Zach and Ingrid carry my cases off after I get things unloaded, and in my calm-before-the-storm state, I get everything plugged in and connected in a matter of minutes. By then, a few people on the floor have noticed me moving around up in the booth, and some of them are even calling out my stage name.
“Chanly! Chanly! Chanly!”
My name. The name I gave myself. The first choice I made that was truly mine.
It gets louder and louder until almost everyone in the room is screaming the same thing, and maybe the drunk frat boys slapping each other with pool noodles in time with the chant don’t really know what they’re saying or why they’re saying it, but I don’t care.
This crowd is mine.
They came here looking for something, and I’m going to give it to them. They’re a swelling sea of faces in front of me, and I’m the one who turns the tides. I tell the waves which way to break.
I cut off the track from the bar’s playlist that’s pumping through the speakers and let everyone’s screams for more fill the silence for a second. I can feel the anticipation in the air. It lifts the hairs on the back of my neck, sparks in my veins like wires on overdrive.
Then I drown out the noise with a loud, long siren. A strobe light streaks the crowd in flashing white light. I throw my head back, eyes closed and face tilted to the ceiling in something close to a prayer as my hood slips off my head and my fingers start the show these people came for.
This is home. This is family. The faceless animal in front of me that writhes to the rhythm of my sound is all I need. This is the connection I crave. This is the fire I feed so it can fuel me too.
This is the only piece of me the world is going to get.
