June 26 2021 Prompt / bring out your rock

Dying for Stones

We only remembered the music

If August in Florida wasn’t hot enough, Mick came to set the air on fire.

Not first. First, hours of others, all good but none iconic. A football stadium — American not British — named for a reptile and a school mascot. Intimate crowd of 80,000, and me and my little sister.

Her 18th. Big celebration with Mick and heat exhaustion. Sucking catsup from packets for the salt. No ice. No soda. No relief. Light-headed from heat, not the drugs that circled in plastic bags. Announcements of bad shit. It was all bad shit. People dropped like rocks from the Empire State. Hash and heat. We passed on one and couldn’t on the other.

Hours dragged into hours. Our stadium neighbors declining in number. Ambulance stretchers rather than mosh pits. Not supposed to be like this.

Atlanta Rhythm, J Geils, Billy Preston, and Rufus with Chaka Kahn. Can’t forget Chaka. She made the wait for Mick bearable. Almost.

Unprepared. Too young to know survival at an outdoor summer concert. No hats. No umbrellas. No shade. No escape. We could leave but wouldn’t. ’Cause the memories might be worth it.

Red skin. Not the politically incorrect type. The my-fucking-skin-is-frying type. Hours on the beach didn’t prepare me. And, my Yankee-white little sister wasn’t anymore. Blisters popped like pimples on her skin.

Clouds rolled in as the Stones rolled on. We were cooler when Mick was hot. Forgot we cheated death that afternoon. Danced like our skin wasn’t bleeding sweat and blister pus. Screamed because our brains were scrambled eggs or because of the rocking Stones?

Ended it all with fireworks and a threatening storm. Weak and too tired for the three-hour drive. Car lost in a sea of cars that look alike. Two young girls hide from the leather-jacket-wearing, Jim-Beam-drinking motorcycle gangs and the pounding rain.

Two hours before that tiny red Corolla appeared. Another hour before the interstate and a midnight traffic jam. Almost four hours to home.

Driving with windows down. Singing every Stones song we knew.

We only remembered the music.

The Rolling Stones’ Tour of the Americas ’75: August 2, 1975, the Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Florida

© Dennett 2021

In response to this memory-jarring bring out your rock prompt by J.D. Harms.