Bruce

This past Friday - it was all I could do to stay inside- so I didn’t and rather than dutifully checking off the items on my ever present to do list - I puttered - moving from task to task as I was drawn to them. And it was the perfect day to put on the screen doors. By the end of the afternoon the house had shifted, more air moving through it, more light, that subtle seasonal exhale. And now, every time I walk in, the screen swings shut behind me with that sharp, familiar crack, and without any warning at all, I’m gone.

It’s that line from Thunder Road that rises up every single time, as if it’s been waiting patiently for years for an actual screen door to cue it. I didn’t grow up on Bruce Springsteen, not even a little bit, which still feels surprising when I think about it. Barbara, my college suitemate, discovered this gap in my life and reacted like I had just confessed to never having seen the ocean. My world up to that point had been full and rich but very contained, centered almost entirely around horses and lacrosse, with a kind of tunnel vision that didn’t leave much room for anything else.

It was October of 1980, The River had just come out, and Bruce was on tour. Barbara had a plan, and once she had a plan, I somehow had a plan. Boston, Worcester, Hartford. Back then, getting tickets meant physically showing up and putting your body in line outside the student union, overnight, so you could be at the window the moment Ticketmaster opened. Sleeping bags, bad coffee, and that particular mix of anticipation and stubbornness that comes with believing something will be worth the effort. I was in before I fully understood what I was saying yes to, and I even skipped my first Psych 101 final to go to the Worcester show, which tells you everything you need to know about how quickly this became important.

And then there were the concerts, which I don’t remember in a neat sequence so much as a feeling that moved through everything. It was big and alive and impossible to ignore, like weather rolling in. I remember Clarence Clemons stepping forward and that tenor sax just taking up space in the most extraordinary way, and I remember Bruce turning “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” into something electric and immediate that had nothing to do with December and everything to do with being exactly where we were. It went on for hours, four maybe, and no one seemed to notice or care about the passing of time because we were all inside something that felt larger than us.

Before that, I had been to exactly one concert, seeing Bad Company at the Springfield Civic Center with my boyfriend Andy. We lit our Bic lighters along with everyone else, a small field of flames in the dark that, in hindsight, feels like a slightly reckless group decision but at the time felt like we were doing exactly what you were supposed to do. It was an experience, certainly, but it didn’t rearrange anything.

Springsteen did. That was the moment the world opened up, not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in a quiet, undeniable shift where you realize there is more out there than you knew to look for.

And now, here I am, walking into my kitchen on this small island, and that screen door slams behind me like it has something to say about all of it. It’s the same sound, simple and practical and rooted in the everyday, and yet it carries all of that with it. The waiting in line, the first notes, the saxophone cutting through the air, the feeling of stepping into something alive and expansive. It’s funny what becomes the bridge between then and now, not the big obvious moments, but the details that hold them. A line in a song, a memory that settles in and stays, the clean, certain slam of a screen door that, every single time, opens something right back up.

The screen door slams, Mary's dress sways
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison's singing for the lonely
Hey, that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again

Don't run back inside, darling
You know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey, you're alright
Oh, and that's alright with me

You can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets

Well now, I'm no hero, that's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey, what else can we do now?

Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well, the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks

Oh, come take my hand
We're riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh, Thunder Road, oh, Thunder Road
Oh, Thunder Road

Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey, I know it's late, we can make it if we run
Oh, Thunder Road, sit tight
Take hold, Thunder Road

Well, I got this guitar and I've learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back if you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride ain't free
And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken
Tonight we'll be free, all the promises will be broken

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet

And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
When you get to the porch they're gone on the wind
So Mary, climb in
It's a town full of losers
I'm pulling out of here to win