Nighttown

It had been storming in Nighttown, and the puddles, smelling of oil and trash, reflected the neon lights, which sat poised like Sirens awaiting a fresh meal. One could get a good idea of the whole place from staring into those puddles and I thought that sometime, given the time and the determination, I could read the swirling paths of cigarettes and bottle caps, absently cast auguries which might speak of something large and unknown. The walls also spoke of things hidden, all covered with half rotten fliers, fading relics of earlier attempts to make the night last past daybreak, as well as the scratches and scrawls of graffiti, spray-painted signs which sat glowing on street corners and alleyway walls.

My walking slowed as I took a moment to gaze at the buildings which surrounded the street that rose away from me, slick like obsidian from the coating of rain-water, coming to a middle point at its own horizon. A small barbershop with candy-cane striping stood at my immediate right, a solid place of old-timey goodness making its best attempt to ignore the trash on its doorstep. Adjacent to that, with an imposing height that caused me to crane my neck skyward, stood an old cathedral fortressed behind a jagged gate of wrought iron that protected the sacred double doors from the street’s howling. As my gaze traveled over it it appeared to me, with the strange angles of its gothic fortitude, like nothing more than an angry and burnt fist punching the air.

I lit a cigarette, the blue nimbus of my soon to be dead lighter caressing frayed tobacco and loose paper end with a slight crackle, fading beneath the sound of my inhaling. Have to chase away the mocking metal screech laughter of those church gates somehow. Exhaling, I turned to view the rundown independent theatre resting across the thoroughfare, seemingly leaning on the hill’s slope. I had been to this place before, seeing a one-person show which consisted of some cat, I think his stage name Olaf Omegaman, sitting in front of an old Magnavox television set upon which was perched an old Super 8 video camera which was filming him as he sat enraptured in his own presence flickering on the screen, locked in a feedback loop. This went on for about eight hours, his eyes never leaving his phantom image on the screen, and if it hadn’t been for the girl who had dragged me there I would have gladly run out screaming only to return with Molotov cocktails a’flaming. Fucking art students, never can quite…

“Hey. Buddy,” came a voice drawing me out from my memories of that horrible night, “Ya’ got the time?” His voice sounded like four packs a day plus a few ass-pocket whiskey flasks.

“Oh, not really, it’s probably about nine, nine-thirty.”

“No no no man, I mean what time is it really,” his voice responded, this time ending in a hushed whisper as if he had something hugely important to tell.

Since I had no fucking clue to what it was he meant by that I turned from the road, looking at him and feeling like waking logic had just departed for the night.

He sat, nestled between a pile of wooden crates and a waste bin full of something burning with a thick tar of black smoke, his back resting against the cathedral’s iron barrier. Thick gray dreadlocks spilled out from under a wide brimmed hat which looked to be covered with motor-oil, although at small interval’s its original surface of tweed peaked through, and his old sea-dog face looked at me with a half-cocked grin which, despite the fact that it contained only a few number of teeth, was obviously supposed to be charming and enigmatic. I, on the other hand, saw it as an “I’m completely and totally bat-shit off-my-rocker grin”.

“What?” I replied, feeling the need to get away from the weirdness, to go find more solid ground.

“Well then, I’ll tell you what time it is,” his voice creaked and groaned like a burnt out industrial plant. “It’s the end-times boy, and you’d be a damn fool not to realize that, the trumpeting will come soon, and then the rending. And I, only I, know how to escape it; boy there are those who would kill poor-old-me for that knowledge if they could find me, the CIA and the Zionists both want me bad, that’s why I’ve started trying to blend in with these streets. Can’t find me here, can they? I’ll tell you how it all started. It was…”

This went on for a while, and realizing that it probably wouldn’t stop any time soon I turned away without a word, and as I walked away I heard his voice still going, fading into the street-sounds of sirens and stereos, a fitting eulogy for a dying piece of town.

Now, walking with my face to the sidewalk cracks and oil slicks, trying to avoid the gazes of anymore passersby or derelicts which might be too piercing or revealing, I approached the rendezvous point, a small bar nestled in the shadows, point of celebration, my hidden Alamut as long as the night lasted. It squatted with it’s chipped paint and half rotten wooden face, staring at the street from it’s submerged vantage point, hungry for inhabitants, a dark and street-wise portal which sat back from the street, protected by stairs descending to it’s doorway, and it seemed to me a dangerous descent down those stairs, as if into the arms of a black and ever closing catafalque.

Entering the bar I looked around while wiping the street’s wetness off my feet and onto the ground, viewing the discomforting decorative style that tried, for some unfathomable reason, to blend a chic industrial minimalism with the more vigorous style of a L.A. punk club circa the late seventies. Big butcher-shop stainless-steel tables clashed with walls covered by fliers and rude graffiti, and the whole décor did nothing but confuse and fuck up movement already made sloppy by the day’s intake of certain illicit substances, and in some sections the walls were covered with lush tapestries and cloths, seemingly a brief afterthought and attempt towards Moorish elegance, about which hipsters and sycophants lounged smoking flavored tobaccos from octopi hosed hookahs. They spoke loudly and harshly, creating a barrier around them, and their words, while loud and impressive, all too soon evaporated into the air like the saffron-flavored Turkish tobacco the exhaled so lushly. That smell, sickly-yellow and much too sweet, mixed in the air with the odors of draft beer and cheap wine, causing my eyes to water. Quickly reaching upwards, my hand came to dry them, leaving my eyes feeling raw to the bar’s flickering lights.

The atmosphere inside was made even more oppressive by the music pumped through ratty speakers that coated the songs with a fuzzed-out sludge of distortion and feedback. The music was, fittingly enough for such a hipsterish dive-bar, a revolving selection of world music: Jamaican dub sounding even slower through the burnt-out speakers, followed by perhaps some dressed-in-black German Industrial or some music from the States that’s come from some new scene which will lie forgotten in a few months, or maybe even some Indian fellow playing the sitar, anything as long as it has that taste of the exotic.

I looked around, grimacing and trying not to sneer at my generation, infected with that 90’s curse of ironic detachment, intent on tasting it all and with no real opinions on much, hiding behind vague liberalism and trendy renunciation. They sat smirking with flavored cigarettes, with headphones to block out the outside, with clothes hip but made to resemble Salvation Army dregs, talking in a bitter blue-collar argot which did nothing to hide their real voices, and their eyes floated disembodied in the bar’s half light, clearly marking which spaces to avoid. Shit, where were my friends, they had probably already moved on, viewing me as something jettisoned to make the night’s flight that much easier, Oh well, time to go home, no need to…

“Holy Shit! Thom, what’s up man, tonight is looking up up up.”

Turning, as if exhausted, I knew who spoke before I even got a glance at his face. That voice, slightly nasal and oddly lilting, a slurring Cockney drawl which I knew was an attempt to cover up good and proper Prep school Received Pronunciation, could only come from one person, one who I often believed to be a savant wonderfully gifted at leading me into all kinds of madness.

Other days I just thought he was an idiot.

There he was, walking out of the privy door, a bundle of energy with nose freshly frozen and spine bent backwards, the prophet of troubles ahead, Joshua Trombone. He had long been a friend, running with me through childhood’s recklessness, and then leading me, or perhaps following me depending on when I’m asked, into the less carefree troubles of adulthood.

“Man,” he uttered, slapping my back without much force and leaving a damp handprint to mark his passing, “This place aint ‘alf bad. I think we could get into a nice spot of trouble ‘ere don’t ya know.”

“Oh…yeah…absolutely great scene, trapped in Nighttown at a bar that makes absolutely no sense in any number of ways. But, you know, whatever, I’m cool.”

“Oh…ok….righteous! Glad you’re into it,” Joshua said sniffling and somehow missing my abundant sarcasm, “You want one? I’m carrying heavy, and it’s totally fire, straight from my mate right around the block, just up into Whitechapel.”

“Fuck that, no way bro, shit makes me anxious as hell. Since when have I had any interest in sweating and chattering all night like a goddamn songbird? Besides, I thought that scene peaked out in the eighties for any number of good reasons.” I was irritated, sober and edgy in a bar with nothing to take those dirty claws of anxiety out of my stomach.

“Yeah, yeah…My bad bro. Actually I got something to keep you from bitching all night long, you know, preparing ahead, something which I know, and you know, that you won’t turn away so lightly. I ain’t gonna take no for an answer, so take this and quit being such a whiny little poof.”

He held out his hand, the expression on his face showing that he saw himself doing some great deed, benevolently blessing me with a cool touch to the forehead and granting me sweet resolve, and he pressed into my hand a few circular, blue pills.

Heart raced and palms sweated; been a few weeks now since the last time, and I was over the worst of it, the shaking hands, sleepless nights, and eyes full of tears from those ugly emotions so carefully sifted over with grave-dirt for so long. But, I thought in that turn of mind so familiar to those who know, I had been good, hadn’t I? I deserved a treat. Besides, all those who venture into Nighttown must shield themselves in one way or another.

I grinned, a slow tiger of a smile reaching up to my eyes, reflected back to me in the grimy mirror backing the bar, and I looked up at Joshua, who was glancing at me knowingly, smirking and nodding slightly. That expression caused me, even in the midst of my rising anticipation for the coming feast, to hate that smarmy fucker with a surprising intensity.

“Be right back,” I said.

“Oh I’m sure you fucking will be,” he smirked, “Go to the water-fountain and throw those down your beak, the night is young yet.”

I nodded, smoothly turning on the axis of my heel, adjusting my trajectory from my evil-ass friend towards that of the water fountain which, though presumably stainless steel or some industrial metal, had lost any illustriousness through a long procession of grubby fingers and spilled drinks. The fountain gleamed like a beatific vision, holding a holy potion to wash my sins down my throat, and I knew as I walked that I wasn’t the one forcing my steps, not in any real sense anyways, and that inertia had taken hold, forcing me into an arc which must, like all arcs, end at the bottom sooner or later. Oh well, hopefully the peak makes the plunge worth it.

Water trickled – down they go –shoulders slumped and backbone defeated even as I looked up smiling, trembling in my own sacrosanct ritual, knowing that the ground would be held at bay at least until the morning.

A half hour later I felt the beginnings of the rise upwards, warm and knowing fingers starting in the back of my neck, spreading outwards to kneed and loosen clenched muscles, cigarette freshly lit and glowingly contained from lips, my eyes glassy and half closed, walking with the nodding gait by which it is so easy to spot those who use, just as Josh’s sniffling nasality and shivering eyes spoke clearly of another demographic. There is nothing like the kiss of opiates to make your days easier; Burroughs used to say that he used just so he could get up in the morning and shave. Don’t I know the feeling.

Josh looked at me and laughed, “Bet the bar doesn’t bother you as much anymore you grouchy bastard.” What a terrible prick he is.

Leaning back, stressing the tensile strength of chipped pale wooden legs that was no doubt minimal at best, I looked around in slow wonder at the denizens of this hidden cave, feeling the need to walk, to stretch my legs on the streets of the city which could not, at least for the night, cause me any harm. Returning the front legs of the chair to the ground I stood up, not too quickly as to avoid the spins, and I shuffled back and forth, enjoying the new lightness of my limbs.

I remembered that Josh had asked me a question and although at this point I really didn’t care enough to answer, I still managed a reply. “Well….yeah man…fuck yeah. Thanks for that…I’ve been…well…you know…”

“Yeah man, I know,” he chuckled, “I knew you would be up for partying with me sooner or later, even though it’s pretty much always sooner.” His fingers were moving in a blur, worrying his hand-rolled cigarette into tatters, and as the strings of tobacco fell to the floor I could see that he had something lurking behind his eyes, something of a fever pitch coming on, and even though I knew that it was probably something involving trouble, I allowed myself to become involved, to be drawn into his pagan intensity.

“We ‘ave to do it tonight,” Josh started, “Its all on us Man, we ‘ave to start a fire and make it laugh, never mind the morning, it won’t come screaming for us, I want to taste it tonight man, I want to fuck the city streets and make them remember my name.”

I looked at him, feeling my gaze receding so that I saw us both, two kids trying to find a way back into a childhood where the shadows can’t really hurt you. Any participation in Josh’s coked out susurrus left me at this point, his manic intensity shifting in my ears to a mournful lament, a requiem played on rotten instruments. The shifting oily light from the swinging lamps above hit him from behind, illuminating and adorning him with the night’s false crown. Looking deeper I could see the sweat on his upper lip, the circles beneath his eyes from no sleep and days spent sprinting, and I saw that he was a damned fool as was I. Simple men, trying to break back into warmth and light, whether through bluff or force, through sprinting or crawling, or through total denial of things untouchable, each convincing the other that those fearful phantoms flickering in the half-light were just shadows on the wall, that they couldn’t possibly cause us any harm.

“So man, what do you think?” he asked, reminding me of the pantheon of those who clutch the dead, visions implanted in me from a childhood obsession into mythology; of Anubis, of Cthulhu returning from his home at Ry’leh, of Mictlanteculhtli dancing in the shadows, all guardians of death and childhood’s end, “Is tonight the night?”

I looked at him for a long moment, thinking of possible replies, knowing that anything I could say would do little to quench this thirst of his, and I felt, in that penetrating and stretched out moment, deeply saddened by what we had lost.

“Well man?” he asked, obviously annoyed at the thought that I was ignoring that which he no-doubt viewed as a brilliant and impassioned speech, one which would ring throughout the ages.

I didn’t answer.