Well, I close my eyes and I am shaking so that I hardly notice the vibrations of the horn begin, but when I reach the E in the third measure, I know I am feeling what I felt in Benny's. So I keep pushing it, and the last I remember I am trying to reach the high C closing.
That is when I pass out....
When I come to this time, I am almost afraid to open my eyes. My ears are still buzzing, and I am just beginning to realize weakly what has happened when I hear voices around me which are not part of the score. They are speaking in English. I open my eyes then, and look around.
I find that I am surrounded by a crowd of people who are saying to one another to give him air and to take it easy, and I perceive that I am on a city sidewalk, and in fact, as I look up, I see that it is somewhere on Fifty-Second Street. A perfect landing for a tail gate artist, I think as I sit up.
When the crowd sees me do this they move in even closer, all the time telling one another to give me air, but finally one of them claims that he is a doctor and he helps me up and I go with him and another man in uniform who is probably a policeman. They tell me that they are taking me to a hospital, and I do not remember much after that. When I wake up again, I am in the hospital.
A doctor has hold of my wrist, and when he sees me open my eyes he says, "How are you feeling now?"
I tell him okay.
"Well," he says, "you seem to have had quite a shock, and perhaps you do not want to discuss it now, but your manner of dress and this instrument which you have brought with you have excited my curiosity no little."