First and foremost, don’t panic, baby girl. And please understand that it’s not your fault—you aren’t in this situation because you’re young and dumb, or because your already-questionable decision-making has been dulled by the crumbled-up mushrooms you took in the Porta-Potty out in the parking lot before the show, or because you ditched your girlfriends and joined the stampede to the stage with thousands of others when those first chiming notes rang out; no, sweetheart, the blame lies squarely at the feet of the concert promoters who cared more about selling tickets than about crowd density, and in the hands of the lax, lazy Rent-a-Cops hired to provide a thin veneer of security, and in the startling lack of suitable points of egress at the venue where your favorite band is currently playing. And yes, you did miss a golden opportunity to escape this chafing squeeze of sweaty bodies when that loudmouthed group of college boys behind you abruptly quit taking turns groping your ass to make a group trip to the restroom five minutes before the show started—Chad, Brad, Craig and Greg would’ve served as an effective phalanx, a four-headed, backwards-capped plow that could’ve helped you tunnel out of this heaving mass of hips and shoulders. But it’s too late for all that. You have melted, little snowflake, and now you are but one drop of water in the turgid, curdled human ocean.
Your main goal right now should be to stay upright—losing your balance in a crowd this thick is how people get trampled, crushed, asphyxiated, and besides, do you really want the last thing you ever see to be a dense thicket of cuffed Dickie’s 874s above dusty Vans and Doc Martens? Of course not. So hold your fists up in a boxing stance so that your rib cage doesn’t get crushed. If you can’t get your hands up all the way, crossing your arms across your chest will serve the same purpose; just try not to think about how much this makes you look like your mother, this being the same pose she struck to register her profound disapproval as you brushed past her on your way out the door and made a beeline straight to the back seat of your best friend’s Toyota Supra, which must have looked, to your mother, like a clown car bursting at the seams with bad influences. Well, joke’s on Mom, because right now those bad influences are probably off chasing each other around the unoccupied seats in the venue’s upper deck or being shaken down for ten-dollar water bottles, twenty-dollar glow sticks at the merch tables in the concourse, while you are getting endlessly jostled, shoved, and bulldozed in this now-roiling sea of strangers. And please trust that whenever a flying elbow, fist, knee, or bootheel adds to your body’s running tally of bruises, welts, scrapes, and contusions, it will be mighty tempting to return the favor. Consider, instead, adopting a more Zen-like approach: go with the flow, melt down into water, let the crowd sweep you off your feet and carry you where it wants. You came here to float, right? On music, on drugs, on air—the whole point of this show was for your Doc Martens/Converse to never touch the ground.
This isn’t to say you should be totally passive. See that crowd-surfer, just in front of you, riding a wave of outstretched hands? Yeah, he’s actually unconscious. Will you do him a solid, and help pass his limp body along, toward some haven where he can receive the medical attention he needs? This same fate could very easily befall you, so keep your head on a swivel towards any escape opportunities, such as thinner pockets of people, or fences and poles you could climb, your eyes in search of freedom. There, on your left—what is that, a security barrier? Quick, ooze your battered body into that tight opening. Now to just find a foothold—is all concrete this slippery? If only you were just a little bit taller—another three inches or so and you could’ve hurled yourself up, over this obstacle. Your mother always said that if you didn’t stop drinking so much Diet Coke, and smoking cigarettes, you’d stunt your growth. Maybe she’s right. Maybe you’re doomed to be five-foot-nothing. Or maybe you’re just doomed, period. Intrusive thoughts like this will be difficult to keep out of your oxygen-deprived brain as your body is pressed up against this unyielding slab by the dozen or so people leaning against you for support, pushing against you as they’re pushed against, etc. You will open your mouth to cry out, only to discover that your voice has been crushed into you, and you will strain to hear the music but there will be no more music, just howling noise piling into another unscalable wall. The only voice coming through clarion-clear will be in your head, and it will belong to your mother: I told you so, she will be saying, through lips as tight as a pair of crossed arms. Even though I never said the words out loud. You knew that I knew about the mounded pillows under your comforter, and all the bottles you’d refilled with water in the liquor cabinet. Just like I knew that you knew that nothing I could’ve done that could’ve stopped you from believing you were invincible. All I could do was keep my mouth shut and hope for the best while you wiggled your toes out over the abyss.
As dire as things seem, you do have one remaining option for survival. See the lead singer, up there on stage, who is suddenly only about as far away from you as one of the posters thumbtacked to your bedroom wall? Did you realize that he’s been following your meandering path like a cartographer of misadventure through the standing-room-only section? Remember the interview you read, just last week, where the lead singer said that he likes to pick out one person in the crowd and deliver his entire performance to them, and that fixating on a single concertgoer during a show was what allowed him to forge a connection with the whole audience? Of course every single soul packed into this building probably feels like they’re the one receiving the full blessing of his attention, with every note he sings resonating with their deepest dreams and desires, but in your case, it’s true; although he will be standing at the mic with his head bowed in what must look like momentary meditation, an observance, a silent inner recitation, or a prayer as his band vamps on an instrumental solo behind him—he identifies as a “spiritual” person, in touch with some nebulously-defined inner faith, which his critics consider a Trojan horse for his obvious messiah complex—there can be no mistaking that he is staring straight at you, pinning you in place with his brown eyes. And while at this close distance he will seem somewhat ridiculous, with his feathered hair, over-jeweled fingers, and sweat-soaked pirate-collar shirt, reserve your disillusionment for a later time when every push and shove isn’t tightening the ratchet of your rib cage around your lungs, and your heart. Arrange your facial features into a rictus of suffering, but remain keenly aware that this man has made millions of knees buckle, and the line between agony and ecstasy is a thin one. You may find it helpful to mouth the words “HELP,” or “THIS HURTS,” or better yet, since the lead singer is a NAUI-certified Master Scuba Diver (another revelation from that recent interview—see, aren’t you glad you did your homework?), wrench one of your hands free and flash the international signal for “low on air” by making a fist, bringing it up to chest level, and giving a thumbs-up. (Note: in Scuba sign language, thumbs-up means “get me to the surface as quickly as possible,” not “everything is fine, I’m enjoying the show, you’re doing a great job, I have no complaints.”).
Whatever you end up doing needs to activate the lead singer’s never-quite-dormant hero syndrome enough to send him leaping off the stage—which, oh god, is higher up than it looks, hopefully he didn’t just turn his ankle in those black velvet high-heeled boots—while barking orders at security and pointing frantically in your direction. Don’t get discouraged if the yellow vests mistakenly haul the person next to you over the barrier first—it’s a chaotic atmosphere, and the crowd has been thrown into a frenzy by the lead singer’s decision to come down off his pedestal, so mistakes are bound to be made. Give security some grace; they’re mostly inexperienced, hot, tired, woefully underpaid, and only about half of them attended the lunch-and-learn on special event risk management offered by the venue (although you can trust that after today’s events, this training will be required, no exceptions). Eventually one of them—or perhaps more, it will be difficult to tell—will work their way over to you, slide their rough hands under your armpits, and haul you upward, the same way your mother used to yank you out of the McDonalds ball pit when you were smaller. And not a moment too soon, because by now blurriness will descend over your eyes like a heavy curtain, and your feet will fall fully asleep, but your body will be covered in hands, passing you on, palming you off, whisking you away. Then, one by one, all those hands will tumble from you until there is just a single pair, with one set of five fingers suctioned to your right shoulder, and another five woven loosely among the limp, clammy digits of your own left hand.
Blink the blurry curtains from your eyes and take in the lead singer’s stubbly, shiny cheek as he holds you in an awkward junior high sway. Quickly come to grips with the understanding that you have now become part of an ongoing performance, an impromptu micro-ceremony in which you will occupy an almost central role, so you will need to ignore any aspects of the moment that may keep you from playing your part, such as the lead singer’s startlingly small stature (he’s barely taller than you are!), his sour body odor (which isn’t entirely unpleasant!), the blood-shot whites of those brown eyes, and his stylish but threadbare clothes (that string, hanging off the sleeve of his sweat-soaked pirate shirt—if you pulled it, would the whole thing fall apart?). Instead, plaster a big, brainless smile on your face, bug out your wide, watery eyes, and nod along gamely as if you can hear every single word the lead singer is saying to you. Do not allow your gaze to wander to the other members of the band, marooned up on stage, grim-facedly grinding away at their instruments; do not glance back at the crowd you left behind at the barrier, a teetering stack of outstretched arms and open mouths, surging toward the two of you like a wave about to crash. In case you hadn’t already guessed from the hive of cameramen and photographers that has begun to swirl around the two of you, this moment is being captured for posterity, which means your face is going to be all over the Arts and Leisure section of the newspaper, the band’s commemorative tour video, and who knows, maybe it’ll even end up a lead human interest story on the local evening news, on the same channel your mom likes to watch on the little TV in the kitchen—meat spitting and popping in the skillet, noodles gurgling in the pot—on a night she’s not too exhausted to make dinner. You should be prepared to spend a good chunk of the rest of your life hunting down these images, corralling them into shoeboxes and scrapbooks, videocassettes and CD-ROMs, hard drives and clouds, where they will serve as visual aids for the improbable story you will tell at parties, on first dates, and during corporate icebreakers. I couldn’t breathe, you will say to these audiences. He pulled me out of the crowd and he held me, just held me. But you will always stop just short of saying that the lead singer saved your life. Nobody will die today—this will never turn into Cincinnati, Roskilde, or Astroworld—so in the years to follow you may find yourself second-guessing as to whether you were truly in danger. Maybe you were simply overwhelmed; maybe you missed your girlfriends; maybe you needed your momma. Maybe finding yourself alone while surrounded by strangers and losing control felt like the closest thing to dying. Maybe the lead singer sensed this, maybe he didn’t. Maybe that was why, as he folded you into a damp bearhug, you did the only thing that could make him understand: you flung your long skinny arms around his surprisingly compact torso and you hugged him right back—hard, so hard you could feel his ribs shift and pop beneath your touch, so hard his sweat-soaked shirt seemed like it might tear away like tissue paper, so hard that he released a gasp that mixed surprise, alarm, and delight. And as you tightened your grip, cinching your hands together midway down the too-prominent knobs of his spine, and as he signaled to the yellow-vested Rent-a-Cops to come and take you away, maybe that was why you thought suddenly, fondly, of your mother, and of the time she came up from behind and wrapped her arms around you as you struggled with a piece of butterscotch candy that had lodged itself in your throat—you couldn’t have been more than three or four years old at the time—and you remembered your mother’s clenched fists pressing into your sternum, forcing breath and life and pain and understanding into you, so that even in the most crowded room you could recognize true love when it caught you in its glare.