Orlando (Part One)
by Precipitate8
I.
Driven mostly by boredom and the lack of any quality social interaction on campus, exploration of the surrounding territory becomes imperative. My samoan and closest love joins me in the trip. Hell, Anne is going just as stir crazy in that fucking beautiful shit hole of a school as I am, and plus, we’ve had troubles during my dilatin fog that could use reconciliation….
Gothic clubs. We ride in on our cloud of dextromethorphan to breathe the atmosphere. Everyone’s a sadomasochistic vampire slayer, bondage queen, and a closeted heteJudexual. Androgyny–it’s the look. Linda Tripp is a man, baby.
Arms flow in the dance area; slow sensuality releases somber funeral processions. Julie spots a beautiful black boy that moves with a professional fluid posture. She thinks he may work in a local ballet company.
The dextromethorphan is wonderful. A mild contentment and some euphoria and very little motivation. You could lie back just about anywhere and have a pleasant evening, but the ambience of gothic madness is very entertaining. Among other things, however, the stuff does cause you to smoke like a fiend.
“And how are you doing this evening?”
Shake his hand respectfully as you would a translucent apothecary. Don’t really know what Richard is all about, but I’m not the only one whose got ideas.
The effects begin early, and you can never tell with a dex trip, but fortunes tell of strength. One of the few remaining goth clubs downtown and all the standard characters are there: Richard with the only outfit I’ve ever seen him wear, 19th century cloak and dagger bullshit slayer theme; rail-thin skirted boy dancers–much prettier than the girls; and 3,000 Bette Pages, but can you really ever have enough?
Tenzen’s wigged out. Running through the club, too drunk to avoid people, causing a ruckus, the sitters slowly turn their heads to catch the scene: bursts out the double doors, screaming manic, “Richard, the evil spirit man’s after me!”
Friends are attending him; I even give him a word of comfort. Can’t seem to figure out exactly what spooked the boy, but it got’em good. You can feel Richard’s shadow weaving somewhere between the lights of the club inside, maintaining anonymity to all but a few of us.
Met’em a few weeks back; rich slayer motif, london fog overcoat, silk shirt, pants tucked into thick leather boots. Didn’t really need it, who fucks with a large black guy in a goth club? And always so god damn cordial.
II. Icon
Horrendously crowded with a horrendous crowd. Fake tits seemed to be a free gift at the door matching the plastic minds and latex conversation. Stretch pants- 35 year old high school children. Made it past the dance floor, up the stairs and claimed a couch.
We sat watching the procession. It was amusing enough and we were having a good time considering the ridiculous atmosphere. Not too long into it, I noticed a kid in a silver shirt that kept pacing in front of us, seemingly very agitated. I noted his behavior to Julie, and then he disappeared for a few minutes. He returned with a girl and they sat down next to us, on our couch.
Julie needed to use the restroom and took quite a long time. Meanwhile, a rather large and tough looking kid sat down in Julie’s spot with what was presumably his girlfriend in his lap. He saw me lighting a cigarette and asked for one.
“Aw thanks a lot man. Ya know, I been trying to quit for a long time cause my girlfriend don’t like it. I tell ya, it’s a fucking nice night out, right? I mean, I been working this shit job all week long, and it’s fucking nice to get to the club on the weekend. I work on cars like, twelve hours a day and I can’t even smoke anymore. Tryin not ta smoke pot either. I just can’t escape it somehow, though. It’s like the pot finds me, ya know. All the guys at work do it and it’s just around me all the time. Don’t smoke as much as I used to though. I was smokin so much of that shit before, that it started giving me head aches. Crazy headaches man, really strong and right here” (he put his forefinger and thumb about an inch apart and aimed for my eye sockets where he gently applied some pressure to emphasize his point).
I don’t remember too much more of his monologue, but he must have talked for about fifteen minutes straight. A club security guy came over and asked him some questions I couldn’t hear and escorted him away. His girlfriend seemed a little upset.
Buzzed, tingly, cushioned invisible joy, smoking and reassessing my position. The silver shirt boy and his girlfriend were beside me again and had seen my friend get taken away.
“Hey, man. What was that all about?”
“I really don’t know. That guy sat down and talked forever, then they came and got’em. He was friendly enough, though.”
Silver shirt boy gave me a look of acknowledgement and I leaned back in my seat. Julie finally came back; we perched intimately on the sofa to enjoy the evening. At some point the Silver shirt boy and his girlfriend left and we barely noticed.
We decided to get out of the club for a while, maybe buy some smokes, we headed to a favorite coffee shop. It’s only Thursday night, the sidewalks are trickling people. Turning a corner and pulling out a cigarette, a girl loitering in a group of six or seven white trash punker people asks me if I have another cigarette.
“Sure, no problem.”
The girl is sitting on a ledge against the wall with another girl sitting next to her and two or three people in the group standing on either side of them. As I approach the girl with a cigarette, my survival instincts go crazy. Mild adrenaline surges and paranoia–I can feel the group closing in around me–and all of the sudden I know what they are. Like a hunch that you might explain by a subconscious reading of body language or the internal fear of seeing a snake at your feet without ever having seen a snake before. I give the girl a smoke and Julie starts in:
“Do you always patronize your enemies?”
The girl replies sarcastically, “What?”
“I said, ‘Do you always patronize your enemies?’”
“What does ‘patronize’ mean?”
This is a new perception for me and I get the fear. I back out of the group, put my arm around Julie (I can’t believe she’s antagonizing these people) and try to escort her and myself away from this situation. She won’t let me do it though.
“We’ll win,” she whispers and makes me sit down with her at a bench about fifteen feet away from the group.
Close to her ear, I have to ask…I have to know.
“Were those…vampires?”
“Yes.”
She was definitely right about victory. In about five minutes all of them left except for the two girls against the wall, who apologized to us for any verbal indiscretion they might have endeemed to us. We won, even though I was too scared to play.
