I sped down the highway toward my anxiously awaited destiny a little faster than the state government deemed necessary. I saw a lizard in the distance, running to the road. I smiled and sped up.

"Turn the music up, Marianne," I said.

She did as I said. The lizard crept onto the road, a certain sign, I thought.

Well, well. Summer wind’s been catchin’ up with me...

He really thinks he’s going to make it. Normally I wouldn’t run over anything that crossed the road, but I was sure this was necessary for our journey. This was our beast at the threshold. A test of our commitment.

You’re forgettin’ to fly, darlin’, when you sleep...

He must have just realized I was speeding to him because he paused in the middle of the road. I felt the subtle bump I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been waiting for it. That’ll teach that renegade daredevil lizard to try to stand between me and my destiny.

I got lizards and snakes running through my body...funny how they all have my face...

Marianne looked at me and smiled. "Tori would be so proud of you. "

In the middle of the longest drive of my life, I was bored enough to actually reflect on the meaning of the song we were listening to while running over the lizard. The drive wasn’t that long as far as miles go. Only an hour or so, but it seemed much longer. I was driving to finally meet my idol. The heroine who lived on my pedestal. Even though She would be on stage playing Her piano, and I would be in the upper deck so far from Her, but to be in the same building with my deity would transcend anything I previously experienced. I was going to see Tori Amos. A red-headed siren singing about rape, miscarriage, love-gone-bad and all manner of horrible things. Her music is like shaking hands with God while winking at Lucifer. Delving into the deepest of human pain but always coming back. Always surviving no matter what. And we were on our way to see her.

Marianne was with me. She hadn’t introduced me to Tori’s music, but she encouraged it afterward in the same way a preacher counsels a new convert. The theology of the music and such. The Grateful Dead has Deadheads. Tori has Ears With Feet. We were two of the Ears With Feet from our high school. The pilgrimage was our first meeting in the year-and-a-half since high school.

During the drive, Marianne was in charge of the typical co-pilot duties. The most important was changing CDs. We both brought most of our Tori collections with us, amounting to about forty CDs. Even though there wasn’t any way we could have listened to all of the songs, we had to be prepared in case we suddenly had to hear one song in particular. And so we could recreate the concert on the drive home. Every song we listened to, we would speculate as to whether or not we thought Tori would play it that night.

Finally, the arena was in sight.

"There’s not many cars here," Marianne said.

"Well, we are four hours early. At least we can find a good parking spot."

Having been to the arena for college basketball games, I knew where the visiting team usually parked their bus, so I drove to that side of the building. I saw Tori’s buses and the tunnel leading underneath the building and a handful of cars scattered around the parking lot, but not near either bus. As we drove to her bus, Marianne and I scanned the parking lot, looking for security guards to tell us to park somewhere else. But there were none. When we stepped out of the car, not more than fifteen feet from Tori’s bus, I expected to wake up.

We weren’t the first ones there. About ten other people hung over the ledge of the tunnel. I felt underdressed when I saw them. They all dressed in black, with their hair dyed either purple or a dark red. Piercings filled every loose piece of skin.

One of them spoke to us in what sounded like a drunken Scottish dialect probably caused by all the rings in his lips and pins in his tongue. I stared at him blankly.

"He said She already went inside," one of the others said. This one had opted for rings in his eyebrow instead of his mouth. "We’ve been here an hour an she was inside when we got here."

"Why are you guys still here then?"

The drunken Scot spoke again. "Maybe She forgot something on her bus," his translator said.

That is possible, I thought, but not likely. And if She did forget something, surely She would send someone else to retrieve it for her. If She’s been here an hour then She could have started the sound check already. I looked down the tunnel and saw an array of important looking people guarding the underground entrance. If I could find a way to slip past them I could make it to Tori, I reasoned. I would be caught and probably sent to jail. A small price to pay.

"You want to see if we can get in to hear the sound check?" Marianne asked, snapping me out of my daze.

I glanced down the tunnel again. "Okay."

The front doors were unlocked, leading into a foyer with a line of doors which, in turn, led to the main arena. Unfortunately, those doors were locked. But Marianne and I joined a small group of black-shirt-purple-hair-pierced-people and leaned against the doors, listening for the slightest whisper of Tori Herself. A man in jean shorts, a white T-shirt and a yellow event staff jacket walked in with a small stack of papers. He looked at us and began taping them to the windows. Each was a small poster promoting the concert. Since he knew we would just take them down and keep them as soon as he left, he was kind enough to tape one up for everyone so we didn’t have to fight over them. After he left, each of us untaped one and took it back to our cars--a memento of the night.

After Marianne and I returned from storing our posters in my car, we leaned against the doors to hear if Tori was still practicing. The sound I heard was not unlike the sound a puppy would make if set on fire. The opening band must have begun to rehearsing.

"What do we want to do now?" Marianne asked me.

"I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t have come so early. It’s still over an hour before the opening band finishes rehearsing and actually starts the concert. I looked up and saw the rest of the yellow-jacketed event staff had arrived to police the mob waiting outside as patiently as possible. Most gathered around the staff, probably telling them how great the night was going to be. I saw one of the event Gestapo standing by himself. He was obesely overweight and had a face that only his mother could love if she was really drunk. But he was possibly our savior.

I pulled my ticket out of my pocket. "Marianne, where are our seats?"

"You know where our seats are," she said bitterly. "We’re in the upper level, away from Tori."

"Maybe we could be closer if you went and talked to one of the security guys. Like that burly fellow over there. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind the attention."

Now I’m something of a connoisseur on dirty looks from girls--but I have to give Marianne credit for one of the best. I started to apologize, but she interrupted me. "Only for Tori. Though you might want to come with me. I’m not sure he wouldn’t rather speak to a man."

I hesitated. But only for a moment. "Only for Tori."

We walked over to him together. Close enough to each other that he knew we were here together but not close enough that he would think we were together and didn’t have a shot at which ever one of us he decided he wanted.

"Hi there," Marianne said. "Do you like Tori Amos?"

The security guard stared at her blankly. "Is that you?"

"No, she’s the one performing tonight. So, do you like her?" The guard smiled at Marianne when she said this, probably trying to come up with some catchy line that would make her fall in love with him.

"No, but I sure like you," he replied. I looked to the sky to keep from laughing at him. "What’s yall’s name anyhow?" he asked, hi eyes never leaving Marianne.

"Well, I’m Talula and this is my friend, Spacedog," she said, using Tori songs for our names. I have to admit she is an artist when it comes to lying. Where some use paint, she prefers deception.

"That your real name, boy? Hey, Spacedog." It took me a minute to realize he was talking to me.

"Oh, yes. Spacedog. My parents didn’t name me. They waited until I was old enough to talk and let me name myself."

"Well, don’t that beat all. I never could have done that to old Cletus-Joe. He’d have had to wait till he got married and let his wife pick a name out for him. Tell you what, you and your girlie come down to the floor after the first band and I’ll see if I can find a place for the two of you down there." He winked at Marianne and walked off. She looked at me and smiled.

"We’re going to see Tori."

We returned inside the foyer and waited for the doors to open. When they did, Marianne and I were the first people inside. I looked around the arena in awe. I had been here in there before for basketball games, but not it looked different. It was so much darker. A couple of booths had been set up, one selling T-shirts, one necklaces, and the other programs. Then I saw the stage. It was bare except for the Bosendorfer, Tori’s piano. A black curtain hung behind with multi-colored lights above the stage. We were afraid that taking the seats listed on our ticket could be a bad omen, so we wandered around during the opening band, the Devlins. Each of their songs had one word titles, with the chorus being the same word repeated over and over. While they played, we bought our T-shirts, necklaces, and programs. After looking through the program and seeing Tori’s wedding pictures, her letter to all her fans concerning the tour, and a shot prose about faeries, we decided to walk around and see if we could spot Tori anywhere. A man approached us while we discussing what to say to Tori if she called us out of the audience to sit with her on her piano bench. He was in his mid-forties. I suspected he was a father dragged to the concert.

"How are you two, tonight? Here to see Tori?" he asked. "My name is Captain Ronald Hightower, United States Army."

"Are you really with the army?" Marianne asked him.

"No, I’m lying," Captain Ronald Hightower said sourly. "Of course I am. I don’t lie. Bad for the soul, you know."

"So, you like Tori?"

"Certainly. About a year now. One of my daughters was listening to her in the car and I told her to turn it up. I was blown away."

Before I could say anything, Marianne asked if he was serious.

"No, I’m lying," he said in the same tone as before. "I just got through telling you I don’t lie. Bad for the soul, you know. So, are you two together?"

"Well, we came here together."

"That isn’t what I asked," Captain Ronald Hightower said. "I want to know if the two of you are together. I don’t believe in beating around the bush."

"I guess that’s not terribly good for the soul either. No, we’re not together. We just came to the concert together."

"That’s a shame, you know. The two of you should get married." He reached into his coat and pulled out a flask. He unscrewed it and offered me a drink.

"No thanks. I’m driving."

"How about you?" Captain Ronald Hightower looked at Melanie. "On second thought, you look a little young for drinking."

The lights came on and the Devlins left the stage. I tried to discern whether the applause was for their performance or for their performance finally coming to an end.

"We better find our seats, Marianne. Enjoy the show, Captain Ronald Hightower."

"You two watch yourselves," he said with a paternal tone. "Don’t do anything bad for the soul." And with another swig of his flask, he walked away.

We spotted our yellow-jacketed friend down by the stage and walked down to see if he remembered us. Marianne walked to him and put her hand on his back.

"Well, look who’s here," he said. "If it isn’t Talula and Spacedog. I tell you what, you guys can stay down here until someone else tells you to leave. Then you got to go to your own seats."

So we waited. I looked at the crowd and they seemed more diverse than I had imagined. Elderly women sat in small groups. A few men were there alone. A few men were there together. Next to us a small girl asked her mom when Tori was coming out. Her mom picked her up and held her in the air so she could see Tori when she appeared. Then the lights vanished. The stage lit up and She walked out.

It was Tori. She was here. Right in front of me. Not anywhere else in the world but here. She waved at us as She walked to the piano. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and black sleeveless shirt with a scintillating red dress over them.

I remember little of what happened from then on. I remember a security guard asking us to return to our seats after a couple of songs. I remember sitting in other people’s seats until they came and made us leave. I remember when She finally spoke. She told us while She and the people traveling with Her drove to Oklahoma, She made them watch the musical "Oklahoma." She said that growing up as a minister’s daughter, her parents would only teach Her hymns on the piano. Eventually they taught Her songs from the "Oklahoma" musical. I remember when the band left and She stayed and played a few songs by herself. I remember when She finally went backstage and didn’t come back. We waited, but she never came back. Finally the lights came on and everyone began walking to the door. It was so quiet it seemed as if it was the end of a church service rather than a concert.

"We have to find Tori," Marianne said once we were outside.

"We’re parked next to Her bus," I said, still in a daze. "She has to come out there."

Real security guards and not the yellow-jackets waited at the end of the tunnel leading to Tori’s bus. A few people were lined up on one side, obviously thinking the same thing as us. We joined them hanging over the edge. The tunnel sloped up, gradually rising to the parking lot. I stood at the end, waiting. We waited silently. Every time a shadowy figure appeared below, everyone would yell for Tori. But it was never her. Always a roadie or her husband or her drummer. Ten minutes passed and no Tori. Half an hour passed and she still hadn’t appeared.

"Come on, let’s go," Marianne said. "She probably went out a back door. It’s after midnight and we still have to drive home."

"Not yet. She is coming. I know She is."

Then a woman appeared at the end of the tunnel. She wore gray sweatpants and a gray hooded sweatshirt. She might have made it by everyone unnoticed, but She didn’t cover up all her hair. Red hair hung out the side of the hood. It was Tori. AS She walked past, everyone yelled at her, proclaiming their eternal love. She kept walking, coming even closer to me. I was so awestruck, I couldn’t speak. She came closer and still people yelled at Her and still she ignored them. I must do something different, I thought. I must get her attention. The I realized the crowd’s mistake. They were yelling for Tori. Tori was the name She took when She began playing professionally, not Her real name. Finally, reading every article and book I could find about Her was going to be worth it. She came closer. When She was walking past me, I yelled at her.

"I love you, Myra Ellen."

She kept walking to Her bus, but She looked over at me. I felt as if everything I had experienced in my time on Earth had been leading up to this one point of my life. The event I would compare everything else to, though nothing would ever live up to it. For the brief moment our eyes met, and I knew She was real.

And she smiled at me.