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Not less than 24 hours ago I was on the floor in the dark. Seeing double. Rolling around delirious, stripping out of sweat soaked clothes and shivering as I tried to crawl under the carpet for shelter. I had been reduced to an alcohol poisoned beast, one thrashing blind and dumb. In the corner I saw the silhouette of the Vomiting Demon. In the blink of an eye it was perched over me. It began gurgling words to a curse I could not understand. It laughed, if the obscene sound of broken mannequins having sex could be called a laugh, then reached over to hand me a green plastic cup of tap water. I snagged the cup from him greedily and drained it in one quick burst of gulps. Tepid water dribbling down my chin, it was enough to quench slightly the nausea and open briefly the floodgates of recent memory.
I was back at the Chamber only now it was called the Jungle. It was a lot bigger than I remembered yet it was still pure Secret Room. I walked around. The DJ booth was a turret mounted on the edge of the stage. Looking up the equipment's different, laptop screens instead of CDJs but the look on the DJs faces are the same - a sort joyous concentration - like snipers who really enjoy their work. Ran into Jsin, mohawked out and looking post-apocalyptic feral. I myself was with the Drac Pack. The Magpie, his gal Friday, Bob Dracula and his lady Etherea. They were dressed up in their best undead stage make-up to promote their upcoming rock opera. Originally I had no intention of joining them. The plan instead was to have a few drinks with Magpie over at the Black Metal Cafe then walk back home to do a little inebriated editing of the story I had just finished that day. (Sometimes I like to reverse the famous Hemingway maxim and instead write sober and edit drunk - I find I get the dialogue a little smoother). But once we got a few drinks in Magpie really insisted I join him. He's been busy-busy-busy since he's flown back in from L.A.-L.A. Land helping get the big show on the road. He was going to the Secret Room for their Fangtasia/Vampire party. But here was the thing. I really wasn't dressed up for clubbing. I was in jeans and a black t-shirt. Work boots and a head three days shy of a shave giving my chrome a slight peppering of stubble. I didn't exactly feel sexy.
But as he will, the Magpie insisted and did so expressing a sincere desire to go out clubbing just the way we used to do back in the day. Well how can you say no to an old friend in sincere need of both a drink and your company? So sans fabulous gear and a little buzzed we mounted into the Dracmobile to speed off with a big stack of flyers and copies of the 2012 Ghoul Guide to hand out to the children of the night. Rocketing forward to what rough bardo, to what haunted dance floor.Hitting a joint, I suddenly found myself again sitting in the front seat with the Promoter getting baked while I perused my set list a decade ago.
Yet when I arrived I didn't feel old, I didn't feel out of place, I didn't feel like the shy, fat man of those years past to afraid to even contemplate the writing of a novel despite the faux rubber Matrix gear he sported rather self-consciously. No, here I felt lean, or at least leaner. I felt jacked and frisky. So I made my attitude my outfit, I put on my best enthusiasm and polished the soles on my wildest dance once I started getting well whiskey's pounded into me. Then somehow the gods smiled on me or at least for once they were too busy to wave their fist my way because I started dancing with this beautiful cowgirl - in her checkerboard button up shirt, her pigtails bobbing with head, her cowgirl boots stomping to the beat and I looked over to Magpie and his gal Friday dancing as well - Magpie in a borrowed straight jacket, Friday dressed in Dracula Bride white. And everything felt so good and perfect and the green laser lights and the crowd moving to the beat shedding away their work week identities as their night life's began to bloom fiercely in the strobe lit shadows. Smiling, thoughts all flowery, thoughts all on cowgirl boots and thoughts on friends cutting loose and thoughts on the hungry ghosts nibbling on the edge of remembrance.
And I close my eyes because the world was so perfect...
... and I open them again back hours later staring the Vomiting Demon in the eye or at least the place where eyes should be. The water started churning rough in my belly. A roller coaster drop hit my gut. I felt the air valve on my throat cut to a trickle of oxygen. A terrible lamprey made of stomach acid and mixed drinks began to slither up the esophagus. I tried to stand but couldn't. So I had to crawl my way to the bathroom. While behind me the Vomiting Demon laughed.
But tonight was different.
Tonight was a surprise party for Teddy Bear. Gamers, coworkers, theater folks, movie makers, old friends and new. All of us gathered on his front lawn to greet him with a cheer as he pulled up into the driveway. Oh, the little boy look on his face when he stepped out the door. Just three hours ago I sat outside on the back deck of a wide patio. A long table was lit up intermittently with candles and conversation. I sipped my whiskey and saw all those happy faces, watching as guests left only to replaced by other friends, the bowl packed, the drinks bottomless, a full spread of gnosh inside. I felt for a second as if I had been granted a vision of some distant Geek Valhalla and knew in that moment that moments are where true heaven lies, not in the metaphysical sky above but tucked here away between those long days that grind us in between.
I was back at the Chamber only now it was called the Jungle. It was a lot bigger than I remembered yet it was still pure Secret Room. I walked around. The DJ booth was a turret mounted on the edge of the stage. Looking up the equipment's different, laptop screens instead of CDJs but the look on the DJs faces are the same - a sort joyous concentration - like snipers who really enjoy their work. Ran into Jsin, mohawked out and looking post-apocalyptic feral. I myself was with the Drac Pack. The Magpie, his gal Friday, Bob Dracula and his lady Etherea. They were dressed up in their best undead stage make-up to promote their upcoming rock opera. Originally I had no intention of joining them. The plan instead was to have a few drinks with Magpie over at the Black Metal Cafe then walk back home to do a little inebriated editing of the story I had just finished that day. (Sometimes I like to reverse the famous Hemingway maxim and instead write sober and edit drunk - I find I get the dialogue a little smoother). But once we got a few drinks in Magpie really insisted I join him. He's been busy-busy-busy since he's flown back in from L.A.-L.A. Land helping get the big show on the road. He was going to the Secret Room for their Fangtasia/Vampire party. But here was the thing. I really wasn't dressed up for clubbing. I was in jeans and a black t-shirt. Work boots and a head three days shy of a shave giving my chrome a slight peppering of stubble. I didn't exactly feel sexy.
But as he will, the Magpie insisted and did so expressing a sincere desire to go out clubbing just the way we used to do back in the day. Well how can you say no to an old friend in sincere need of both a drink and your company? So sans fabulous gear and a little buzzed we mounted into the Dracmobile to speed off with a big stack of flyers and copies of the 2012 Ghoul Guide to hand out to the children of the night. Rocketing forward to what rough bardo, to what haunted dance floor.Hitting a joint, I suddenly found myself again sitting in the front seat with the Promoter getting baked while I perused my set list a decade ago.
Yet when I arrived I didn't feel old, I didn't feel out of place, I didn't feel like the shy, fat man of those years past to afraid to even contemplate the writing of a novel despite the faux rubber Matrix gear he sported rather self-consciously. No, here I felt lean, or at least leaner. I felt jacked and frisky. So I made my attitude my outfit, I put on my best enthusiasm and polished the soles on my wildest dance once I started getting well whiskey's pounded into me. Then somehow the gods smiled on me or at least for once they were too busy to wave their fist my way because I started dancing with this beautiful cowgirl - in her checkerboard button up shirt, her pigtails bobbing with head, her cowgirl boots stomping to the beat and I looked over to Magpie and his gal Friday dancing as well - Magpie in a borrowed straight jacket, Friday dressed in Dracula Bride white. And everything felt so good and perfect and the green laser lights and the crowd moving to the beat shedding away their work week identities as their night life's began to bloom fiercely in the strobe lit shadows. Smiling, thoughts all flowery, thoughts all on cowgirl boots and thoughts on friends cutting loose and thoughts on the hungry ghosts nibbling on the edge of remembrance.
And I close my eyes because the world was so perfect...
... and I open them again back hours later staring the Vomiting Demon in the eye or at least the place where eyes should be. The water started churning rough in my belly. A roller coaster drop hit my gut. I felt the air valve on my throat cut to a trickle of oxygen. A terrible lamprey made of stomach acid and mixed drinks began to slither up the esophagus. I tried to stand but couldn't. So I had to crawl my way to the bathroom. While behind me the Vomiting Demon laughed.
But tonight was different.
Tonight was a surprise party for Teddy Bear. Gamers, coworkers, theater folks, movie makers, old friends and new. All of us gathered on his front lawn to greet him with a cheer as he pulled up into the driveway. Oh, the little boy look on his face when he stepped out the door. Just three hours ago I sat outside on the back deck of a wide patio. A long table was lit up intermittently with candles and conversation. I sipped my whiskey and saw all those happy faces, watching as guests left only to replaced by other friends, the bowl packed, the drinks bottomless, a full spread of gnosh inside. I felt for a second as if I had been granted a vision of some distant Geek Valhalla and knew in that moment that moments are where true heaven lies, not in the metaphysical sky above but tucked here away between those long days that grind us in between.
