The beginning of spring brings the Savannah Music Festival. This year, I went hog wild with tickets, so this weekend, Chris and I went to a Cajun/Zydeco dance party on Friday night, and on Saturday night, the entire family went to see Pink Martini. The big misstep of Friday night — that I made a bad wardrobe choice — was quickly overshadowed by the big concern of Saturday night — that I almost got into my first fist fight.

The Music Festival is a new endeavor for me, one occasioned by a long-time love of music and older children who can be left to their own devices. I teach spin classes, and throw my earnings into a savings account, and use that money to buy exactly what I want. It is like a middle-aged version of a child’s allowance, except that this time, I am no longer buying each and every Nancy Drew novel and stupid horse figurine and Barbie that I can find. Instead, I buy things like tickets to music festivals. So over the next two weeks, I am listening to Zydeco and lounge music, jazz and western swing, funk and singer-songwriters, retro soul and the Dap Kings.

Like I said, Chris and I went to a Cajun/Zydeco dance party on Friday at a small covered outdoor venue. I thought about the music, and I sang “Hey, Good Lookin'” non-stop for a few days, and I hit upon what I thought was the perfect outfit for the evening: the biggest skirt I had, in a blue floral, my favorite pink gingham shirt, a necklace featuring a state of Georgia pendant, tons of bracelets, and turquoise blue Chuck Taylors. When I mentioned this to my friend Rosemary, she said, “What?  No hat?,” and I realized that of course she was right. At the last minute, I added my favorite straw cowgirl hat, and so I bounded into the venue, like an unbridled and spastic Golden Retriever, to find that I looked slightly ridiculous. Every other woman was tastefully attired, and other than the first band, no one else wore a cowboy hat. It did not help that I saw a friend from law school who mentioned that she never knew that I was so (pause) country, or that I felt most at ease standing next to a man in black pants and suspenders and a red T-shirt that said, “ZYDECO IS FOR LOVERS.” On the bright side, I started dancing — swing, Texas two-step, shag, or some reasonable approximation of a combination of all three that involved a lot of twirling — and saw a lot of friends, and smiled at a lot of people, and twirled some more. (Here is a life lesson for you: When you are slightly dizzy and very happy and listening to an accordion play, it is hard to care about the inopportune wearing of a cowgirl hat.)

But the next night — Saturday — was the big night, for I had four tickets to the sold-out show of Pink Martini. I have read a description of Pink Martini along the lines of “If the U.N. had a house band, this would be it!” And it is true. There are eleven extremely talented musicians, playing the piano, violin, bass guitar, stand-up bass, trombone, trumpet, and every manner of drums and percussion instrument. There is also one principal singer, and if you are extremely lucky, as we were, Ari Shapiro, the host of NPR’s All Things Considered, shows up to join the band. They sing in English, French, Hindi, Japanese, Spanish — you name it — all the while with gently wry patter and witty observations. This is a concert in the sense that it is a musical performance; the audience (who had paid good money for these tickets) was attentive and respectful, silent and rapt. This is not, for instance, a nascent Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band playing at a local bar on a Monday night with dollar cover and two dollar well drinks.

But you may have thought so by what happened after intermission.

The four of us had excellent seats in the balcony, and a few minutes after the show began, three well-dressed couples filled the six seats behind us. They talked the entire time, and the children and I tried to ignore them, and that strategy did not work. So at intermission, my son and daughter and I talked about the talkers, and my daughter and I agreed that we would shoot pointed, steely looks at the talkers in the hope that they would get the hint.

It got worse — the six people behind us were now talking loudly, bemoaning the alcohol limits imposed by the lobby bar. My daughter and I engaged Operation Pointed Looks, to no avail. And my son, who was really enjoying the music, turned around and said, “Please. If you are going to talk, would you take it into the lobby?”

That is all. That is it. And that is why I feared a fist fight.

(I try not to use bad language in this blog, figuring that genteel English language is broad enough to encompass what I want to say, but I will be quoting the row behind us in the upcoming paragraph. Cover your ears if you are sensitive.)

So my son, who was really enjoying the music, turned around and said, “Please. If you are going to talk, would you take it into the lobby?” And one of the men behind us replied, “I am going to whip your ass, boy.” And I wheeled around, and Chris wheeled around, and another of the men said to me, to Chris, who knows, “If you don’t turn around right now, I am going to rip off your goddamn fucking face.”

I wish that I were making this up, but I am not. In the split second after I heard these words, all I could think of was this: There is going to be a fist fight, and I am going to be hit.

I have never been in a fist fight before, and in that split second, I scanned my accumulated knowledge. The college boyfriend who insisted on quoting “The Art of War.” The time at the gym hitting the heavy bag and the sparring mitts. The kickboxing classes. The viewings of “Fight Club.”

When I got to the viewings of “Fight Club,” I remembered the first rule: You do not talk about Fight Club. And then I remembered the second rule: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB! And as I stood there in that split-second, I bemoaned the fact that no one talked about Fight Club, because I sure could have used the help.

All I had was a threatened cub. All I was was a mother bear. All I wanted to do was to keep everyone safe. All I needed was to keep my husband and my son in their seats. All I had to do was avoid a fist fight.

And with that resolve, I leaped up, twirling past trouble like a Zydeco dancer, and burned the ears of the 75 year-old music festival volunteer with the words uttered by the talkers. She led me to the manager, who enlisted the on-duty police officer. (This was such a sedate affair that the young officer wore khakis and a polo shirt embroidered with a badge, to the effect that he looked like a cop at a country club.) With Officer Dockers and the manager in tow, I pointed out the row and the talkers and who said what. Mr. Rip Off Your Face, ushered out by his girlfriend, left shortly thereafter, and Mr. Whip Your Ass walked out some time later.

I am proud of how my son handled the situation. I am thankful beyond all measure that Chris remained in his seat. I am grateful that I kept my mouth shut and sought help. I am pleased that other concert-goers approached me after the concert to identify Mr. Whip Your Ass, a local businessman who won’t be getting any of my business.

The human mind loves to make connections, to gather information. I write to process things, make sense of it all. I wish there were a moral to this story, a lesson to be learned, a universal truth to be taken away. There’s really not, no matter how much I think about it, no matter how much I write. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened. And I wish it hadn’t.

ALC