With an infernal fear of missing out on something and chasing down everything I did twice, finding out that life should have direction (a forward one) left me at 23 years old- lost.
“Fly straight and follow the stars and keep going till the morning”
Shouted someone I wasn't supposed to listen to or hear.
Desperate to carry youth forward- with me, I begun looking further into my scene for devious detours to stop off at before the age block of thirty was reached, and I might have to halt and admit it: "I can’t keep up with myself anymore"
Thursday night: “pate or prawns to start tonight sir”.
My near end to a tumbleweed week . I won't let tonight pass.
Resolutely I lay down the salt on the left next to the pepper; who says they need to be that way round.
In my ear I hear: “Let’s take a pill later”
Hope squeezes my hand, she wants me to believe in it as much as she does.
Our bold step forward – pushing our experience of house music over the edge we have never looked at .I squeeze her hand harder in return, and we go looking for a Brazilian waiter.
The clock crawls round to the end of our shift- I’m full of stodgy Rhubarb crumble the colour of raw meat, and nerves for the next push we've started tonight.
I reach into my stained pinny- prawn cocktail all over tonight.
The pill’s circular and pink- etched with a picture of a love heart, I laugh at the harmless, appealing look of my sweet- made for a hit higher than sugar. The Brazilian guaranteed it.
I wrap it back up.Adding some responsibility to our madness, we promise to share it in quarters - and drink lots of water.
Midnight. We drift down to the front of the queue- not stopping, with a knowing nod to the bouncer- our long term 3 am friend- for fag breaks we never smoke, only taken just to check outside isn’t better than in. At the ticket booth she perches- a bird you wanna forget about it.“Suppose you too are in for free". The bouncer waves the go ahead and she stamps our hands (hard). Our free pass to wonderland, we intend to get more lost in tonight.
Up at the front, in a crush of feeling- I've felt before: excited, elated, built up and then... let down, by a messy climax of Electro plops and bops, smashed too early by an inexperienced DJ, but still saluted indiscriminately as awesome by a crowd of pretenders.
We rain check the set for a toilet break and a bottle of water
In a cubicle that stinks of piss, next door to an 18 year old who’s hurled her Malibu, we mark the start. I take out a Mac lipstick stubbed by my pout.
Waxy pink scrawls on the door- Hope and Esme, 23 and curious.
We sound like we are trying out bi-sexual.
The quarter of a pill sticks just out reach of my tonsils- innocuous as a brick and travelling down too slow.
"Let's get out of here". A piece of loo roll, attaches to Hope, a messy train married to the back of her Converse high-tops.
We wait out 'coming up' sat down. All eyes – pupils filled up with apprehension; ahead of the buzz.What happens if I don't like it, could I die. Fuck I want to cry.
20 minutes of nothing, and I’m feeling a curious attachment to the ordinariness eschewed by a twenty year old life chaser.
I don’t want to come up, I might be allergic to Ecstasy. I can't die before Christmas.
She reads me well:
“Well If you die, I’ll have your ring”.
Humor rises above what I’m worrying for and I laugh; splitting into a thousand pieces my brain puts back together; forgetting where they went in the first place.
My ears hold up my feet on a washing line- put up in my imagination.
"Well I errr, definitely feel something".
"I feel everything" Hope shouts; true hedonists trying to outdo the other one.
The pill clamps onto my head that's trying to run away- back to normal.
My pupils feel tight. I touch them with a shaky finger- my first examination I play doctor and self diagnose: "I'm fucked". Hope puts my hand on her heart; pulsing through her cut-up club T-shirt: "Did you know your my wing man".
We get up in love with this.
The Night continues different. I forget the bar and take leave of the front- reserved to be seen in.People watching, leaning on the back of a speaker with Claude all the way from LA.
Waves of everything crash at me, beating on my chest and shaking my eyeballs like dice. I can see Doubles.
Is this norm? says the cow dancing on the moon? Desperate to get back to fields they know.I shake my head out of the wild loop it's started playing in, trying to remembering mundane detail of life before. Yesterday- my grave mistake of putting my favorite fur coat on tumble dry that turned okay, waking up late for egg and soldiers in bed- don't worry Mum I'll clear up the crumbs.
It's Short term relief.
“ Fuck what happens if my heart explodes”
Concentrate, keep control, something in me chimes in.
All I can manage is another messy sip of water, and a sympathy rub that leaves a red irritation across my sternum.
"Calm down darling, everything will be alright, get into it".
I'm out of it. The guy tries to squeeze my elbow, releasing a thousand impulses of fizzy warmth misfiring back to my brain.
I need to move. I'm made to dance.
He leads me back to where he thinks I need to be- at the front with hope that's somehow made it back before me.I come back to myself a bit, suddenly I'm jealous she's heard it before me. Revelation in Music- picked up pace, the better base and sonic layers to explore in. Legs and feet shot with energy and love, and me with pure appreciation for nothing but this. I know Hope is in it with me.
5 am and we haven't spoke a word; communicating only in smiles that end in chews and damp, crushing hand holding.
"Have my ring babe, it would suit you, I love you, you deserve it. I want to give her everything. I pass her a straw instead, and we share the vodka and orange we've moved onto.
Once they know we are fucked we are swarmed in a hub of good nature: eyebrow stroking, and offered hands- for as much palm squeezing as I need to do. Some twat wanders off with my drink.
The club shuts down before we have and we move on –Washed up on the seafront.
We choose a large bench- undercover: sturdy, permanent, it smells of wood and vinegar.
We lie next to each other in early morning rain and thumping head pain, retreating hearts back to normal.In a tender gesture of friendship, I reach down and take off the determined tissue still sticking to her shoe.
"When we doing that again?"
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