The fix

There obviously was no need for anyone to bring a set of needles to a poetry slam in the middle of nowhere; let’s be clear about that. But if, for some unfathomable reason, someone had brought said set of needles and dropped one of them, then you would definitely have heard it. No one said a word. It can’t have been silent for more than four seconds, to be clear. But for Jamie, it must have seemed like an eternity. And so he stood there, on stage, waiting for salvation, all the while nervously trying to do something, anything with his hands that were still visibly shaking.

It had been a long journey. Seven months ago, during a night out, Jamie confided in me by telling me about his constant feeling of not being heard, of not being seen. I had some trouble understanding that, because from where I was standing, he couldn’t have been more wrong. If there was a social gathering and he took part in it, you could be sure that there were always people who wanted to talk to him. If you heard him crack a joke, it would land, most of the time. And even if it didn’t, he had this charming way of dealing with defeat that you couldn’t help but laugh, nonetheless. Being around him was simply a good time. Sure, he was also the guy who was repeatedly told by girls he liked that he was like a brother to them, but still, people definitely heard and saw him. And they liked what they saw and heard.

Due to those particular reasons I honestly didn’t quite know how to respond at first and some part of me also thought (or should I say hoped?) that this was just a fleeting moment, a spontaneous identity crisis maybe brought on by a bit too much weed that evening and the fact that we had just started our last year of high school and no one had any idea what the flying fuck they were going to be doing one year from now. Some part of me was certain that he wouldn’t even remember having talked to me. It wouldn't have been the first time. But he did.

We had known each other since elementary school. Not a summer holiday had gone by without us both wasting away the days and evenings, trying not to be bored to death, playing video games, skipping stones on the lake near our small hometown, concocting an absurd amount of fantasy stories and flights of fancy, and generally just dreaming of a future in some big city where there was actually stuff to do… things like that. I probably knew him better than he knew himself, and I would have been a lousy friend had I not decided to take him seriously in this moment of need. So I came up with a plan.

The plan involved the one social event our hometown organized that actually was worth a damn: the yearly poetry slam. It had started small, with very few people in the audience, but it had grown into something much bigger over time. By now, there was even a livestream that broadcast the event to anyone interested online, and last year, thanks to a social media team that seemed to be very good at what they were doing, a record was broken when an unprecedented number of 8.000 people had tuned in.

My thinking was simple: I wanted to put Jamie on stage. Bring out the best in him. Make him realize that there was an audience he didn’t even know about that liked him and appreciated his thoughts. I intended to drown his identity crisis in applause. I was certain it would work. He had never shied away from talking to people, played several main roles in school plays, and most importantly, he had something to say. He just hadn’t realized all this potential that lay within him. But now he would.

When I proposed this plan to him in a double-dare sort of way and tried to sweeten the deal by suggesting that if he actually did what I proposed, the next three trips to our favorite fast food place would be on me, he was more willing to follow my lead than I had expected in advance. Mind you, he made it abundantly clear that it would not work. That if people applauded him, it was probably just to be polite, and that, compared to all the other people participating, he just couldn’t compete, plain and simple. Nonetheless, he wanted to try, even if it was just for the fast food.

For some months, he didn’t talk about the slam at all. And then, all of a sudden, he didn’t talk about anything else anymore. Not only that, he also didn’t dream about anything else anymore. And whenever he conversed, dreamed, or thought about it, there was only ever one outcome: It would fail spectacularly. He would be booed off stage. Only to spite him, people would produce clips of the most disastrous parts of his slam and upload them to social media, where they would then go viral, leading to no one ever taking him seriously again. The sheer onslaught of ways in which he could fail that his imagination came up with was honestly overwhelming, and, to him, all true.

During all of that, I tried to be the voice of reason. Heavy emphasis on "tried“. No matter how often I told him that things were going to be fine, no matter how often I suggested to him that he could just practice with me as the audience and that I was going to be very honest with him, no matter how often I referred to one particular slammer that had spectacularly tanked last year and still hadn’t felt any repercussions that even came close to the horror stories Jamie envisioned – there was no getting through to him. I began to feel like I was part of the problem.

So I finally decided to tell him that I would be there, no matter what, and that if he intended not to appear at the open stage event, I would never mention it again if he didn’t want to. It would be our little secret; no one needed to know. He seemed relieved. And then, to my surprise, he showed up anyway.

He was amazing. Yes, if you knew him closely and decided to look for signs that showed how nervous he was, you could see them. But the overwhelming majority of the audience would not have noticed it, because he had presence. He had a purpose. He had something to say, and he wasn’t going to leave the stage before the deed was done. Next to me, there was a girl who was visibly hanging on to his every word, sitting on the edge of her seat. One row in front of me, I saw an older woman reaching for a handkerchief, wiping a tear from her eye, obviously feeling spoken to in some way. Behind me, I heard someone murmur: „Who is that guy? He’s GOOD!“ Adding to that, I obviously couldn’t help myself and took a few glances at my smartphone, where I had the livestream open, on mute, and saw the chat erupt with heart emojis, several instances of people typing “Word“ or something to that effect, with my favorite remark being made by a user going by the moniker “indianabones“ who typed: “I'm sharing this with anyone I know. More people need to see this.“

I cannot stress enough how competent Jamie appeared on stage. And how clever it all was. I couldn’t for the life of me even come close to it. It might be something that strictly belongs in the category of “You just had to be there“, but what he said about our generation, how the pandemic shaped our life and thoughts, how tough it was to grow up in an America that was a nation divided instead of being indivisible – well, when you hear me say it it likely sounds like some boring, uninspired and run-of-the-mill babble about feelings by some random millennial. But it so wasn’t.

I already mentioned the silence. That was the first sign of what had happened. Everybody needed some time to process, to realize that it was over, to come to terms with the fact that this magical moment we had all been witness to had come to a close. What followed next was an even clearer sign than that. Applause erupted, people stood up from their chairs, and when I looked around, I honestly couldn’t find a single person who didn’t look moved in some way. Looking at Jamie, it was pretty clear that he didn’t quite know how to handle it. He stood there like a deer in the headlights, taking turns smiling at the audience and looking around the room, probably hoping for an official to come on stage, thank him for his participation, and give him an easy opportunity to escape from the spotlight. But no such official appeared, so he finally decided to take matters into his own hands and left the stage with one final bow, cutting short the applause that would have surely gone on longer had he wanted it to.

He then proceeded to leave the building, likely wanting to get some fresh air. But I was familiar with this type of event, and so I knew that in a few minutes, the evening’s winner would be announced. I wasn’t going to let Jamie miss this. So I decided to search for him outside. I found him standing in the shadows near a dimly-lit street lamp, cigarette in hand, the hood of his hoodie pulled up so you couldn’t easily recognize him. I rushed towards him, still filled with glee because of what had just happened, immensely proud of my childhood friend and so very, unapologetically happy about the fact that my plan had worked after all, that Jamie had surely been fixed, that this was a person whose future had just brightened up significantly because he now knew his worth once more.

And that’s why, when he turned to face me all sullen-eyed, saying, “I told you. They were polite, but I messed it up big time, didn’t I?“ my heart broke into a thousand pieces.