Small Time Big Shot
Nov. 21st, 2009 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonSometimes they recognize me.
Perched on the stool in the tight hug between entrance and club, running ID and stamp checks when it hits - "Hey, waitaminute... aren't you Jack Babylon?"
Exposed. Embarassed shrugs affirmative. Please, for christsakes pay no attention to the Man Behind the Reputation - caught red right handed in the bathroom stall.
Now don't get me wrong. This shame lies nowhere in my station. Mopping up puke spills, running drunk rousts, emptying ashtrays, doing the 86ed shuffle, playing Tetris with whole stages, hauling speakers and fetish crosses and collapsable bars... all of this is just work. In their relationship neither the task nor the ego are bigger than the other. My job, my real job, is write here behind the keyboard.
No, what gets me is that first of all here I am asking for proof of ID and in return having to suffer the bad irony and magickial faux pas of having my 'true name' called out. My secret identity revealed. It's every super-villain's worst nightmare. Caught without my real face - instead the one I've long skinned off and replaced. What can I say? I look good when I'm invisible and everyone's beautiful in the dark, remember?
Then there's the barely concealed tone of pity when they ask - 'Why aren't you spinning?' - by which they seem to mean - 'What the hell happened to you, man?'
Suddenly I'm James Cagney at the end of The Roaring Twenties. Fatal gun fight. Wounded. Fleeing through the snow swept city. Collapsing across an expanse of stone steps wide as a stage. Vee runs up to me in tears with Firecracker the Cat close behind. She scoops me up and cradles me in her arms. Firecracker jumps in my lap and starts nuzzling through my jacket for stray crumbs. The arriving cop at the scene is the guy at the door whose apparently working on my biography.
"Who was he?" the cop/customer barks, jotting just the facts ma'am, onto his pad.
"He used to be a Big Shot" Vee sniffs as Firecracker manages to pull my wallet free from my coat.
Ah, but truth be told I was small time at best. But what a very good time 'small time' can be if you know how to time it right.
The customer makes polite goodbyes before mingling off to orbit and square social circles.
A snort and a smile. I see myself suddenly. Decked out paramilitary chic - combat boots and Johnny Cash black. Head shaved and polished until you can read the future off it. Big Mag Lite tucked in the back of my belt. When the crowd flow slows to a trickle and no one's looking I twirl it around running Samurai drills on the down low.
One day I will spin again and with luck I'll see you dancing out there. With the help of enough alcohol, I'll pick the lock on your inhibitions and your beasts will run free across the floor. The right song rendering you temporarily immortal. Lost in the widening center, buried deep inside yourself where even the story of your life can't reach. Dancing like a skeleton on fire - you can't feel a thing and no one can see you if you keep your eyes closed. Who knows? When you open them again there might be someone dancing with you.
That was always my favorite part at least. That one night watching Priscella Queen of the Damned make a stochastic lust connection with Industro the Rivethead Barbarian during my set. Later. Closing time later. Packing up my cases, waiting for my money and hey, there they are emerging out of the Men's room hand in hand. Glowing with a glamour aura of crap club coke and quality oral sex. Their buzz was almost infectious and reeked off their sheen of sweat. You could bottle up the phermone cocktail they were exuding and bottle it as a cologne or a aphrodisiac pepper spray.
My only regret is that I can't remember what song I played that bought them together. Sure, they would've probably met regardless of who was up in the booth. I can dig that. But it still itches the curiosity bad. A glorious accident lost, a page torn out of my play list grimoire.
Doesn't matter. All that was a million light years ago.
Now I'm doing hard time on the side of angels. Keeping my nose clean. Walking the line, one night at a time, slowly finding the courage to remember how to fly.
But for now it's your eyes, rather than your boots, I'll be asking for a dance.
Perched on the stool in the tight hug between entrance and club, running ID and stamp checks when it hits - "Hey, waitaminute... aren't you Jack Babylon?"
Exposed. Embarassed shrugs affirmative. Please, for christsakes pay no attention to the Man Behind the Reputation - caught red right handed in the bathroom stall.
Now don't get me wrong. This shame lies nowhere in my station. Mopping up puke spills, running drunk rousts, emptying ashtrays, doing the 86ed shuffle, playing Tetris with whole stages, hauling speakers and fetish crosses and collapsable bars... all of this is just work. In their relationship neither the task nor the ego are bigger than the other. My job, my real job, is write here behind the keyboard.
No, what gets me is that first of all here I am asking for proof of ID and in return having to suffer the bad irony and magickial faux pas of having my 'true name' called out. My secret identity revealed. It's every super-villain's worst nightmare. Caught without my real face - instead the one I've long skinned off and replaced. What can I say? I look good when I'm invisible and everyone's beautiful in the dark, remember?
Then there's the barely concealed tone of pity when they ask - 'Why aren't you spinning?' - by which they seem to mean - 'What the hell happened to you, man?'
Suddenly I'm James Cagney at the end of The Roaring Twenties. Fatal gun fight. Wounded. Fleeing through the snow swept city. Collapsing across an expanse of stone steps wide as a stage. Vee runs up to me in tears with Firecracker the Cat close behind. She scoops me up and cradles me in her arms. Firecracker jumps in my lap and starts nuzzling through my jacket for stray crumbs. The arriving cop at the scene is the guy at the door whose apparently working on my biography.
"Who was he?" the cop/customer barks, jotting just the facts ma'am, onto his pad.
"He used to be a Big Shot" Vee sniffs as Firecracker manages to pull my wallet free from my coat.
Ah, but truth be told I was small time at best. But what a very good time 'small time' can be if you know how to time it right.
The customer makes polite goodbyes before mingling off to orbit and square social circles.
A snort and a smile. I see myself suddenly. Decked out paramilitary chic - combat boots and Johnny Cash black. Head shaved and polished until you can read the future off it. Big Mag Lite tucked in the back of my belt. When the crowd flow slows to a trickle and no one's looking I twirl it around running Samurai drills on the down low.
One day I will spin again and with luck I'll see you dancing out there. With the help of enough alcohol, I'll pick the lock on your inhibitions and your beasts will run free across the floor. The right song rendering you temporarily immortal. Lost in the widening center, buried deep inside yourself where even the story of your life can't reach. Dancing like a skeleton on fire - you can't feel a thing and no one can see you if you keep your eyes closed. Who knows? When you open them again there might be someone dancing with you.
That was always my favorite part at least. That one night watching Priscella Queen of the Damned make a stochastic lust connection with Industro the Rivethead Barbarian during my set. Later. Closing time later. Packing up my cases, waiting for my money and hey, there they are emerging out of the Men's room hand in hand. Glowing with a glamour aura of crap club coke and quality oral sex. Their buzz was almost infectious and reeked off their sheen of sweat. You could bottle up the phermone cocktail they were exuding and bottle it as a cologne or a aphrodisiac pepper spray.
My only regret is that I can't remember what song I played that bought them together. Sure, they would've probably met regardless of who was up in the booth. I can dig that. But it still itches the curiosity bad. A glorious accident lost, a page torn out of my play list grimoire.
Doesn't matter. All that was a million light years ago.
Now I'm doing hard time on the side of angels. Keeping my nose clean. Walking the line, one night at a time, slowly finding the courage to remember how to fly.
But for now it's your eyes, rather than your boots, I'll be asking for a dance.