![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Walking back from the English Beat Show, heading from Little Five to home just off Boulevard via Virginia-Highland. A little past midnight I suppose, since I watched the lights on the Bank of America building flicker out a few blocks ago. Pass gutter punk piss-bum antics by the bike trail. Pass Dad's Garage with the swank and the restless filing out of a show. Pass closed boutiques and chi-chi restaurants serving overpriced finger food to condominium wage slaves. Outdoor patios filled with talking mannequins, sipping wine and parroting small talk. Above them bland canyon walls housing glorified apartments and the doll house comforts they provide. The street slants a sharp incline and takes me up past the hollow spectacle. Cross a bridge over a bare dirt road with hibernating Caterpillars and Bobcats, where the city's paving out a future recreational beltway.
And when I cross over the bridge I stop.
An empty lot. A chain link fence. NO TRESSPASSING posted. Beneath, a sign dutifully heralds the promise of yet another apartment complex to be constructed on the premises, another slab of gentrification, another vertical rat maze for the forgettable to scurry about in. But 15 years ago it was something else. It was a threat. It was a promise. It was the Compound.
I light a cigarette. Through my awkward art, through my gift of narromancy, I watch the condominiums to the right of me melt out of existence, plunging the street back into a distant darkness. Below me the machinery melts into the path even as the old rail tracks float back up out of the past. In front of me a jungle of kudzu sprouts up and a series of buildings resembling hangar bays construct themselves out of the shadows.
The Compound. I never really hung there. It was more Jimmy's scene than mine. A punk rock sanctuary operated by people who I was told the less I knew about the better. One rumor, story, street-scuttlebutt I heard was how a group of bounty hunters rolled up to the Compound to pick up some scene hood rat for whatever reason. The proprietors steadfastly refused said bounty hunters entrance. The bounty hunters threatened they were going to come in anyway. Guns were drawn. High noon standoff. Finally the law showed up and, of all things, ran the bounty hunters off. Just another Wednesday in the Wild West 90's that was Terminus.
My only visit to the Compound was when I got volunteered to work the door for a show there.
Not just any show mind you, but a benefit concert to raise bail money for my buddy Jimmy. Seems Jimmy, not but out of jail a week, needed to do a passive aggressive flipping of the bird to a cop. One of those pretending to rub the corner of your eye with the middle finger routines. The cop caught the bird along with a pocket stuffed with a sandwich baggie full of rolls. Well, drug money or not, Jimmy's closest were all tapped out cash wise due to previous legal expenses he had occurred. But Mickey Irish, one of Jimmy's more trusted lieutenants, had a plan.
Mickey Irish, was a wiry kid, who wore one of those faces you'll see at three in the morning at the Greyhound station or waiting by the last working phone booth in the city. Wide eyes, a crown of red dyed spikes and a map of Ireland tattooed on his left arm. Mickey wasn't from the Emerald Islands proper, but rather that mythical Ireland that rests in the imaginations and dreams of the sons and daughters of her wayward children.
Mickey was a gregarious sort. Made friends and, if I had to be honest, enemies easily. He knew to some degree or another some of the folks running the Compound. He also knew a bunch of local bands, all of whom loved Jimmy as fiercely as Jimmy loved life. So Mickey put the peanut butter to the chocolate and made some calls. Next thing you know he had a show lined up at the Compound.
The Despised. The Pins. Adolph and the Piss Artists. A whole bunch of others I've never heard of and didn't get to hear because Mickey Irish needed someone to work the door.
"Why me?" I sputter out through a lung burning hit off a blunt that would make a less confident man feel inadequate. "I mean I'm not 'xactly the tough guy type. I'm just here to help with the numbers and do the occasional heavy counting."
"No, but I've seen 'Road House' and I know you need someone with a brain at the door." Mickey pinches the blunt off my hands and holds it tantalizingly close to a hit that never reaches his lips, "I need someone to do the 'heavy counting' and someone I can trust to hold on to it. As for any gorilla work, don't worry you'll have Steve by your side the whole night."
Steve, who was sitting by Mickey, grunted an affirmative. Steve looked like a viking who got lost in time and ended up at a Burning Man. Steve was a burly man, with squinting eyes and a shaved head that prominently tattooed with a series of tribal weaves. Steve was no stranger to gorilla work.
I glanced over at Winter, Jimmy's femme fatale, and gave her a quick look. Winter nodded an affirmative and I agreed to the job.
Now previous to this I've done door duty all of zero times. In a few months I'll be manning a stool at 688 for Jeremiah's Friday Night Fetish Fandango, matching IDs to rolled eyes and names to guest lists. But this show would be my first and IDs weren't exactly an issue. All I had to do was make sure no one got in without paying. About two hours into the show and everything's running fine. The place is packed. Every punk, skin, urban nomad, runaway, fuck-up and druggie made the scene. Violet, my girl at the time came by to keep me company and check out the bands. Everyone is having a great time, cats are smoking blunts next to me, motherfuckers chugging out of bottles, a big ass bonfire roaring away between the hangar bay buildings, howls and laughter and the banshee grind of out of tune guitars wailing. The most work I had to do besides ask for admission was to make sure no one tried driving in (with the exception of the bands). There was no parking inside the compound per the arrangement made with Mickey, so Highland was packed with a 1,000 maniacs streaming off the streets all bloodshot eyes and whiskey breath.
But then up comes this wolf pack of bikers riding on their roaring Harleys. I catch them pulling up to the spread open chain link fence ready to just roll on in. I step right in front of them immediately and put out my hand. They brake and just sit there staring at me. Steve steps up behind me with folded arms. Behind a small crowd of Jimmy's irregulars and various punks. I ask myself what Patrick Swayze would do in this moment. Probably yank the guys throat out or make sure no one put baby in the corner. None of which struck me as practical options. So instead I light up a cigarette and walk over to the biker sitting ahead of the rest of the back. A thick, nasty looking son of a bitch with a nicotine yellow beard and a demented gleam twinkling in his eye.
"Hey guys, sorry but we got a show going on here tonight. A benefit to get our buddy out of jail, appreciate you dropping by but I'm afraid there's no parking inside. I think there's a spot down the..."
"Hey asshole!" The biker cuts me off, "Who do you think owns this place?"
I'm often known as a paragon of wit, a man of words and as such my eloquence was terse: "Uhhh... what?"
"You really don't want to make me have to repeat myself, son..."
"Jack!" Mickey comes jogging over across the field, "Are you fuckin' crazy? Let them in!"
I step aside. Steve and the crowd part like the proverbial Red Sea. The bikers come rumbling in, passing us by in a glorious procession, one by one, or in groups of two, almost all of them shaking bemused heads at me as they pass.
A few minutes later the lead biker comes strolling up to me. Swaggering really, cowboy style, as if he has just come in off a long ride at the range.
"Hey Mister Door Man!" He shouts and I look over at Steve and he just shakes his head at me as if to say 'you're on your own here'. "I need a word with you."
"Hey, man, I'm realllly sorry about that back there. I had no idea..." I say.
"Whatever...," he snarls and he thrusts his fist out towards me. It's filled with a bouquet of twenties. "A little something for your buddy."
I take the cash and stammer out a thank you.
The biker just turns around and walks back in. I count the cash up quick. Two hundred and change easy. I dutifully put it in the safe box Steve's been safe keeping.
"Shit, dude..." Mickey laughs and lights up a joint.
"What happened?" Violet asks, big worried eyes under Betty Page bangs.
"Nothing, Hon." I bob my head to the retreating biker, "He just came by to say he gave at the office, s'all."
I wink at Violet and flick my cigarette out.
The ember sails through the dark...
... and when it lands it's back in the present. The Condominiums tower down the block again, the tracks erased beneath the bridge, the bonfire extinguished and the Compound vanishes in a puff of nostalgia. One by one they flicker out of existence around me - Mickey Irish, Steve, Violet, the bikers, the punks, the skins, the scene casualties and narco-savants. Just me alone on the bridge a few days shy of forty and none the wiser the fifteen years passed.
I put the memory back, the way you might put an old toy back in the closet after playing with it for a minute when no one was looking. The way you tuck the old pooh bear back into the closet after a secret hug, the way you close a box of photos of old loves long vanquished by time and regret.
Just me... the weakest link in that crew, the would-be writer scribbling terrible lines in a note pad and counting cash in rooms full of armed men.
With a laugh, with a shrug, with a light of another cigarette I don't need I continue the march back to a bed with my name on it. Back to memories of those days that promised us no more tomorrows.
And when I cross over the bridge I stop.
An empty lot. A chain link fence. NO TRESSPASSING posted. Beneath, a sign dutifully heralds the promise of yet another apartment complex to be constructed on the premises, another slab of gentrification, another vertical rat maze for the forgettable to scurry about in. But 15 years ago it was something else. It was a threat. It was a promise. It was the Compound.
I light a cigarette. Through my awkward art, through my gift of narromancy, I watch the condominiums to the right of me melt out of existence, plunging the street back into a distant darkness. Below me the machinery melts into the path even as the old rail tracks float back up out of the past. In front of me a jungle of kudzu sprouts up and a series of buildings resembling hangar bays construct themselves out of the shadows.
The Compound. I never really hung there. It was more Jimmy's scene than mine. A punk rock sanctuary operated by people who I was told the less I knew about the better. One rumor, story, street-scuttlebutt I heard was how a group of bounty hunters rolled up to the Compound to pick up some scene hood rat for whatever reason. The proprietors steadfastly refused said bounty hunters entrance. The bounty hunters threatened they were going to come in anyway. Guns were drawn. High noon standoff. Finally the law showed up and, of all things, ran the bounty hunters off. Just another Wednesday in the Wild West 90's that was Terminus.
My only visit to the Compound was when I got volunteered to work the door for a show there.
Not just any show mind you, but a benefit concert to raise bail money for my buddy Jimmy. Seems Jimmy, not but out of jail a week, needed to do a passive aggressive flipping of the bird to a cop. One of those pretending to rub the corner of your eye with the middle finger routines. The cop caught the bird along with a pocket stuffed with a sandwich baggie full of rolls. Well, drug money or not, Jimmy's closest were all tapped out cash wise due to previous legal expenses he had occurred. But Mickey Irish, one of Jimmy's more trusted lieutenants, had a plan.
Mickey Irish, was a wiry kid, who wore one of those faces you'll see at three in the morning at the Greyhound station or waiting by the last working phone booth in the city. Wide eyes, a crown of red dyed spikes and a map of Ireland tattooed on his left arm. Mickey wasn't from the Emerald Islands proper, but rather that mythical Ireland that rests in the imaginations and dreams of the sons and daughters of her wayward children.
Mickey was a gregarious sort. Made friends and, if I had to be honest, enemies easily. He knew to some degree or another some of the folks running the Compound. He also knew a bunch of local bands, all of whom loved Jimmy as fiercely as Jimmy loved life. So Mickey put the peanut butter to the chocolate and made some calls. Next thing you know he had a show lined up at the Compound.
The Despised. The Pins. Adolph and the Piss Artists. A whole bunch of others I've never heard of and didn't get to hear because Mickey Irish needed someone to work the door.
"Why me?" I sputter out through a lung burning hit off a blunt that would make a less confident man feel inadequate. "I mean I'm not 'xactly the tough guy type. I'm just here to help with the numbers and do the occasional heavy counting."
"No, but I've seen 'Road House' and I know you need someone with a brain at the door." Mickey pinches the blunt off my hands and holds it tantalizingly close to a hit that never reaches his lips, "I need someone to do the 'heavy counting' and someone I can trust to hold on to it. As for any gorilla work, don't worry you'll have Steve by your side the whole night."
Steve, who was sitting by Mickey, grunted an affirmative. Steve looked like a viking who got lost in time and ended up at a Burning Man. Steve was a burly man, with squinting eyes and a shaved head that prominently tattooed with a series of tribal weaves. Steve was no stranger to gorilla work.
I glanced over at Winter, Jimmy's femme fatale, and gave her a quick look. Winter nodded an affirmative and I agreed to the job.
Now previous to this I've done door duty all of zero times. In a few months I'll be manning a stool at 688 for Jeremiah's Friday Night Fetish Fandango, matching IDs to rolled eyes and names to guest lists. But this show would be my first and IDs weren't exactly an issue. All I had to do was make sure no one got in without paying. About two hours into the show and everything's running fine. The place is packed. Every punk, skin, urban nomad, runaway, fuck-up and druggie made the scene. Violet, my girl at the time came by to keep me company and check out the bands. Everyone is having a great time, cats are smoking blunts next to me, motherfuckers chugging out of bottles, a big ass bonfire roaring away between the hangar bay buildings, howls and laughter and the banshee grind of out of tune guitars wailing. The most work I had to do besides ask for admission was to make sure no one tried driving in (with the exception of the bands). There was no parking inside the compound per the arrangement made with Mickey, so Highland was packed with a 1,000 maniacs streaming off the streets all bloodshot eyes and whiskey breath.
But then up comes this wolf pack of bikers riding on their roaring Harleys. I catch them pulling up to the spread open chain link fence ready to just roll on in. I step right in front of them immediately and put out my hand. They brake and just sit there staring at me. Steve steps up behind me with folded arms. Behind a small crowd of Jimmy's irregulars and various punks. I ask myself what Patrick Swayze would do in this moment. Probably yank the guys throat out or make sure no one put baby in the corner. None of which struck me as practical options. So instead I light up a cigarette and walk over to the biker sitting ahead of the rest of the back. A thick, nasty looking son of a bitch with a nicotine yellow beard and a demented gleam twinkling in his eye.
"Hey guys, sorry but we got a show going on here tonight. A benefit to get our buddy out of jail, appreciate you dropping by but I'm afraid there's no parking inside. I think there's a spot down the..."
"Hey asshole!" The biker cuts me off, "Who do you think owns this place?"
I'm often known as a paragon of wit, a man of words and as such my eloquence was terse: "Uhhh... what?"
"You really don't want to make me have to repeat myself, son..."
"Jack!" Mickey comes jogging over across the field, "Are you fuckin' crazy? Let them in!"
I step aside. Steve and the crowd part like the proverbial Red Sea. The bikers come rumbling in, passing us by in a glorious procession, one by one, or in groups of two, almost all of them shaking bemused heads at me as they pass.
A few minutes later the lead biker comes strolling up to me. Swaggering really, cowboy style, as if he has just come in off a long ride at the range.
"Hey Mister Door Man!" He shouts and I look over at Steve and he just shakes his head at me as if to say 'you're on your own here'. "I need a word with you."
"Hey, man, I'm realllly sorry about that back there. I had no idea..." I say.
"Whatever...," he snarls and he thrusts his fist out towards me. It's filled with a bouquet of twenties. "A little something for your buddy."
I take the cash and stammer out a thank you.
The biker just turns around and walks back in. I count the cash up quick. Two hundred and change easy. I dutifully put it in the safe box Steve's been safe keeping.
"Shit, dude..." Mickey laughs and lights up a joint.
"What happened?" Violet asks, big worried eyes under Betty Page bangs.
"Nothing, Hon." I bob my head to the retreating biker, "He just came by to say he gave at the office, s'all."
I wink at Violet and flick my cigarette out.
The ember sails through the dark...
... and when it lands it's back in the present. The Condominiums tower down the block again, the tracks erased beneath the bridge, the bonfire extinguished and the Compound vanishes in a puff of nostalgia. One by one they flicker out of existence around me - Mickey Irish, Steve, Violet, the bikers, the punks, the skins, the scene casualties and narco-savants. Just me alone on the bridge a few days shy of forty and none the wiser the fifteen years passed.
I put the memory back, the way you might put an old toy back in the closet after playing with it for a minute when no one was looking. The way you tuck the old pooh bear back into the closet after a secret hug, the way you close a box of photos of old loves long vanquished by time and regret.
Just me... the weakest link in that crew, the would-be writer scribbling terrible lines in a note pad and counting cash in rooms full of armed men.
With a laugh, with a shrug, with a light of another cigarette I don't need I continue the march back to a bed with my name on it. Back to memories of those days that promised us no more tomorrows.
