I committed my first crime yesterday
to the sound of an old New Yorker
leaving dumplings atop the bar counter
for improvised piano and a shared smile
with the bassist on stage at midnight.
They’ve both got nice smiles, the music men;
I almost wonder if that’s a requirement
for show business.
It’s a loaded word, isn’t it? Show.
Tell me something that sounds more naked, looks more bare
despite the rehearsal,
the hair gel, banter, tired fingers
strung together, packaged as glamor.
Raw and stripped
despite tight collared shirts, stage curtains, and entrance fees.
Tell me something more oxymoronic than grinning cheeks,
how they confess
and in so doing
undo the elaborate surprise
yet hoodwink the eyes by disguising
any hurt or worry in photographs.
I had first heard the phrase in a news segment
about security cameras in China:
“It makes you feel like a transparent person.”
Not transparent like you were invisible and couldn’t be seen, but rather
like in looking past you, anyone could see everything in and about you.
The gravity of eyes watching,
like it could crush you.
It’s a one-way mirror, isn’t it? Show business.
Even if
I had tapped my foot in rhythm more perfectly
than perfect
there would be no sapphic spotlight
to flash on my corner seat. If I had snapped off-beat
to every single song,
nobody would have paid me any mind,
me in my wooden stool at the front of the audience
(the keyword being audience) because
it is simple: everyone comes
to see the show.
Everyone comes to become invisible.
And it is easy enough to believe that we are:
when the bartender scans the room for waving hands
without locking eyes with any one customer,
when the woman at the table next to me
knocks my lamp down with the tail-end of her coat
on her way to the restroom and does not even realize.
And still, we are not.
So, when the bassist begins a song I had mentioned liking the night before
and smiles in my direction, I begin to learn
that I am wrong—
that the opposite of show is audience
but the meaning of audience cannot be
invisible
because later that night, I am in a rush to go home.
In my haste, I forget to pay for my ginger ale, though
by the time I realize, I have already closed my front door.
I know I am wrong about invisibility
because the bartender thinks to call me,
ask me if I left the venue without paying,
and the bassist has to cover my drink.
Then, I know I am wrong about show business
because the bassist laughs at me
like I am there.
Scientifically speaking,
there isn’t really such thing as a one-way mirror.
The gravity of eyes watching,
like it could show you something.
Could show you a thing or two
about show business.