was right; that there did need to be either better lighting around the building or that the curb should be better marked. But on the other hand maybe it was my fault for not paying better attention. Either way, the guy kept reiterating how sorry everyone was that it had happened. Then he handed me a free ticket to the show.
“Awesome.” I casually remarked. “If I’d have known that all I had to do to get free stuff was risk bodily harm, I’d do it more often.” I was joking, of course, but you gotta be able to find the humor in any situation. Otherwise what’s the point?
And about the show: it was a double-shot of sweet. As always, the music was fantastic. Derek Trucks is like a machine; he’s doing all these very skillful things with his guitar, playing all these intricate scales, all the while he’s as cool as a cucumber, his face is expressionless. What can I say? I’m a sucker for virtuosity. Also the show was free; I’m a big fan of Free.

*Here’s a poem that I wrote about a year-and-a-half ago about another guitarist favorite of mine:

Grant Green

Grant Green plays a mean 6-string
jazz guitar—the likes of which no one’s ever seen
effortlessly gliding up and down his maple neck
virtuosity…fluently locating each fret
clear, undistorted tones make living in shadow seem satisfactory
music that speaks to the depths of the soul
cries and licks in listener’s earlobes invoke tears, giggles
squeals that bring one’s knees to the ground
sounds fostering divine guidance
defining mastery
defeating misery
disguising depression
improvisational majesty
allocating pleasure through painstaking dedication
providing joy, temporary happiness
in notes, in places as hard…
as the calluses on Grant Green’s fingertips.