The Air Bands

For a considerable portion of my career as a fourth grader, I had no friends. Let me explain.

Prior to this, I was friends with a circle of girls I had known since kindergarten.

They were the only people in my age group I had ever built social bonds with. I guess you could say I was a very optimistic child with little to no doubts in humanity as I knew it.

Every year our school had a lip singing competition called "The Air Bands." Students would get into groups, choose a popular song, and perform their acts in front of the whole school in hopes of earning a winning title, and having it announced over the P.A. system the following morning. Winning The Air Bands was like winning a Grammy.

A couple of us decided to sign up together. We were going to perform a song by Janet Jackson called "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" from a cassette tape I found (stole) in my older sister's room. Every day at lunch, we signed out the school's cassette player and rehearsed our act. In other words, we spent the entire lunch period doing the running man.

With our choreography on point, the show was one week away, but upon my arrival at school one morning, I couldn't find my friends. Anywhere.

They weren't on the playground.

They weren't on the soccer field.

They weren't at the baseball diamond.

How could they all have simultaneously disappeared?

And then I spotted them. They were all gathered together in a circle by the sandbox. Relieved that I had found them, I frantically began running in their direction.

"I was looking everywhere for you!----"

At the sound of my small voice, their heads whipped in my direction. Leaving a cloud of dust behind, they began sprinting in the opposite direction. At first I thought they were playing around -so I started laughing while continuing to chase after them.

They ran from one corner of the playground to the next, over the soccer field, around the baseball diamond and back to the sandbox -repeatedly.

After the third lap around the school yard, I came to the realization that they were not playing with me. They were, in fact, running from me.

The rest of the morning proceeded this way. When we returned back to our classroom, they would only look at me through their peripherals while occasionally glancing at each other and giggling savagely. By lunch time, I was hoping our rehearsal session would smooth things over -but it only got worse.

"We're not gonna do the Air Bands with you anymore. Sorry." Said one.

"Yea. Sorry." Said the other.

In that moment I thought my eyes were going to burst out my head -pouring out all the salty tears my small body had the capacity to carry -but I didn't.

Instead, I said:

And slowly walked away.

You see, I didn't want to upset them more than I already had. And since I didn't know what I had done, I decided to stay silent and simply agree with their terms in order to avoid further conflict.

That lunch hour was the longest of my life. At one point, I thought my watch was broken. The hands were moving painfully slow. I had never spent lunchtime alone before. I didn't know what to do, or where to go. I decided to pace around the entire yard until the hour was up. Eventually, it was.

The remainder of my week proceed this way, until one night, at the dinner table, I couldn't contain my pain any longer.

"How was your day?" my Mother asked.

And just like that, my eyes burst out of my head.

"MY FRIENDS... NOBODY....NO AIR BANDS...MY FRIENDS...NOBODY..."

My mom began petting my head as she attempted to decode my dramatic sobbing. While snorting mucus back into my body, I explained to her the strange behavior of my friends, and how I had no one to perform The Air Bands with anymore. After a long pause, my mother spoke:

"Why don't you perform alone?"

"By myself?" I questioned.

"Yes. Why do you need to do it with anyone else? If it's that important to you, why do you need other people to do something you love? The show must go on!" She concluded.

As the sheer wisdom of her words flooded over my fresh psyche, I suddenly muted my crying and seriously considered the thought as a potential solution to my dilemma.

The next day was Friday. With my new found wisdom, I marched up to The Air Bands sign-up sheet. I chose a new song: Micheal Jackson's "Billie Jean" (Hee-Hee!) from another cassette tape I found (stole) in my older sister's room, and signed my name as a proud solo artist. While doing so, I also noticed the girls had signed up to perform a different song too -Ice Ice Baby, by Vanilla Ice with a boy from my class who was known to be strung out on Ritalin.

That weekend, my mother helped me put together an M.J. costume, a sparkly glove, fedora, white socks and all. I rehearsed until my little feet couldn't rehearse anymore.


Soon enough, it was show day. The girls took to the stage and performed their own version of Ice Ice Baby alongside the Ritalin boy. While doing the running man, I realized they were even using our original choreography. But that didn't matter to me anymore.

Then, it was my turn to take the stage.

My legs began trembling as I walked up the steps. As I waited for the music to start, I could hear the base of my heart beating desperately out of my chest as if to say, "Run while you still can! This is a bad idea! They're all gonna laugh at you!"

In an instant, the pounding base of the music drowned everything out, and the finesse of Micheal Jackson took over. I began gliding across the stage, performing my own rendition of the moon walk, and signature M.J. spin. In that moment, I felt like the entire room belonged to me. As I glided and spun continuously, I began taking pauses with my movements to scream "Hee-Hee!" I was having fun, and for all I cared, everyone who didn't want to be my damn friend anymore could go fuck themselves.

I went home that afternoon feeling amazing. I didn't care if I had won or lost at that point -to me- I was already a winner. The next morning, following the national anthem, the winners were announced over the P.A. system. And yes indeed, I was one of them. I came in first. Bitch.

In that moment, I couldn't wait to see what else my future had in store.

There will come a point in everyone's life, when we feel like we don't have anyone. This feeling can strike us at any moment. What matters is -not who is absent- but that we always find the courage to take the stage of life alone. Because no matter what, the show must always go on.

Have a nice day.

xo Mel