MERCY IN PARIS

It’s February 6, 2017. I’m on stage at the Élysée Montmartre, this old music hall in Paris with ornate walls and ghosts in the balcony. Thirteenhundred French strangers are singing to me. I’m 43 years old and feeling like this wine in me is finally ready to drink, like my life as an artist is finally going to crack open. Under the stage lights, this gig doing poetry as the opening act for Rival Sons is good, the European run is humming in my bones.

The best live modern classic rock band, Rival Sons.

Pretend you’re me. You partied for a week straight, and now you’re tired of drinking. Running with the band in the mornings, sleeping better. You’re tired of pizza and not being able to use the bathroom on buses, tired of the night travel. But you have now learned a new skill: how to soak in a moment so it stays. You watch the band more, the crowd, and explore the city before sound check. I am going full sponge, soaking in this tour. I am soaking in the alleys and cool, sneaky bits of Paris. The band brought me out that night during their set and told the crowd it was my birthday at midnight. I love the way the crowd found it fun, not blandly withholding and reluctant in the sing-along; I remember them performing full blast at me. Some guy in the third row is doing harmonies. A woman near the crowd barrier is conducting. Rival Sons are behind me playing the base notes of happy bday. Cake comes out held by my friend Aimee Legrange. My buddy Howie Pyro is off to the side, cheering, housing pizza and Coke Zero.

The cake moment, Paris.

I’m 43 in 2017, and that night, I felt like I could live forever. All sadness was sweat outta my bod,y and I am only the other thing: a little joy antenna.

What I don’t know yet: That night, I’m going to be holding a stranger’s hand so tight my fingers will go numb. She’s going to shake so hard and terrified, I’ll feel it in my ribs. We’re both going to be so scared and we had just met.

First, I have to tell you about the goddamn sandwich incident.

Eight hours earlier, I’m jet-lagged and hungry backstage at the Élysée Montmartre. The backstage sandwich counter is tucked behind the green room—the kind of spot where crew and performers grab food between sound check and show.

This woman, Helen, is working the counter and looking at me like I personally invented every bad thing that’s ever happened. I am not sure why she is mad dogging me. Was I late for some announcement?

I hear her talking to her coworkers. She’s American. Maybe 35? I clocked her accent immediately, thought it would be a relief not to be squeezing out garbled French and wanted to chat. It’s nice meeting a fellow countryman in a foreign country—unless they’re a drunk turd. She was not drunk, but she was so awful and mean. Helen’s working the counter with the energy of someone who wishes she were anywhere else.

“What do you want?”

It’s not a question. It’s a door slamming on my fingers.

I try to be friendly. “Hey, what’s good?”

“Why weren’t you listening when I read off the menu items for the 20th time?”

“I’m sorry, I missed what you said. I was in the bus cleaning up.”

“Which one do you want?”

“What are the options?”

She got hella mad. I thought maybe it was playful, flirty mad. It wasn’t. She was like Boston mad.

Here’s the story I wrote in my head: She must hate touring musicians. Or Americans squeezing into Paris, trying to smoke cigarettes and put bread in their bicycle baskets and play cool for a night. Or maybe she hates me specifically—thinks I’m a typical rock singer with an attitude, doesn’t know I’m just some poet opening for a band. Maybe she’s the kind of person who gets off on small power trips, hates her tiny, expensive apartment, hates her aloof French friends, but can’t go back home in shame. Hostile sandwich lady trying to fit in with the French, pissed at typical American arrogance. I just wanted my designated sammich. I thought about walking away hungry. I waited till she left. Grabbed a wrap. It was a weird burrito. Burrito’s shouldn’t be mostly lettuce. It’s in the Bible.

Here’s where I learned something: The stories we tell ourselves about strangers are just that, stories. We make them up and believe them like facts, but we don’t have any real intel. I carried that sandwich encounter through soundcheck like a stone in my pocket. Right before the band starts, I’m backstage trying to make someone laugh—my pre-show ritual.

“Yo, that sandwich lady today was insane. She was so mean. I wonder if Paris makes you mean?” It was either Dave or Scott or Jay that said, “Hey, go easy on that one.” Let’s say it was the singer, Jay, his voice softening.

“What? Why?”

“Well, Helen—she’s been through hell.” He pauses, decides how much to tell me. “The Bataclan. In 2015. The mass shooting. Three people came in to the Eagles of Death Metal concert and shot up the place. Killed 90 people, held the injured hostage for hours. She was there. Her boyfriend was selling merch, she was at the merch table. She made it out. Her boyfriend didn’t. He dove on top of her to save her life, took all the bullets. She just pretended to be dead. It’s so awful. Everyone here understands and supports.”

I could feel the air change around me. Here’s what happens inside my chest: this pettiness, this little anchor I’ve been carrying for hours, the fiction about the hostile sandwich lady, it cracks me open. I start crying in my dressing room. A woman for whom every crowd, every venue, every stranger approaching might as well be a possible attack. I think most hurt people aren’t trying to hurt you. Maybe they’re trying to survive the moment they’re trapped in.

I used to be a paratrooper. I’ve seen people who’ve gone through extreme hell. PTSD is something you approach, you’re supposed to approach like a bear gnawing it’s way out of a trap, and not something I have fully unpacked or fully understand. I heard someone say online that grief is like glitter. You shake it outta your hair, you wash your clothes and think it’s gone, but someday you find a little in your ear, in your pocket, under the tongue of your shoe.

Helen, me and Steph. (Sorry it’s the only pic I could find.)

But here’s the thing I need to tell you: I’m not always that merciful person. Sometimes it feels holy and correct to be an asshole back to someone who’s being an asshole to you. You can’t always lie back and take blows all your life, or you’ll die. The only thing I really learned is to figure out how to first have a moment of patience, a pause, and then stand up for yourself if someone is being a total turd. How do you know how long to wait? When someone is being a turd, say in an email, I have gotten really sound advice to not write people back who are unhinged and lashing out, even when my heart feels a lie theyre telling, or some injustice is going down. That advice has never been wrong.

Helen’s was obviously a story vastly different from the one I made up. I found Helen by the exterior bar, arms crossed, watching the bar crowd post shift. I approached her, still not sure what to say, so I just dumped the first thing that came to me.

“Hey Helen, I’m the sandwich guy. (ugh) I’m sorry about how all that went down at the sammich spot. I’m sorry I missed the menu.”

“That’s okay. I get a little wound up sometimes. Did anyone tell you…?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I also heard you like the band. Would you like to see the show? Backstage? Maybe... go into the crowd with me? No pressure.”

She paused. I was sure she was going to say no.

“Maybe. I really want to see them. Um. Could we go together? Could you protect me if something goes down? Could you hold my hand the whole time and get me outta there if I need to go? I’m so scared.”

I knew there was no way I could actually protect her if people came in with machine guns.

“Absolutely. I can protect you. I’ll be with you the whole time. Glued at your side. I used to be a paratrooper. I know how to keep my head on a swivel.”

My friend Steph showed up. I explained that she was considering seeing her first show since the tragedy. We both told Helen, “Only if you’re ready, and when you’re ready.” She nodded. “Let’s do this.” We took Helen by the arms into the concert hall. She was shaking at first—trembling not just in her hands but all the way into her bones. The smell of beer and sweat. Her grip was super tight, like she was in a dentist’s chair. I tried to hold still, tried to look big and strong. Steph was holding her arm sweetly, wrapped.

We didn’t share any words. Minutes passed.

Three songs in, I noticed Helen’s shoulders un-tense a little bit.

Four songs in, her grip loosened.

Five songs in, she let go and clapped.

Six songs in, she swayed. I think the song was “face of light.”

That sway was so beautiful. The way she swayed when Rival Sons played a semi-slow song is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is just stand still and let someone borrow your body as a shield. Partway through the set, near the end, we had this ritual where we all came out: Howie Pyro, me, Rival Sons, and bowed on stage. Usually, I’d stand off to the side by Dave, the bassist, trying to crack him up. But not tonight. Tonight, I was overwhelmed with just getting a cool moment with Helen. I looked out and saw her in the crowd. She had her arms up, not holding onto anything. A beer in her hand, where I was previously holding her, Steph by her side. We came out for our bow, and they surprised me with a crowd-swirling birthday song.

The bravest thing you can do is let go. But maybe even braver is figuring out when you’re ready. When you go through darkness, there will be a time, a revealing time, when you feel in your bones that you must unclench and let life back in. I call it the snap. I know there can be a moment that you are reluctantly brought into, that makes that snap moment known. You often don’t know how long it takes to get over something. You sure as hell don’t wanna force it. I just know that when I look back at things that are really heavy, there’s a sharp moment where I realize: hey, I’m not thinking about this anymore. I finally sweated all that alcohol out of my pores. I really wish for a snap moment someday for Helen. A lot of people don’t look inside and decide: now is the time. Now I’m ready to let go of this grief, this trauma. It doesn’t mean you forget it, but you don’t need to live in it forever. Your divorce, the horrible thing you saw, the breakup, the job loss, the rejection, there is a way through. But you gotta know when you’re ready. Because that’s not living.

Afterwards, we all went to a bar. Helen’s face was lit a little bit differently. We talked about the show. We talked about how funny it was that she was so terrible to me at the sandwich counter. She was funny. She had a funny t-shirt on about what happens backstage stays backstage. She thanked Steph and me for supporting her through her first show in years. It was an awesome show. The beer was very warm, and the service was terrible. None of us cried. We hugged like old pals. Helen showed me that anger is the juice of fear.

I don’t remember her last name, but I remember much about that night. There are forces out there that want to ruin beauty, that want to steal it from us. One of the strongest things we can do is keep making beauty in the face of control. Our hunger for beauty must be stronger than their hunger for power.

We all got a bit of Helen in us. We’re all carrying other bodies, other stories. Some, we have carried for too long. We’re all carrying things that aren’t true. We’re all carrying the worst day. What I know for certain is that the night the French sang to me, I felt adored, but I mostly remember standing with Helen. I’m grateful for Helen. I’m grateful for the times I remember to pause for mercy. I don’t always do it, but I am trying. Self-mercy is possibly the hardest. It is knowing when you’re ready for something better and getting out of your own way. Mercy for others, a different difficulty level. The trick is adding a pause before you unload... knowing when someone’s hurt and when someone’s just being a turd.

That night in Paris, I did something I have difficulty doing… I chose to talk to a stranger and to hold her close for a while, until it was time to let go. And Helen chose to sway.

Merci.

DID YOU DIG THIS? TIP DERRICK?