So we took the elevator down, but I guess instead of getting off at the restaurant floor, we got off on the auditorium floor. We were told by an usher that the acts were Kansas with a special guest, and that admission was free for all hotel guests.
Kansas were one of my first favorites, but Livgren and Walsh are no longer in the group and for that matter, am I sure that Williams or Hope or Steinhardt or Ehart still are?
That'd be nope on Hope and all the others. So I asked the usher who's playing lead guitar, and he said "The guy from UM. Steve Morse."
OK, then maybe. But this is not a hill to die on. I turn to Melanie and ask her "what do you think?" And she says, "could be fun. We can eat later."
So the usher pins some kind of electronic doohickey to our forearms and walks us to our seats. I look up and around as we follow. I see in the darkness three levels of loggia high above, and here on the ground floor, about 75 rows of adjustable grey cloth seating, divided sharply into pie slices, right, left and I guess orchestra, they call it. Red points of what look like laser light everwhere, to my sides and upstairs and fixed in the indistinct black of the ceiling a vast distance overhead. But they're probably just indicator lights for Important Equipment, I think.
Nice place. It reminds me of the old JL Knight Center in Miami.
We're in the first 15 rows on the left, and with a whoosh of his spidery hands from the usher we sit down.
The special guests were a progressive hip hop act, and Mel and I sit politely through it. I think, they're strangely genteel, and the time passes without too many thoughts of the pan-seared tuna in our future.
Then Kansas starts and things start to get weird. The band--none of whom I recognize, but that may not mean anything--are all wearing jerseys with numbers and the name of a city across the back. At least two of the jerseys say "ATLANTA" Another one reads "CHARLOTTE." They've begun with "No One Together," definitely not a burner. Melanie gets antsy and decides to leave. But she leaves her stuff behind.
Everyone's standing up by now, and I can't see the stage. I try to maneuver myself within the crowd, but I'm constantly waylaid by ushers asking to see the device pinned to my forearm. And I'm constantly frustrated. I can't see the band!
Finally, I take the bold step required and strip down to my underwear. It will help me negotiate this damned crowd. I try to worm myself across to the center section. But at that point, I realize I've made a grave mistake. Stupid me. I've got to have clothes on if I'm going to watch this show.
So I weave my way back to the left section where I'd been. I find my button-down shirt, but no sign of my pants. Melanie's stuff is there, too, and I grab her ankle length denim skirt and put it on. "These days no-one will care," I think. "Anyway, it'll be like a kilt."
Now things are getting rowdy. A light show has started--they WERE laser points! and the space inside the large auditorium has become a crazy cat's cradle of crimson yarn. The band has broken into a cover of Iron Maiden--or is it Judas Priest? The fiddler--who is not Robbie Steinhardt--is sawing away in battle with the guy I now asssume is Morse. Back in the left section, I look across and make eye contact with three teenaged kids. They mouth something indicating their rabid approval and I respond in kind. Then they notice my skirt and they break out in collective laughter.
Ignoring this wound for as long as I can, directing my gaze back to the stage, I wonder with only half my mind on the problem, is that Kerry Livgren after all? A black bandanna covers some of the guy's balding pate, and he's got a white mustache, whoever he is.
But goddamnit, my dream has a new focus now, and the show ends. What's now important is that I get out of this suddenly inappropriate skirt. Those kids were laughing. I ask an usher about Lost and Found, and I wander around this auditorium level, over its short-cut designer carpeting, in its frigid air, a little bit until I find a young woman with a purple barrette clipped to her short green hair who smiles prettily as I tell her my story. Somehow during the show I lost my pants and I had to put on my GF's skirt.
But then she lays into me as an irresponsible boor, and as a rowdy thug. She takes especial offense at my Iron Maiden fandom, and my choice to interact with those 15-year old kids.
"I don't even know them!" I protest. "And they thought my skirt--Melanie's skirt!--was funny. C'mon. Help me out. Have a heart."
Not happening. Her eyes wander away to other tasks, and I wander away myself, seething with the Maslovian need to somehow get out of this bluejeans skirt. Fortunately, there's a JC Penney on the same floor as the auditorium. If I can't find my pants, I'll buy some replacements.
I'm waiting in checkout, the denim hems of Mel’s skirt brushing the tops of my bare feet as I hop slowly in place, Levi's in hand, when I realize that . . . . my wallet was in those pants.
I drop the jeans with their oversized tags, and realize as I exit the store that I'm gonna have to get those Lost and Found people to play ball. Walking quickly through the thinning crowds, I don't manage to find the green-haired gal, but I do find an older woman in a polyester pant suit who is as helpful as the young lady with the cute barrette had been obstructive.
The dream focus is on the wallet now, so she asks me how many items I thought were in the thing when I lost it. "You see, that's how they organize the things they find." If my wallet had 1 - 10 different things in it, it'd be one door over. 11 - 20, two doors. Et cetera et cetera.
I guess at about 40. I'm always putting receipts for tobacco and gas in my wallet, and never removing them . . . .
The kindly lady nods her head and I hurry off, to find my wallet, so I can buy some pants, before I find Melanie, so I can go to dinner before we leave Toronto.
And there the dream ends, and I wake.
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