Pack Anonymity

Ok, so this is one of a couple old writings I'm posting up here, more to remember and not lose them. Enjoy it though if you care to read. This one I think is the first one I called "stream of consciousness experiential"


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The email was short and sweet. Josh's birthday today, mini-party at 8:00, clubbing at 10:45. Clubbing, it's a standard part of the weekend for many people in Boston. Every time you are out walking within a mile of Lansdowne Street, you can see the clubbers, dressed in black pants, short skirts, tight shirts, only headed in two directions, to the clubs, or to homes, though not necessarily their own. Tonight I am one of them; I am putting on my grey pants, bright orange-collared shirt, black jacket. I pat each of my pockets; wallet, yes, keys, yes. Pocket watch, half pack of clove cigarettes, matches, yes, yes, yes. I swing my eyes over my counters, slowly turning in the center of my room, everything I need? With what I hope looks like one motion (even though no one is watching) I sweep my purple sunglasses up and onto the bridge of my nose, pull a half turn, and let the door swing quietly closed behind me. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and smile. When I turn and begin to walk, there is an extra skip, an extra bounce in every step.

The others' preparation is less glamorous. Two floors below I encounter the rest of our group. The girls are still primping, applying makeup, complaining about how cold it is going to be, -others are drinking to loosen themselves up for the evening, and then drinking a bit more, just for good measure. I step into Josh's room, find him ready and waiting, I wish him a happy birthday, then glance at my watch; 10:50, five minutes past the proposed departure time, and we are the only two ready, out of a group of twelve, near as I can count. Josh notices the motion, and smiles, then with a little laugh says to me, "Yeah, hopefully we will make it there at all." I laugh with him, then step outside to see the progress of our group. The girls have finished, but now are deep into seeing how many photos with as many different cameras are possible tonight. I'm not worried; photos are the last things that are going to keep us from getting out the door. Next door the drinking continues; Josh has snuck into the room without me noticing, and is starting to coax the room as a whole to move towards the door. Five minutes later no one has moved, and I realize that I have lost my glasses.

This isn't an odd situation for me, strangely; the glasses are basically attached to my face. I wear them in any weather, any time of day. They are light enough to not cause blindness in dim light or even at night, reduce glare enough to help me see at night, and everything looks better through them anyway. I never take them off. The problem is, other people take them off me so they can wear them. I pause to think a moment, and know that it was Ran, who in passing pulled them off my face while I was talking to someone else. I quickly spin, see that miraculously everyone is standing in the hall. I start to back towards the stairs, calling to Josh, "I'll be right back! Meet you in the lobby!" then modifying the statement as I turn to run, "Actually, I'll probably be back before you even move!" I hit the back stairs, I'm on fourth, Ran lives on two, down. I burst through the door, exhilarated by the rapid movement, and briskly jog to Ran's room. No Ran, only her roommate. I realize that she -and my glasses- must be in my room, where people seem to congregate...on the sixth floor. Back to the stairs, up to the top floor, where I find Ran about to return to the fourth floor to find me. No problem, glasses are back in their rightful place over my own eyes, and we are hopefully about to leave.

It's actually another five minutes before we even get out the door. One person left behind (Josh, the birthday boy of all people), one clove cigarette, and four cabs later we are in line outside Avalon, our club of choice tonight. The line is the definition of a motley crew. We stand in a cluster, decked out in our black and black and color, ahead are a group dressed flashy enough to be from the seventies, and behind I can't see a normal colored head of hair for at least a half dozen people. I pull another clove out and light it, we'll be waiting for a few minutes, you always do, it's part of the experience.

I'm not a smoker. I mean that seriously. I smoke a pack, maybe two, a year. Cloves are a weakness, and they fit this persona, clubbing me needs cloves to smoke, it finishes the mood, the feel, the image. I wasn't expecting anyone else to smoke, but quickly I have offered, and a few people have accepted. We stand on the edge of the line, so as to not bother everyone else, cigarettes in one hand, the club beat thudding in the background, and murmur of a crowd in between. It's like a scene from a movie, and I smile, cause it's exactly what I want. We step forward, Ids are checked, I pay the cover with the cigarette dangling from my lips. No one says anything, it's one of the few places left where they don't care if you smoke inside. It adds to the atmosphere I guess, the smoky bar, the club, the smell and smoke is part of it.

The group pulls together in the little lobby, a person or two runs to the restroom, we make a mental note of who is here, finish the cigarettes, then start to walk towards the dance floor. The air grows warm, then hot, the sound grows rapidly louder, the backbeat pulsing the air. The floor suddenly changes from carpeted concrete to rubber-coated plywood, and the bass flows up through our legs and through the air. An uncontrollable smile breaks out on me, this place is sensory overload, sound, light, smell, touch, everything is bombarded. We string out into a line as the group pushes through the crowd, a drink is bumped onto me, "Watch out asshole!" is yelled in my direction. It's all I can do not to laugh, record time I think to myself. It wouldn't have been right if a drink hadn't have been spilt on me sometime during the night. My smile only grows as I continue to push through the crowd. I find a spot, hardly enough room for half a person, and begin to dance, time just flows for the rest of the evening.

The faces in the crowd are the most interesting. I always watch, hoping that something will give me insight, -into a personal life, into a culture, into anything. Some look absently off into the distance, they aren't even here on the floor, off someplace else, just escaping for this evening. Guys and girls hungrily watch each other and the skimpily clad dancers dressed like vinyl devils, lovers stare only into each other's eyes. A blonde is passing from person to person, begging to be touched, rubbing up against everyone; even before I notice her fixed smile and dilated pupils I know she is rolling on e.

The night is a blur, time dilates and compresses, an evening becomes reduced to short events only remembered because they broke the flow of the dancing. A pause to buy some water, using the restroom, smoking a clove while half the group decides to call a cab and call it a night. What seems like a minute later, the remaining few are walking out, passing back into the cool night. The girls complain of their feet hurting, a few take a cab back, the rest of us take the walk. The air is refreshing, eases the fatigue we all are starting to feel. A stop at a 24 hour convenience store helps even more, though we all know the decay into exhaustion is inevitable, and we are only holding it off until we can make it to our own beds.

The night as a whole has been entertaining; it's a slice of the nightlife that so many embrace. The culture seems to be so removed, so impersonal, the atmosphere created to give a place to escape to, lose yourself in the music, drown in the noise, in the crowd of faceless people. As I once heard in a movie, "You hate people!" "Yes, but I love gatherings, isn't it ironic?" Clubbing seems to be the epitome of this. The culture is based on the comfort of being surrounded by people but not having to deal with any individuals. The culture is an escape from what we are forced to face on a daily basis. It intends to create a surreal environment where just for a few hours in one night, you can suspend the rules of interaction. You don't have to act a certain way, react to people a certain way, even acknowledge others' presence. You just have to be.