Anything Goes [Work in Progress]

Peter Murphy

 

[pic]

 

            I’m playing games. The dancers around me, playing games, playing with lights and shadows and rhythms. Boom, boom, boom. I close my eyes, forget about games, forget about nuances, forget about this frustration, let it slip out in the whirr of beats that diffuses throughout my limbs and my torso and my mind; feel the beautiful release and surrender all motor innervation to the entrancement.

            No more games.

            And yet, amidst the traces of violet and green and pink, between the caresses of bass and treble there are people. People in love not with the feeling not with the empathetic haze, but with themselves. Bothered by the fact that I’m dancing beside a lovely creature with braids in her hair, with the aura of perfection around her, the energy she seems to enjoy sharing with me. Seduction in her eyes. Jealousy in theirs. And her hesitation. An unwelcome injection of expediency – even in this haven there is no escape. I ignore, close my eyes, lose myself again for a moment. Then bodies encroach, space collapses, frustration returns.

            I stop, sigh, take a good look at this sweet dancer.

Drink my water.

And I have another walk around. Mark has wandered again. Faces sail by, each one so much closer, faster, more immediate than is normal. In the shadows they display, alternately, happiness, desire, empathy, self-obsession, hostility. These come and go like highway billboards. The girls either smile or they don’t. At least I’m not ignored. I feel an overwhelming compulsion to interact. I walk past a guy, my eyes strangely glued to him, and me hovering a foot or so above, behind, without myself. Hey man, I say.

He nods and utters something incoherent, head bobbing to the music. What? I yell over the noise. He repeats his nonsensical sentiment. I nod, shrug, and continue on upstairs.

The noise is different upstairs. Faster. More hardcore. The room resonates with energy, shakes with heat. I get caught in the build-up, mesmerized as my hands draw waves before my eyes, invigorated as feet stomp the floor. Boom, boom, boom.

 

Pause…

 

…and a sudden burst of vitality; lights explode, the crowd emerges in the ensuing blast, and leaps, en masse, into a wild orgy of action, and so much life, so much freedom. Thoughts whirl through like eddies in a stream, catching up him and her, this vibe and that, swirling them around, a mobile to play with, a passing flower, soon replaced by another and another.

After a while I’m stuck between bodies again and begin to wonder where Mark could have got to.

 

These people are all strangers. Enchanting mass of strange eyes, some inviting, some distant, some threatening, some mocking. Some beautiful. None of them have I known or loved. Will I ever know any of them? Love any of them.

Some of the girls I already love. Some of the guys too. Perhaps they will never know. I dance before them and in between them, as if I belong here; instead only really here for the pleasure of such unfamiliar company, for the pleasure of whatever admiration I might elicit.

And I drink my water.

Where the hell is Mark?

I have a seat and a girl nearby is waving a storm of lights before the eyes of a hapless boy. I wish her storm was in my face. I gaze at the sight, captivated by the girl, by the lights, by the mesmerized look in his eyes, by the aura of compassion the whole scene is emanating. I want this girl. Why can I not have her?

I know better than try and seduce her. I know I probably could. I know I never will. I cannot explain it to myself, and sit inextricably lost in this sad paradox. The music continues its steady pervasive assault upon us all. We offer no objections.

And then Mark finds me. He is lost in his own bubble, and fortunately in this place our two have collided. He sits beside me, says of the glow-stick girl, She’s wicked.

Then: I’m so horny right now.

I laugh. Yeah.

Am I horny? I cannot begin to fathom my libido and its workings. There is more  to this place and time than that, anyways. More like I want to fly away with this girl, wrap myself up in her, feel her positive energy, feel her desire rush through my fingertips down to my toes like a shock of electrons, like the touch of a warm breeze.

 

The Chinook is a warm winter breeze that descends upon the lowlanders of Alberta from the mountains to the west, melting the bitter cold, thawing their hearts and minds for a while; God’s own little orgasm.

 

And then a true and welcoming tune reaches our ears, and I jump up to capture it, or at least a little bit of it. I beckon to Mark, but he smiles and motions for me to go it alone. Again. I do. I need no other friend but this great music, right now. A voice mumbles half-intelligible syllables behind the bouncing sounds, like the guy downstairs. I realize conventional communication isn’t strictly necessary. The bodies around me communicate wonderfully, dancing, smiling, being alive with me. I throw my head up in sudden joy and shout. The people around me do likewise. I am ecstatic.

A guy tries to get around me and half hugs me in doing so. Then he’s gone. There’s something not entirely friendly about it. It occurs to me as I go round and up and down that he’s trying to steal my energy. He sees it and he wants it. Like it’s currency. Like it can be so easily stolen. I smile. Capitalism has no place here, despite the exorbitant price they charge. People pay so much, why? Certainly not because they’re frugal. But I dunno. Guess you can sell everything. Don’t wanna think about it now.

My energy is undiminished; I’m not quite so superstitious as all that.

 

Drenched in sweat. Wipe it in my shirt. Continue to move.

 

* * *

 

Well. The day begins with the blare of television. Pleistocene creatures scurry across the screen emitting a high-pitched clamour supposed to resemble human voices; I glare in agony, haplessly directing my will against it. But my will is tired and without consequence, and the effort of worrying about it soon exceeds my limit of exertion itself. I notice Mark, crashed out on the next couch, oblivious – as I would like to be. Who could have turned the thing on then? The question resounds through a hollow mind, a drop in a tin watering can, while the wind currents dust off empty summer plains.

Water?

My bottle sits, thankfully, on the coffee table beside my reaching hand, resting on an issue of Psychology Today: beauty? So many beautiful people dance a sudden fleeting glimpse behind my eyes and I take a deep draught of water, lean back and sigh. And smile. Shut my eyelids, sore and dry. Know not whither to send my mind, latching out as it does, eventually grasping something, pulling me along from here to there on these  cognitive handrails, subsisting, waiting.

 

And from somewhere wanders a girl, hair dishevelled, in a big blue t-shirt, bare legs. She meanders into the bathroom, shuts the door behind her. She’s pretty, I think. Of course, she’s a girl; the thought’s bound to be the first one to cross the mind of any (normal) red-blooded male human being. From somewhere, a dry sound of laughter.

The sun glares in through the big windows that have no form of protection from it, I notice sadly. Yet another sensual enemy I am defenceless against. And too lazy to modify my circumstances. I languish here on the big comfortable cushion, propped up like an oversized puppet, eyes red and twinkling, pleasant smile, awaiting the re-emergence of that mysterious and pretty girl. The Pleistocene has been replaced on the television by stuffed cotton handpuppets. The voices attributed to them are no less grating on the ears. I suddenly crave a cigarette, but the pack is over on the floor by Mark’s dozing figure, I assume – its being his. A galaxy away.

I find myself unconsciously vocalizing yesterday’s beats, hands and feet tapping along. Yesterday? This morning? Does it matter? The toilet flushes and moments later she emerges, hand in hair, disoriented, tired. She turns her lovely eyes my way. I’m simply gazing at her.

-- Hullo. (me)

-- Hey. A smile brightens her face, transforming her.

-- You don’t have a cigarette by any chance?

She rubs her hand over her eyes, stretches. — Somewhere I think.

-- I think there’s some over there, I say, motioning towards my sleeping friend. She laughs at this, my audacity, my lethargy. – Is there really?

-- Yeah, I smile – I’m a lazy bastard. At least this morning.

-- I think I’ve heard about you, she intones, a sexy, morning voice, and strolls past me to the coffee table, finds the pack there, two steps away maybe. I admire her slender back through the thin shirt, her pale legs, slight but not unattractively so. Imagine running fingers along that spine, lips on those thighs; close my eyes, sigh.

She hands me the pack and a lighter, and I take them and thank her. – You want one? I offer.

-- Sure.

I make room for her, my first real activity of the day, and she sits beside me and we each light a cigarette from Mark’s pack. – I’m Chris, I tell her. The cigarette applied to my lips and smoke inhaled, pouring into me, pulling down into even deeper relaxation, as does the beautiful, inexplicable presence of this fellow creature and potential mate on the couch beside me. My toes touching her hip through the blanket. I’m thrust like this, once in a while, into a simple good feeling. She could dance with me, in dark rooms overflowing with human heat and mesmerizing trance music, crowds of strange faces and her own strange yet strangely familiar glowing brown eyes forming traces of light across my field of vision, little pauses, here and there, filled with satisfaction, with insight; communicating like that, uniting like that.

-- Sarah, she replies.

I take that in. Sarah. One of those names you can whisper to yourself in the dead of night, longing for someone’s touch. Sarah.

-- Nice.

She grins. – I guess.

-- Did you have a good night?

-- Ah, yeah we did, she says, her voice somewhat bemused now, turning to me with a grin.

-- You and Lucas, I say even as the realization hits me. Lucas, too, must have crashed here last night. With a guest. His guest nods in affirmation. I inquire: Were you downtown?

-- Yeah, the Oasis.

-- Ack.

-- What, you don’t like it?

-- I’ll spare you my opinion of it.

-- I see; she smiles again. --And how was your night?

-- Memorable, I murmur, and suddenly picture her there again, in my night, slight touches and sensuous glances, weaving smoothly into and out of each other’s glowing auras, caught up in the energy and the lust and the suggestion of something more to come…

-- Memorable, she repeats in a little whisper and a nod, and she has a long draw on her cigarette and stares off into space as if observing my night there. This silence, this stillness and togetherness, with a complete stranger, in my buddy’s home and on his couch, is like a good dream, the kind wherein freedom from anxiety isn’t instant cause for anxiety. I can drift here in this otherworld, with this alluring fairy at my side, touching my very toes, without a care, without so much as a speculative glance at what events might transpire or have transpired outside this moment. This immediate present, this transient permanence. I let tobacco smoke do what it will to me, close my eyes again, cherish the silence.

-- Well good morning! comes something loud and abrupt from without the void and I’m baffled, suddenly torn in a horrible dilemma concerning whether or not to open my eyes and let this hopeless paradise be sucked into the vacuum.

I do, and it is.

There stands Lucas, a smile of amusement upon his face, as always. – I see you two found each other, he laughs, much too enthusiastic for this time of day. Whatever time of day it is. – Chris always finds the pretty girls.

The pretty girl laughs too, and I force a smile merely because to fail to do so would be unconventional and an unwanted curiosity. Me and my pretty girls. If only Lucas’s world and the real world could be one and the same. They are assuredly not so.

Our cigarettes reach the end of their short, pathetic lives, and we bury them in the ashtray; consequently, Sarah arises to join Lucas at Paul’s refrigerator. I strain my eyes in an attempt to focus them, to little avail. Even this sudden interruption hasn’t succeeded in dissolving the surreal haze that afflicts my senses. Then Lucas, a carton of orange juice at his lips, spies the comatose body collapsed on the couch next to me. I know what’s going on in that head of his. I’ve seen it in action many times. This calls for merciful intervention, since once the guy’s got an idea in his head…

-- Mark! I call, marvelling at the voice that emits from what I could only assume are my lips, the recipient of which moans, and otherwise makes no sign of recognition.

--Don’t wake him! cries Lucas, already half-way to the bathroom, eyes ablaze with child-like ecstasy.

--Mark! I call again, and toss a cushion at him. He emits a muffled curse-word -- Fuck off! – rolls over, eyes half open, unhappy. At least he’s awake.

Sarah laughs, implores Lucas, as he emerges from the bathroom possessed of shaving cream, a razor, toothpaste, and tweezers -- Ah, leave him alone.

-- Shit, you didn’t wake him! He lets everything drop to the floor where he’s standing, glares distastefully at me. – What a bastard, he mutters, but already his mind has moved on to other things, searching the cupboards for god-knows-what, the whole impetuously conceived fiasco lost in a pang of morning hunger. Sarah’s laugh rings out again, that wonderfully pleasant sound resonating throughout the place; a bright flash of colour, an angelfish amongst a school of bottom-feeders. Where did she come from? When will she leave us? Why must she leave us?

 

I size up the situation. Lucas. Friend. Associate. More associate than friend; we go on larks, we drink together (in the same circles, rather than in any intimate capacity), we share notes, comments, theories on an assortment of things, mostly attributable to girls in one way or another. I don’t really know where I stand with Lucas. He’s not the kind of guy that makes such a standing obvious. We simply, on the strength of mutual unspoken consent, associate with one another, derive pleasure from it in one way or another. I am by no means special as a result. Lucas is an particularly gregarious creature. There are those who see this as an enviable quality. Understandably.

Mark, on the other hand, I frequently drink with alone. Smoke the odd draw (an understatement), visit the odd next level of mind-alteration. We enjoy the company. The frequent novelties. The reliable familiarities. We get on together. We share secrets and subtle plots, conspire, we have our private jokes, we solicit and proffer advice. We share a love of music. The association is, of course, implicit; nonetheless, it’s one of the most real things I can relate to. That’s friendship. Life lacking such a thing, in my (biased) opinion, is a waste.

And Sarah. A stranger. Yet somebody I feel an inexplicable and strong connection to. Some deep semantic bond, so complex and primal that it’s hardly perceptible. One of those things it’s always easiest just to ignore. But it’s there. It’s not the first time it’s happened; probably won’t be the last. It’s an illusion, a trick of the mind, an evolutionary ploy. It’s a game. But it’s my little indulgence. A small grin is my only betrayal of this insightful secret bond. It fades into a relaxed nothing.

What beautifully lucid thoughts meander through the drug-ravaged mind.

Lucas sits in the chair opposite me; Sarah goes to change. His rummaging has apparently yielded a piece of pizza. Watching him devour it induces my own morning-hunger. – Any more of that? I ask.

Lucas nods, pizza wagging loose from his mouth. – Tons, he says through the food. I smile and nod. Time to exert energy. Another day of exertion. I wait for motivation to reach some arbitrary threshold; muscles leap into action.

 

I eat some morning pizza.

 

There was a point somewhere along the way where I had to stop myself, in my little runaway train of obsession, tell myself: let it go. Just let go. Move on.

 

It worked, for a while.

 

Other times I’d pause, middle of the night, darkness, hotness, aloneness: I’m a hub of nervous activity. Far far too anxious a person. Obsessive. Is everybody this way? And I’d stop it all if I could, take a deep breath, think oceans and waves and summer gardens, butterflies, campfires, childhood. “Think of raindrops in puddles,” Mom used to advise me.

 

Yet other times I’d catch something like, why must everything be so scientific? There comes a point where you have to forget the science, ignore the facts, take comfort in a little mystery. Knowledge is much too exhausting and overrated.

 

Et cetera. Et cetera.

 

Half a pepperoni and mushroom pizza left. God knows whose it was. But grease grease greasy. De rien. All scientific consideration is presently classified: irrelevant. I toss it into the toaster oven. Press “toast”. Marvel at the thing for a while, as the little filaments within glow a quick neon red, energy courses forth into the dead slice of yellow-orange, breathes life there, for me to consume once and for all.

 

I can hardly wait.

 

-- It’s Saturday, calls Mark in poorly-disguised agony from his place on the couch. – What’s the plan?

Lucas chuckles. – Plenty of substance, that’s the plan.

-- That was yesterday’s plan.

It’s my turn to laugh. – Why fuck with a good thing?

 

How do we subsist?

 

Sarah returns, fully clothed, beautified. She wears jeans. They conform to her figure. She wears a tight-fitting black top that glimmers, shines, sparkles, with thin straps over her lovely pale bare shoulders. Clubbin’ gear. I admire for a while, pizza in hand, forgetting to be inconspicuous about it. She flashes a modest grin at me. I return it, feel a sudden dull wave of self-conscious confusion.

Shake it off.

 

* * *

 

-- When we get home, I’ll have a whole new appreciation for friends, though.

-- Yeah, I know what you mean.

This as home snapshots through our minds, a circle of joint-smokers, a taxi full of elated revellers, toss of frisbee, hacky sack. And we stroll along a foreign sidewalk, a bright blue sky, big rolling clouds parked high above the city, soaring on a slight breeze that also rushes through our hair, freshly washed, liking life.

-- Man, last night was wild. I could really see myself liking that too much.

-- Ah, I say. Everything in moderation.

-- Including moderation, he finishes, and we laugh.

 

One time I went on shrooms with this guy I hardly knew. Needless to say, when it was all said and done, we knew each other. Things that you haven’t expressed to your best pal, your girl, your therapist, whomever. Every sort of hidden philosophy, insight, introspection, comes forth without reservation, is shot out there with some force and emotion, honesty minus the fear of criticism, of petty posturing bullshit. He elaborated upon his insecurities, the source of his anxious behaviour, life history, old love affairs, the whole bag. Floodgates into me.

Then he said, we’re gonna do something. And I wondered outloud what he had in mind. He had me stand on the picnic table, facing away from him. Morning cars racing by beyond the fence and I stood there, in wonder. Then said, fall. I registered, re-registered, then considered, remarked that if I did so I was taking a big risk. Head cracking off the hard ground, spine snapping, life flashing. Did I even know this guy? But there were the shrooms, and the honesty, and the trust there. I did it. He caught me. I caught him.

It was beautiful. Thank-you.

He said, only five percent of people who take that test with strangers take the fall. We had broken the trust barrier. He had learned this terrific little rite once in a youth home, where – I subsequently learned – he had been placed as punishment for break-and-entry. A corrections facility. I gained a whole new respect that morning.

People are all beautiful in their own ways.

He had said to me, everything in moderation, including moderation.

That was a bizarre and incredible time.

 

We’re strolling through a business district now. Pizza, hairstyling, realty, used books.

-- Ah, we gotta go in here, I beseech Mark. And so we do.

These places are little oases, your first step into which takes you through a portal, the infamous wardrobe of Narnia; a whirlwind of booksmell, the ages-old aura of human thought, sincerity, insincerity, humility, ostentation, of calm contemplation, of child-like fascination. A stoic air of dignity, of intelligence, of gentle respect. I almost feel a part of that world, as much as I’m a part of anything, browsing through the silence of old pages; sweet ambience.

Browsing, my mind wanders. I consider Mark for a moment, who, in my opinion, is a highly sensual person. He too can feel the atmosphere of this place, appreciate it, despite the fact that he seldom reads, or at least not for ‘leisure’. He experiences, he experiments, his world is one of immediate sensations. He is the stuff of books, preferring to live life rather than consume it in second-hand memoirs. This is part of the reason we’ve got such affinity. We understand what one another is experiencing. Our experiences are shared, are mutual as well as disparate, are thereby enhanced. It’s a rare treasure.

I browse through the books, thinking such thoughts. Books on philosophy, on psychology, on life in early Canada, on the fundamental principles of anarchy. A picture guide to Italy. Some old, old writings. Old ideas. New ideas as well, interspersed, mixed into a wondrous collage, a tapestry of the history of our minds, stuffed away into dilapidated shelving, row by row. I picture the long line of generations; how many feet have trampled this very spot to wear it into this sag, how many souls have come and gone to finally produce this moment, this transient bout of existence, cognition, aspirations, fears, and the rest of it? Me and Mark here running fingers along paper, strangers in a big city, two in a multitude of strangers, doing what humans do when placed in strange situations.

 

We pass on, leave to explore some more.

 

Cars zoom along beside us: Ford Tempo, Chevy Blazer, Honda Accord, Audi S2! My eyes follow the latter with a quick envy, wondering if my time will ever come.

-- Be nice to have a car, comments Mark, on the same plane as myself. A sudden wave of anti-capitalist passion assails me, too obscure for expression. It’s the obscurity, I think, that keeps things as they are. We can see things might be improved, but the application of these sentiments is just beyond our perception. I spend so much thought on the matter, running through scenarios, building a massive indecipherable body of ideas, so intertwined and co-dependent, unstructured, half-finished concepts – the whole enterprise is an exasperating failure.

But it’s there. A little dream as I walk along propelled by some other lifeforce, neither here nor there.

Mark, thankfully, speaks up. – We need beer.

-- Aye. It is a holiday, after all.

-- So where do we go.

-- There’s places everywhere, I exclaim with a fresh onslaught of enthusiasm, waving arms broadly to emphasize the situation we’re in.

-- So, there? he suggests, gesturing towards a place called “The King’s Arms”.

-- I bet they got the stout.

And we investigate, two lost and thirsty souls in search of salvation. We slump ourselves down, a crowded spot on this, a day designated for celebration, relaxation, hard-core partying. We ask the bartender what he has, and he points at the taps, a line of corporate mascots awaiting our discretion like a police line-up, the usual suspects; left to us to choose our culprit. Mine is Guinness. There’s no fucking around on this particular occasion.

Our day begins thusly.

 

The man next to us is older, not exactly grey yet, but he’s obviously seen a few things, has the glint of drunken intelligence in his eye, as he applies his uncanny gaze, insists that Atlantis was an actual place, a theory backed by Ted Danson and ample scientific evidence. I do no more to gainsay this than the odd smug sceptical expression, but this is sufficient for him to maintain his endeavour to convince. What can I really say? I never watched the show on the Learning Channel, don’t even have cable, never did much study of the geography of South America, don’t really care either way. Apart from that, I doubt I could get a word in edgeways, unless I raise the bar to debate mode, which is far from my plan tonight. So I sit and drink with fervour, and we observe the old guy, take pleasure in his intensity, the extent of his lifeforce at such an age. Maybe there is hope there as well.

The topic changes, gradually, with us in our ignorance and indifference conceding his points, and inquiring into his life history. Such things fascinate me. So he, like myself, studied psychology, partook in the production of a few research papers even, before bowing out short of a degree. A woman is his explanation for this, and I need no further elaboration. The whole story is a little unsettling, in fact: how much different is this guy from myself? What will I do, where will I go? I have the same preoccupation with girls. I would drop everything here and now if Laura called up, asked me to be with her. It wouldn’t be a question. I know my priorities. He says no more on the subject, apart from the suggestion of a marriage that didn’t occur in the end, nor do I press him. I buy him a beer, we have another ourselves, consumed in a matter of minutes, and bid him farewell for the day.

It’s barely three o’clock. Time to get ourselves lodged in the thick of things.

 

There’s a lot to be said about clarity.

            -Clarica commercial

 

            CBC Radio announcer says: “Grunge” rock star Kurt Cobain is dead. The popular recording artist was found earlier today with an apparent gunshot wound to the head. Police suspect that the wound was self inflicted. So-and-so has the story.

            Then Dad says something like, Hmmm. Well, that’s not such a surprise, is it?

            He means no harm, of course. A wonderful person. Lost as much as I am, but much more established, thank God.

            And it was such a surprise that I mumble, Yeah. He was headed that way.

            And a million or so people get the news through various mediums, and say something like, Oh my God.

            It’s drastic. It’s dramatic. Good for ratings.

 

            I can’t understand why this idea pops into my head when it does. We intend to enjoy tonight, and think as little as possible. I am executing an outright digression from that plan. It’s not my intent.

 

            Mens rea. What is my intent?

 

            Here’s what’s odd: the place is great, the time is ideal, the whole situation means I should be enjoying myself immensely; my thoughts dip obstinately into despair. Despite everything, I cannot enjoy myself. I can only look at the clowns around me, and wonder what’s the point of anything they’re doing. Show me the point of even one activity, and perhaps I’ll be content. In fact, that simple point would cause me inexplicable joy; pure inner peace. Nirvana. The crowds of people swarm around me, and I can feel their energy, their enjoyment, their exhilaration, and all the rest that comes with crazy celebration. I can feel it, but it in no way infects me. I would love it to. I invite it to, pathetic longing sweeping through conscious will. If for nothing else, to prevent any faltering of the energy Mark is himself emanating.

            He’s been a great companion. I’d do anything to hide the fact that my brain refuses to facilitate what is obviously normal behaviour. I’d do anything not to bring him down.

            I’d do anything to be happy. Positive affect.

            Instead, all I can think about is that poor old man, alone in the bar (what was his name, dammit?). Am I that man? It seems a perfectly reasonable outcome to my life, as it is progressing. I don’t have the passion to succeed in any field. I lack motivation. I lack interest. Prolonged interest, at least. Everything I do well is merely the result of some transient wave of puzzling enthusiasm. I even lack the motivation that seems to be inherent in most organisms similar to myself, or organisms in general, for that matter, to go out of my way to seek my own happiness. I desire it, yes, but as to that extra step, the act of compromising myself, as I see it, I cannot seem to lift my foot off the ground.

            It is hardly due to scruples. Some call it laziness. If that’s the case, it’s not such a mysterious phenomenon.

            There are girls of all types and descriptions here. Surely some of them could make me a very good companion. But the thought of how to approach one, followed by the disgust at the idea of succumbing to such a grotesque animal desire, merely fills me with despair and anger and self-loathing.

            So I say, “Fuck it.”

            Somebody put a name on it. Learned hopelessness. It happens in rats. Even they can come to recognize that the point they’re striving for, that is:

 

ANY POINT WHATSOEVER!

 

...simply does not exist.

 

            But that’s as far as I go in either direction. So I’m poised here on some god-forsaken pedestal, taking this job and that drug and whatever course comes along, all I can do to keep balance and not topple into god-knows-what.

            So wound up, in a crowd of creatures that would never understand, and where the fuck do I go from here?

            Where the mob pushes my complacent body.

 

            Oh, God! It’s impossible to bear!!!!

 

            --Drugs, I gasp at Mark, who, with his benevolent smiling countenance, nods in agreement.

 

I see a big black man seated on a bench, draped outrageously in the maple leaf, beating his collection of drums with all his soul, with beautiful flawless effortless invigorating rhythm; surrounded by impressed onlookers. I am thoroughly captivated, all thought of life dissolved into a wonderful instant, into this transcendental here-and-now, and I stand with pure admiration in my heart, that such a purely good being can exist. He is hope personified, beating the point home to a gang of dancing, hockey-stick wielding, red-and-white-painted young patriots, not an unpleasant sentiment to be found.

My love of life returns with awesome force. Words, actions could never explain my new state of mind; intense, carefree gaze at this great spectacle.

            --Thank-you Ontario! he cries, a thick African sort of accent. --Thank-you Alberta! Thank-you Nova Scotia! Thank-you Quebec! Newfoundland!

            He thanks all the provinces, and the crowd of course eats it up. Mark eats it up. I stand there smiling, foot-stamping, thanking him in silent return. If anything has a point, it’s this man and his drums and his gratitude and his crowd of admirers.

 

My day blossoms into a spring garden.

 

            --Did Sarah say where she was going tonight? asks Mark suddenly, shielding his eyes from the incredibly bright day. We’re stood up amongst a milling throng of celebrators, gazing down at the Ottawa canal. I cast him an instinctive grin.

            --Downtown.

            --No shit.

            --She gave me her number though.

            --No shit?

            --We should find a phone.

            --I have a phone.

            --Right, I nod.

            --Are her and Lucas...?

            A slight rush. Irritating. –No idea.

            My attention wanders down the canal towards the river. –Let’s go make use of this camera, I suggest.

 

            The thing about holidays is that they’re planned, like everything else. So we attempt to withdraw ourselves from the cares of the world, from responsibility, from a persistent nagging echo through recesses of mind, reminding, whispering, “consequences.”

            So I suppose that’s why we (Mark and I, although we’re surely not alone) make every attempt to act spontaneously, go here and there sans discrimination (a half-truth), ingest this, say that, do whatever comes to mind. Of course, this behaviour itself assumes a structure of its own, and we’re back to where we started. That’s where I am now, not wanting to be. What I crave is utter lack of direction, the idea that, whatever I do, there will be no consequence involved. No, gotta catch the Greyhound back home Monday morning; no gotta get myself back to work. No, gotta watch what I spend because it’s not exactly my money even. No, gotta stay in school and graduate, and then!

            Because I’m quite certain the “and then” will never come near to meeting my expectations.

            Hard as I try, tomorrow lingers there like a gun to my head, ensuring I don’t get too far out of line. Ensuring I don’t make the unforgivable mistake of disappointing somebody who’s counting on me for something.

           

            Shake it off, man!

 

            Slowly, methodically, wonderfully, I am set upon by something, a thought, no, an epiphany, a gradually expanding resolve. Like an e rush creeping up, but this is pure cognition, and it tells me – I tell myself – tonight’s gonna be a bit different. Since you’ve got enough knowledge to realize that it’s all just in your head. A conditioned cognitive bias that can quite easily be reconditioned. Much easier than you are wont to assume. A sinister grin forms itself upon my face, which Mark notices.

            --What’s this grinning about?

            I laugh. --Listen. We gotta talk.

            --Really?

            --Yeah. Is there no damn place to sit around here? I glance around at the throng. There’s hardly a damn place to stand. --Never mind. Listen.

            --Oh, I’m listening, (with a grin).

            --Okay, you know the term ‘anything goes’?

            --Sure. Temple of Doom.

            This stops me in my tracks. --Pop culture horseshit!

            --Hey, now. That’s harsh.

            I laugh. –Yeah, don’t even know why I said that. I’m an idiot.

            He grins, neglecting to offer his opinion in this regard.

            --Anyways. I want anything goes. Tonight.

            Mark considers this. --You got it, he says finally.

            I consider him. --Okay, but we gotta get this straight. This ain’t as simple as you think.

            --How so?

            --Well, okay. Suppose for example we’re here right now...

            --You lost me.

            --Man, you’re getting ahead of me. I gotta get this straight in my own head too, if I’m gonna do it right.

            --Get it straight? So, if I’ve got it straight, what you want is to formulate a plan in order to execute an entirely unplanned night properly.

            I glare at him. He apparently does not suffer from my malady. Curious.

            --Anyways, I say, dismissing his impudence with a wave, --we’re here right now, and some guy comes by and asks if we want to buy some acid or something.

            --Just some guy?

            --Yeah, some stranger with leather jacket and alligator boots and earring. What do we do?

            --Well, how can we trust this guy? I mean, there’s impulsivity and then there’s self-destruction. I just want to get a handle on which attitude you’re advocating. Alligator boots?

            --Man, how can you trust any acid you get?

            --By getting it from someone I know? And who doesn’t wear dead alligators on his feet?

            --Who got it where?

            --The CIA? Some second-year chemistry minor? I dunno who makes that shit.

            --Exactly. But you’re missing the point. I want impulsivity, reckless abandon, complete and utter disdain for consequences!

            Mark nods. --I get ya. Then he has a look around. --So where’s the guy with the acid and the boots?

            I frown. --Good question.

            --We could give Lucas a call, but that would kinda be like planning...

            --So would not calling him. Listen, starting now, we gotta put the whole idea out of our heads. Do whatever impulse tells us. Where’s the phone?

            --One final thing. This could be hard on my pocketbook.

            --Pocketbook? I say, incredulous. --Well, there’s always Visa.

            --Not necessarily always.

            --You’re already killing the spirit.

            --Nah. I’m done school now. Just thought I’d point it out.

            I shrug. --Phone?

            Call Lucas. For him it ain’t even a question.

            --Yuh?

            --Huh.

            --Who’s it? Speak up! his ever-lively voice calls through airwaves.

            --Hey, man. Listen, we need your help.

            --Chris? Eh, where you guys at now?

            --Downtown, ah... I look at Mark. --Where are we anyways?

            --Called Yesterday’s I think.

            But Lucas has already resumed talking. --You guys need anything?

            --As a matter of fact, we do. You got any cid?

            A pause. --It might be arranged. How bout you call back in five minutes or so?

            --Sounds fine. What’s your plans anyways?

            --Fuck. Plans? I’ll meet you boys somewhere I guess.

            --Alright. Call back.

            --Right.

            And there is no more Lucas. --We should go for a walk, I suggest. --This being here is doing nothing for me.

            Mark shrugs. --Anything goes, he winks.

 

            Right. Anything goes. Something better go.

 

...Pulling up to a left turn, the opposing traffic is a long line of fellow left-turners. Other lane looks clear, though. But a quick glimpse of oncoming vehicle, little red car, breezin down on us. So what do I do!? Freeze up, slam on the brakes, give the poor bastard nowhere to go but right into the side of me. Holy fuck! Things like that, my own stupid, inexplicable, irrevocable deeds; still makes me shudder to think on it...

 

            Finally pushing free of the sea of human bodies inside the place, we find the situation on the street hardly improved. But we want people, do we not? Every one a potential source of entertainment. Or more.

            I imbibe, admire, and am simultaneously appalled by, the circus of animals congregated before me, trailing past my nose in a trace of happy laughter, high-fives, streaks of red and white, devouring various objects, congregating happily. What a lot I’ve been stuck with! Could be worse, of course, much worse. Could be better. What do I care? I am nudged by a fellow creature, turn to acknowledge it – and it is Sarah.

            I shake my head with quick disbelief, to assure myself of this fact, that this lovely smiling creature is actually before me, and, if I’m not mistaken, happy to see me!

            --Imagine running into you of all people!

            --Yeah. In a zoo like this!

            --Must be fate! she laughs.

            I feel my eyes go wide for a moment. Where am I?

            But pull myself together nicely. And remember, anything goes.

            --Where are you off to? We’ll join you. (Wonder if that’s not too presumptuous? Not that it matters of course...)

            Her nod is both genuine and enthusiastic. –Yeah, for sure. You guys eat yet?

            -- Actually, no. Is that where you’re goin?

            She nods again, takes me by the hand, and we’re off, to Mark’s evident amusement.

            We navigate the crowd for a while, and I take the opportunity to notice the two girls and guy that accompany us. The numbers work out anyway. My mind chuckles. One girl is short and the other tall. The tall one is quite pretty, and is hand-in-hand with the guy, who’s shorter than her. I make a few other observations, his being Oriental, both of them being brunettes, the shorter one smoking a cigarette. Then I turn to glance at the girl to whom I am attached at the hand.

            She’s entrancing. I need to hear her voice.

            --So, I venture.

            --So, she responds, sending that smile to confound me. Man, not even high yet.

            --You from here? Anything goes.

            --Yeah.

            --Just kinda met Lucas?

            --Yeah. He’s a laugh.

            --Sure is.

            --You know each other well?

            --Acquaintances, I shrug. –We share, uh, interests.

            --Is that so? Her grin is priceless.

            --Anyways, I hope you’re not planning on the Oasis again tonight?

            She answers with a little laugh. –Well, you have a better idea I guess?

            --Many. (Anything goes). You’re part of it.

            --Me? Surprise. Feigned surprise, if you ask me.

            I nod. –Anything goes tonight, my friend.

            My friend gives a puzzled shake of the head. –We’ll see, is what she says.

            Meanwhile, Mark, cigarette in hand, has a conversation of his own going with the shorter girl. She’s also pretty, I realize, in her own way. I frown at my tendency to disregard people I don’t find immediately striking.

            In fact, all these people are attractive, somehow. It’s easy for me to say whilst holding hands with the prettiest of them all. How splendidly superficial.

 

Meanwhile, somewhere, carefree, Meghan sits on a patio, beer-bottles all around, surrounded by guys and girls she considers her good friends, and perhaps they are. Remember we went out in grade five? No end of trouble, but you were also an interesting girl. How could it be otherwise with me? Anyways, hope I flit into your mind once a year or so, when you got some time on your hands and can allow it to wander a bit... I’ll let you know I’m doing all right, considering. But think, aren’t we all like jetstreams, streaking across an endless sky, aimless, but converging once in a while, flirting with one another, running in alpha helices, then catch a breeze and off again. So many of us streaking our own capricious patterns towards the horizon; I’m curious as to where you got to.

 

            I don’t get it. But why try? We get to this fifties-style restaurant, pink dresses and milkshakes and hamburgers, and after maybe ten minutes of casual talk, get corralled into a booth. Me beside Sarah; the two lovebirds, whose names I have discovered to be Chris and Shelley, sit across from us. And Mark and Lucy facing each other on the inside. Her name intrigues me. Lucy. It fits with this place, but I don’t tell her.

            Anything goes.

            --Lucy, I say, smiling. –I love your name. Fits with this place, I think.

            She laughs. –Thanks, I guess.

            I nod magnanimously. Then direct my attention to Sarah. Her shirt is beige, which is as accurate a judgment as my expertise on colours allows me. It fits her body closely and is, to my mind, quite a tasteful garment. Her hair is done up with more sparkles in it, and curly, curlier than I can remember from this morning.

            But it’s certainly her. Her body tight to mine, and when she speaks it moves with her words, and her face lights up with enthusiasm, every phrase a marvellously animated expression. I am at a complete loss as to how to convey such thoughts to her. It’s good enough, in any case, just to listen: –Ain’t it great here? So many people.

            --People are... I struggle to sum up people in one word.

            --Animals, offers Mark smugly, and the table responds with laughter.

            --Tell me they have beer here, I exclaim suddenly, realizing with despair that they probably do not.

            --I don’t think they do, admits Sarah, and my eyes widen at her.

            She grins. Don’t worry. Here’s something better. And digs into her purse and takes my hand under the table, depositing something into it. I go to have a look, but she takes the hand and squeezes it shut. --You have to trust me, she says, coyly.

            --Trust you? You could be some psycho... I muse, but smirk to show her I’m hardly being serious. I glance over at Mark, whose attention is elsewhere. –What about him, I say.

            --What? He’ll be okay I’m sure.

            I nod. Anything goes. I put whatever into my mouth and swallow. It’s got a bitter taste, but give me a good pill that doesn’t! An idea forms itself in my head as it goes down. –Listen, how can I thank you?

            She shrugs, still smiling (what a heavenly smile!). –The night is young, is her suggestive reply.

            --Will a kiss do for now?

            She considers this, comically. –Maybe a little one.

            I lean towards her. –But I mean little, she insists.

            Our lips touch, open slightly, and, as I’m leaning anyways, put my hand on her thigh (merely for support).

            Then it’s over, and we share a look of mutual understanding. Carry on with the evening, let it bring what comes.

            Having ingested a mystery, and shared such a sweet reward for doing so, everything is suddenly much more exciting to me. Mark and Lucy are exciting. Chris and Shelley are exciting. The milkshakes, when they arrive, are positively thrilling.

Sarah is beyond description.

            I have a cigarette in a vague attempt to assuage this perilous mania. Then, with fervour that surprises me, I remind Mark that we should give our buddy Lucas a call.

            He agrees, and does so.

            I begin to explain Lucas to Sarah, hesitate, and then say to myself, fuck the consequences (it’s a full-time job). –Lucas, I propose, –is a guy people are mystically drawn to. He’s honest even when he’s lying, which is often. He never gives off a bad vibe, and people like that for some reason. Myself, on the other hand, probably give off all sorts of bad vibes. Without meaning to. Not to people who are familiar with me, of course. At least I hope not. But that’s possible as well. But really, sometimes I’m incredibly jealous of the way Lucas attracts them all like a magnet; I mean, he’s not a bad-looking guy, but neither am I (in my own opinion). Am I?

            She smiles. –You’re not bad.

            --But meeting people, I continue, somewhat embarrassed by my rambling sincerity but having no excuse or desire for shutting up, --so much easier when you couldn’t care less what they thought of you, which is another one of his qualities, if you can call it that.

            She shrugs. –Pills help with that.

            I grin. –Yeah, sometimes they do. But I find, personality tends to transcend even those. Especially when you’re grown accustomed to them.

            --Are you? she squints her eyes at me mockingly.

            I laugh in response. –You might say. Although I could be worse. Should be.

            --Ah, balance is good.

            --Everything in moderation, I grin, and glance at Mark. He’s still bantering on to the subject of our conversation. –Yeah, he says to the telephone, happily. –As much as you can. We’ve got a mission tonight. (Pause) –That’s good fucking news, dude. Okay. Good enough.

            He presses a button and smiles broadly. –We’re in business.

            --What sort of business? says Lucy, sideways.

            He nods knowingly. –Debauchery. All kinds of nameless debauchery.

            The table laughs again, myself included, infinitely pleased now. 2-0 Mark.

            I have an impulse, and turn to Sarah, whispering into her ear: --No moderation tonight for us though, whadduya say?

            I feel her eyes roll. –What exactly do you have in mind? she whispers back.

            --Oh, nothing. Absolutely nothing.

            She thinks about this, fingers play surreptitiously with my knee. –Never had any use for moderation, she whispers finally.

            And our food arrives. We display excitement at this fact.

            Sarah gets her hamburger and fries and looks at them for a moment. She turns and whispers, --But you gotta just let the pills carry you away. Can’t fight it at all, can’t pretend you’re infallible. Cause you’re not. And it’s actually a good quality to have faults and succumb to them.

            I glance back with awe. –So true, I tell her. (Hesitate. Anything goes.) --I could easily fall you love with you, II think.

            She laughs, rolls her eyes. But this can’t conceal what’s in them.

            I happily devour my food. Stop, consider something.

            --Say, I’m not the only one having eaten mysterious somethings am I?

            She puts down her burger, purses her lips thoughtfully. –Good question, she replies with a sly raise of the eyebrows, glances around suspiciously at our little entourage, shrugs, and goes back about her business.

            I sigh, turn to Mark for comfort. –So where to after this?

            --He said he’s gonna be at the Dominion for a while.

            --Ah. I nod. –Appropriate.

            --That’s what I said.

            --And I judge from your reaction that we have no worries.

            --None at all. Lucas doesn’t disappoint.

            --No, I agree. --It’s uncanny, really.

            --Hey, don’t knock it.

            --Certainly not.

 

At the Breezeway, vast measures of time-space from this. Jody asks me to come dance and of course I’d love to, but there’s that horrible something between us that just flips every moment with her upside down for me... I say yes. How could I say no to Jody? On the way up, there’s Pete, good ole’ Pete, and she stops to say hi. How can she not? We nod at each other, to acknowledge friendship. But I can tell there’s still something there for her. Pete himself seems distracted, as I must seem, and for a moment we just stand there together, the love triangle that must have filled a few good weeks of gossip back at the house. Standing together, nothing to say, like we’re posing for some invisible photographer. I don’t know what to make of it. It’s surreal. It’s obscene. Then we nod see-ya’s, and it dissolves, graciously, and she looks at me again, eyes I simply cannot read. Or will not. Dance?

 

            We get outside, and suddenly I feel the tiny, building influx of energy in my arms, in my legs, in my belly, in my brain, that I’m so very familiar with. I whirl around, startling everyone, take her by the shoulders. –You’re an angel!

            She looks surprised, but my stare insists, and a smile slowly works itself onto her beautiful face. –Yeah, she agrees. –I can feel it too, honey.

            I give her a hug, then back up again. –So when did you take yours?

            --Right when you did.

            I think about it. –I never saw ya.

She shrugs. --You should pay less attention to yourself, I guess.

We all laugh at my unmitigated conceit.

--It’s a deal, I promise her. And I mean it, when I say it. But then again, tonight is all about me. No exceptions.

I don’t express this.

 

--I think, I murmur to Mark, aside, candid, --I am not myself until I’m high.

Mark laughs, a short, concerned laugh. –That’s not true, he says, and I think about it, appreciate it immensely.

--No, I guess not. But there’s things I lose that I don’t mind losing, if you know what I mean.

--Wha? he says, not knowing what I mean, which prompts me to elaborate.

--Just little things, that I do, that annoy me, so they must annoy other people. But they all dissipate, inhibition, stupid mannerisms, et cetera. It filters them all right out.

--Pshhh, he replies. –That’s you. No reason to change it.

--Why not? I challenge. –If you don’t like it and it’s just pulling you down...

He shrugs, not the type of person to sustain an argument. –I dunno. I don’t find you too annoying.

The rush is hitting me, and everything’s good anyways. No time to argue moot points. –Yeah, you’re right brother.

Then: --Listen, you’ll get your pills soon, righht?

--Yeah, he says, laughing again.

--Cause I feel kinda guilty, startin’ a trip without you, ya know? But she handed me it and I took it, and man, she’s a cool girl. Would you refuse her?

--Nope, he grins. –No worries.

--She’s so slender and... I struggle –fluid. Not someone you’ll meet every day.

His smile is truly radiant. –Anything goes. (Given to brevity, is Mark).

--True, I muse. –Although, since it’s a mutual thing, maybe there ought to be a few exceptions to ensure that we, you know, keep close. Or else it’s just going too far. It’s just too much of a leap, with no accomplice.

He shrugs, looks me in the eye, which in my present state is wildly intimate and intense. –Why draw lines? Anything goes means anything goes.

--Ah man, I say, overwhelmed. –It’s a huge step to take. Think about it. (An infinite void – alone?) –Inconceivable!

--It’s one life to live, like the soap opera.

I clasp my hands, jump back, feeling this outrageous expression on my face that I am powerless to prevent. –Man, I exclaim. –What are the chances of me finding someone on such an identical plane as I am?

He laughs, amused and (if I’m not mistaken), somewhat flattered. –Metaphors, is all he says, and then I feel Sarah’s arm around my waist. –It’s so amazing, isn’t it? that mystical voice in my ear.

--Oh, fuck, I tell her. –Like nothing else.

 

The world emanates around me and I traverse it, immerse myself in it, feel every subtle wave of energy from every possible source, which are not in short supply here, now.

 

You feel the first effects of this chemical not in any localized region, usually, but throughout the body, a simple surge of energy, a wave of adrenergic warmth; excitement follows closely, and you go from there. Often, as now, you are flooded by feelings of empathy towards whomever or whatever you are in the company of, and an irrepressible need to express this empathy. There is a growing urge for action, to perform some coordinated activity, to dance. There is a sudden gracefulness in your words, your movements, your disposition, that you’ve never imagined possible.

Sarah and I begin to move to the random beats emanating from the bars we’re passing, and the crowd noise even; hold hands just because it feels good. Sensitive to everything, and so many stimuli here. And examine every passer-by, most of whom seem to evolve good vibes; the odd one whose vibes are decidedly bad. Our eyes follow these latter people especially, a bizarre fascination.

--That one’s definitely not happy, I frown.

She nods. –Nope. What an evil grin.

--Ah, just a bad mood I’m sure. You don’t think people can truly be evil do you?

--Sure they can, she says, surprised at the question. –There’s lots of bad people.

--But truly bad? I mean, maybe they act bad cause that’s how they were taught or whatever. Or they’re just so wholly insecure with other people that they react to everything badly, and that makes them seem evil. But I doubt they are, at the bottom of it, pure evil. I think that, if you were to teach everyone a certain way, not saying that we should, only that it’s possible, but if you do that, everyone would basically adopt those principles. Like Brave New World, have you read that?

She shakes her head no. –Well, I explain, thoroughly enjoying this new spontaneity of conversation, --in Huxley’s world, all the babies are genetically engineered and born as different classes that are responsible for specific duties as members of society. So you had people to do your grunt-work, and people to do your dirty work, and people to do your thinking.

--And were any of them evil?

--Well, I suppose that’s a matter of opinion, and people differ in that respect. But as far as my point goes, everybody pretty much grew up to hold the same principles, or... you know, ...ways of thinking, and they behaved the same ways, and as a result, society functioned flawlessly. Such an idea scares people.

--I’d say.

--Yeah. His protagonist was one of the alpha’s; he had a nasty streak of individualism and curiousity in him. Alpha’s were made to, you know, be in charge and ensure the whole machine functioned properly. But this guy for some reason was an individual when he shouldn’t have been; he threatened social harmony. But even he wasn’t really evil. Just different.

She shrugs. –Well, I can’t say I’ve met any evil babies. But some people just grow up bad and you’ll never change em. That’s who I consider evil. I think there’s lots of evil people. Or maybe not lots, but enough. More than enough. One’s more than enough for this world. I’ve known a few.

I laugh, and nod, and store the conversation for a more appropriate state of mind. Presently content to have discovered a differing opinion. And such an unbelievable circumstance. Too good to be true, a voice comes through the rising e-high, only to be lost upon me.

Who cares? Dream or not. Anything goes!

--Mark, calls my voice, of a volition not my own.

--Yeah Chris.

--Is it just me or is this place farther than I remember it?

--It would have to be just you, wouldn’t it?

--Ha, ha, ha. I make a face at the bastard.

He gestures, I look, and my eyes make contact with a sign saying The Dominion Tavern, and I laugh. So does the rest of the gang, which forces me to consider Chris (the other Chris), Shelley, and Lucy. I nudge Sarah.

--They high too, then?

--Nah, they don’t go in for it. Well, except Lucy maybe.

--So who were you planning on...

She shrugs, a little grin.

I shake my head. –Unreal!

 

Sometimes things happen and make sense. But it’s so rare. You have to cherish such moments as much as you can. God knows when it’ll return to normal, and God knows when the next time will come...

 

--Some days, I tell her, --are better than others.

 

We enter the Dominion, itself blocked with bodies, and find Lucas sat at a table at the far end. I’m not going to even conjecture as to how he got himself a table. With some very attractive people at it, none of with whom I am acquainted.

Picture it: Lucas is a taller guy, about six one, and 180 pounds maybe. A guy of some size, you wouldn’t usually consider picking a fight with. But he’s always got a grin of some sort upon his face, like the whole world’s a joke designed for his own amusement. Only he’s not afraid whatsoever to interact with the joke, steer it whatever way he wants it to go.

I wonder what it would be like to live such a life. Is it wrong to envy other people’s lives? I’d like to live all of them. From the most miserable to the most extravagant. And everything in between. I want to know everybody’s story, want to be the hero of the story, want to know everything there is to know about people. The closest I get is reading, corresponding, getting stoned and sharing stories. But of course there’s so much more trapped behind the eyes of a person, what they will never tell a living soul. What will die with them. I want these things the most.

 

Even if I could just wander around, reading their thoughts at random, or subtitles appearing beneath their faces, displaying whatever internal monologue is forming itself in their heads. I bet the quiet ones would have the most to say. Constant stream of consciousness... never uttered to a soul. Horrible.

 

Right now, I’d like to know her story, or Lucas’s; but I suppose I can content myself with being a character in them. I mean to have a nice long chat with her later. If all goes well... But that’s me planning again! It’s certainly innate!

--Boys, Lucas greets us, nodding his head to the Violent Femmes that blares forth from the jukebox. He hands Mark a baggie, which goes straight into his jacket pocket, nobody the wiser. Money exchanges likewise in the opposite direction.

--Well, says Lucas, this transaction completed. –You guys should get a beer. And then we can discuss the night ahead.

--Don’t need beer, I grin, and he grins back. –Suit yourself! (notices Sarah beside me) –Well! One of the boys now, are ya?

She laughs. –Guess so.

He peers from her to me, and back, appearing infinitely amused.

I glance around. Only been in this place once or twice before. It’s a warm-up bar of sorts. Come and meet, chat, have a beer or two or four, then move on into a night of bigger-and-better-things. A lot of folks warming up for this evening. Wild.

--Water, Sarah’s voice whispers into my ear.

--Yes, I agree. –Let’s get some.

Her face is delighted. So lovely.

So we manipulate our way to the bar, and ask for water. The bartender, a sarcastic-looking fellow with pierced eyebrow, plain features accentuated by spiked jet-black hair, tattoos on his arms. He looks at us funnily, as if he’s unimpressed by what he divines as our choice of antics; not understanding that it is personal growth, novelty, experimentation that drives us, rather than impression-making, acceptance-seeking, posturing. Two conflicting philosophies, maybe; maybe different stages of development; maybe...

--Bad vibes, says Sarah.

--Maybe not, I muse. –Just vibes we don’t understand. Doesn’t necessarily make them bad.

She nods. –Such an optimist.

I laugh. –Just don’t understand much, that’s all.

 

Really

            flyin

                        now.

 

Find Lucas, Mark, et al. –Well, boys? I could really use some dancin I think.

Mark laughs at this. –Lots of time for that. What we need is somewhere to roll this.

--Not here? I say, grinning.

--Probably not. I was thinkin we’d go back to Paul’s for a bit.

I consider this strategy. Straight from left field, but it really doesn’t seem like such a bad idea...

--What do you think? I ask Sarah.

Shrugs. Closes her eyes. Then that crazy smile. –Why not? She turns to her friends, converses, and I try to let my attention gaze elsewhere, but there’s nothing else I really want to see...

Her friends display consensus, and Lucas says –Great. You know, I think I’ll stay here for a bit. How long you gonna be at Paul-o’s?

I somehow indicate my inability to answer this with any accuracy. –No more than an hour, I estimate.

--Alright. If I’m not here,... I’ll be somewhere else. Call me. (points directly at me, sustained eye contact, then a little wink; bewildering!)

We part with Lucas once more.

--Man, says Mark, looking around at the growing throng. –Should we just walk back?

I nod, and Lucy says, --It’s a beautiful day.

--Isn’t it? agrees Sarah, and hugs her jubilantly.

--It certainly is, I confirm, stretching my arms upwards.

 

Then, the other Chris says –Guys, I think we’re gonna stay here. Shelley seconds this with an emphatic nod.

Sarah frowns. –Really?

--Yeah, actually I gotta meet some friends in a little while.

--Okay, then. Where are you gonna be later?

He shrugs. –The Oasis?

She looks at me quickly and laughs. –Chris doesn’t like the Oasis.

They turn to me with question marks for eyes. And I’m on the spot. It’s true, I don’t like it. But how to acknowledge it without creating bad vibes? I shrug helplessly at them. –It’s alright... I start.

They smile. –Well, maybe we’ll see you guys later on, says Shelley, gracefully. –You got my cell phone?

Sarah nods, laughter trickling from her sweetly. She grabs on to my arm, as if for support of some kind.

And taking separate directions we are quickly out of sight, swallowed by the massive ocean of bodies. Westward, I think.

--Hope you know the way, I tell Mark, who winks and nods at me.

 

It really is a beautiful day, as the blue slowly creeps into darker, hazier hues, and white clouds to grey, and in front of us the sun’s yellow melts into pale reds, purples, oranges, which leak out to perfuse the rest of the canvas. That the world could hold such splendour, diffuse energy presses at my limbs, my mind, my every skeletal muscle, I can hardly contain it!

 

I leap through the crowd, over the crowd in enormous bounds, taking them all with me.

 

And all the girls I’ve ever known await my arrival. I’m ready for you now, Jody baby. With those bright eyes, that inscrutable smile. Man, I’m a sucker for that smile. So lose ourselves in between these arms and legs and beer bottles. We might just lose ourselves. You’d like that?

 

We walk, and as the density of human husks gradually recedes, I feel the sudden necessity of conversation.

--Well, Sarah. What’s it like growing up in this metropolis? It’s a nice town.

She laughs. –It’s no metropolis.

--Oh, I say it is. I mean, no Toronto or Montreal in size, maybe. But it’s no Smallville. I’m sure it’s got its share of cosmopolitan culture.

She shrugs. –Not like Montreal, really. It’s all tourists. Tourists make the culture.

--Well, I find that hard to believe. I know for a fact you guys got a neat little rave scene.

She smirks. –Mostly kids, really. We got lots of buskers, though. That’s something Ottawa can brag about.

--If you want to brag about that, says Mark.

--Hey, beats squeegie kids, I interject, happily.

Sarah hugs me, in a whimsical suddenness. I show surprise, then return the favour.

--And the politicians, says Lucy, smiling. –Can’t forget them.

--Oh, but we can, replies Mark. –And frequently do.

--It’s sad, she comments, sadly.

--This, I tell them, grappling with a sudden epiphany (everything so sudden!) –is what humanity is about. You know? (her arms around me). Friends, conversing, laughing, loving life because they have someone to share it with!

They laugh, somewhat accordingly, somewhat nervously.

This impels me to add: --But we’re too nervous to acknowledge it most of the time.

--Yeah, says Sarah, tightening her grip.

--I suppose, says Mark, glancing around at what is no longer a crowd, but rather scattered groups of people roaming here and there –that I should take a pill.

--Ah, good thinking.

--Lucy? says Sarah, and Lucy gives her a warm smile. Nods, slowly.

 

We come to an underpass. Cars rumble overhead. Others rumble underneath, by us as we walk. Exhaust reaches nostrils.

And we are pilgrims, followers of some newly fabricated god whose presence can be readily felt, experienced, ecstasy – unlike Buddhists, say, who require the traversal of vast mental and temporal lengths to reach a state of frenzy they can call enlightenment. This god’s healing touch is instantaneous. And his disciples are many, vastly disparate ideologies, cultures, philosophies, all bound by a similar desire, to be touched by this benevolent hand, to take deep breaths and enjoy them for what they are, to chase the rest of it away.

A new religion, and they are afraid. Just as Romans persecuted Christians, so we have to huddle in corners, hide our true selves, keep an eye out for the man. That didn’t last; neither will this. Only a matter of time.

But, there’s the other side of coin; how many of these drug-takers are really pilgrims? How many can appreciate, as the Buddhist monk can appreciate. Very few. Can I appreciate? I can only begin to, only acknowledge that such appreciation is possible, only glimpse at where I can go if I shed this cumbersome host, these insistent conventions, habits, stereotypes, heuristics. Baggage. To find beauty in something too abstract, too transcendent for eyes, ears, tongue, fingertip. How to go about it? How to put oneself in the right context? How to get there without having wasted what little I have to work with...

 

I don’t have the patience. I’m too terrified at the prospect of missing something, of leaving this life having missed something I shouldn’t have missed...

 

We exit the underpass, having made the entire trip in (reflective) silence, and I marvel, appreciate the silence for what it is; calmness, trust, togetherness. (her arm around my waist).

The silence, however, screams to be broken. Who will do the honours?

 

Patience, man! Enjoy.

 

The only sound is our footsteps on asphalt, air rushing melodically through lungs, and the cars zooming by over the expressway behind us. What music. Such peace in such a place? The street is empty, everybody massed into an enormous congregation downtown. I almost prefer it here. Man, I do prefer it here. Admire the red-bricked old houses, their black spiked iron fences, the great trees whose limbs form a green canopy overhead. Admire the place our forefathers have created for us to enjoy, feel safe in, so much so much good energy! And it lingers, shelters, does not impose itself upon us, but merely smiles, so I smile back.

And we all feel it, surely. I glance around, upwards, to gauge this.

--Nothing like waiting for it, Mark’s voice seems to descend from above.

--I know, eh? goes mine, addressed in that direction.

The girls murmur agreement.

--Isn’t it great? One of the best parts of the high occurs before it even hits. (This coming from me, who is already well into said high, with very few complaints).

Then: --Paul’s is just down here, isn’t it?>

Mark nods.

--You’re not saying much, I turn to Sarah, obsessed with conversation now that it has surfaced.

She takes my face in her hands. Cheeks seem to melt, and I close my eyes, open them to that lovely face gazing contentedly at me. –Oh, Chris, this is so... a voice sings itself from within those pretty lips. I lean towards them (anything goes), touch, tongue cautiously seeking, finding, lingering...

--We could meet you there, suggests a voice, Markesque. And another little voice jingles beside us. I’ve been here before; won’t let it go so readily this time.

 

So? Here is epiphany. Here is catharsis. Here is enlightenment. I suffer every bit as much as Buddha and my purpose is this. What else can there possibly be?

 

It’s a while, or at least it seems a while, before Paul answers the door. But he just says hi without offering any explanations, so I conclude it’s only my own distorted perception of time. We shuffle inside, sit on the couches. Paul was evidently in the process of rolling a joint, which task he resumes.

--What are you guys at? he says, without looking up.

--Not too much, not too much, says Mark with humour in his voice and Paul laughs his low, rumbling, marijuana laugh. And then we all laugh. He’s an infectious kind of guy. Slow speaker, but always with something to say if the conversation lulls at all. Great for that. Effortless in life. Sometimes (not now of course) I envy him that.

Paul’s tall, lanky, slick black hair, a face of impure innocence, hidden behind a thin pair of glasses. That’s Paul. The best kind of guy.

--Mind if we join you? says Mark, having a seat beside him and pulling out the big baggie.

Paul laughs again, with some emphasis this time. We do likewise. –The stash.

--That’s right, says Mark with a grin, and extracts from the big baggie a smaller baggie, full of weed.

--What do we got, anyways?

--Oh man, he replies. –We got it all here.

--Fuck, is that white powder I see?

Mark nods. –Oh yes.

--What is it?

--Oh, I dunno.

--Man what is it? Coke?

He shakes his grinning face.

--Well what? Not—

He nods his grinning face.

--Oh my God. What? Not mesc?

--Mesc.

--You angel!

--Hey, you’ll have to thank Lucas. He’s the man.

--Yeah, of course.

I’m so excited. It’s like being in a candy store, back when I liked candy, and Mom saying, --Well, pick one.

That same excitement. That same happy feeling, that one of these things can be yours. Of course, the candy and my expectations of it have changed somewhat.

The moment bolstered by the peak of an unexpected e-high. Rushing, rushing, need to get up and move, man!

--Paul, listen, can I put some techno on, something?

--Techno, he jokes, or at least half-jokes. He’s grown tolerant to it by now. –I don’t care, go ahead, man.

--Ah, you’re the best!

--Yeah, agrees Sarah, happy with me. God knows she’s as high as I am, and even these other two should be flyin soon. So I put the music on.

 

We move our limbs to the beats, as natural and in fact much more natural, it seems, than standing, or sitting, or walking. Watch our companions construct cigarettes; excited further by the quantity of psychoactive substances lying on the table before us.

So simple. So simply entertained, us. Humans. So eager to entertain.

Presently, Lucy joins us. Mark, and Paul, neither of whom are big on dancing, watch, bobbing heads rhythmically, busying themselves with the preparatory side of recreational substance use. Their faces portray their approval, connectedness, slight amusement, friendliness. Funny, funny, funny: how powerful our gestures, expressions, mannerisms, vocalizations can be. We need to know what everybody is thinking, feeling, about us. Everything’s cool here. Everything’s tolerant. Friendly. I almost cringe to go downtown. Yet we must go downtown. Why can’t downtown come to us? All the good parts, come right here, where it’s warm and comfortable and friendly?

Mark lights a joint. –I need this, he explains, and indeed he’s veritably shaking with energy.

Sarah’s laughter results from this. –Don’t we all!

I can only nod, having nothing to add. So absorbed in observing body language that actual vocalizing seems almost superfluous. And then, suddenly, words do erupt from me: --Let’s start the evening then, shall we?

Paul looks at me, nods, laughs. Such a reaction from Paul, who only occasionally does react, is always satisfying. Because me, I always seem to worry about the “coolness” of what comes out of my mouth. And what comes out is not always cool, man. (You’ll have to trust me on that).

The music hits a really, really good vibe, and Sarah and I glance at each other, smile appreciatively. Then I let it carry me for a moment. The world disappears, when I get carried away. Although it’s always there, limiting, limiting you from really letting go of all inhibition. There’s always a limit, in the back of your mind. You can’t go smashing into other dancers, innocent bystanders, Paul’s coffee-table and all of the lovely narcotics resting upon it. Still, you can let go a little bit, get carried away enough to get that beautiful rush of throwing off (most of) your worries, shedding them for that small moment, feeling safe enough to do so. Imagining absolutely no rules. Wishing the other people would do likewise.

They seldom do.

 

Once, in Sudbury, on mushrooms, having a pretty good night. Some asshole slaps me on the ass as I pass by. I turn, surprised, incredulous, just plain curious (and of course, happily trippin on shrooms). But he snarls, a look of natural rabid malevolence on his face; not hatred, not anger, hardly any emotion whatsoever, merely calm, vacant, meanness, a pure asshole, saying: I’ll fucking kill ya. Walk away. I’ll fuckin kill ya. I don’t know what to say. I’m led away, or God knows what might have transpired. Then I freak. Can’t take it. That someone so evil could exist, in my world. I want to kill him, literally make him non-existent, by whatever means. Kill. Instead, I go elsewhere, a much better club, playing trance. And I just fucking dance. Fucking let go. Nobody else dancing, and I make use of the whole floor, jumping, twisting, moving crazily, no boundaries, nothing, and soon there is no more anger, and later there are companions dancing, other die-hard dancers, who’ve maybe never even really danced before, cause they have expressions of wild elation on their faces, and pretty girls, and the owner of the place offering me a drink and telling me I’m awesome. I dance the whole fucking night, throw all my worries to hell. Beautiful.

 

And I dance now, letting go just a little bit. Sarah turns to me, a smile that words could never properly describe. –You’re a beautiful dancer, she says, with utter sincerity.

--Thanks, I say, still dancing. –So are you!

--None of you are too bad, laughs Mark, standing to hand me the joint.

--Thank-you twicely, I smile at my friend. This could not happen in the wildest of dreams, I think.

Thus ecstatic, I collapse onto the couch, a look of exuberance on my face. Everybody’s smiling at me! Fuck! I can’t stop grinning myself, until I take my head in my hands and shake it, following directly from this action into the music again.

Paul laughs. –Buddy, you’re fucked.

I nod at him, then gaze back at Sarah, intense in her circle of dancing. She concentrates on the dancing. She’s really into the dancing. All alone now too, cause I guess Lucy took my cue and sat down. Right beside Mark; the two look damn good together, I must say. Except that Mark’s got a girlfriend. But what about that? That’s nothing to here and now.

 

Anything goes!

 

Another joint passes itself to me. I take it, murmuring thanks, and enjoy it. Mark’s talking.

--This is a nice spot, Paul. How much do you pay here?

--We pay... $800 a month. Plus electricity.

Mark nods. –That’s pretty good, is it? For Ottawa?

--Yeah, well, we’d like it cheaper.

We laugh. –Cheaper is always good, I remark.

--Back in St. John’s we could probably get a good-sized house for $800 plus utilities, says Mark.

--Yup, Paul agrees. –But St. John’s don’t have apartment buildings this big.

--That’s true.

Sarah, slipping out of her trance, stops dancing and squeezes herself onto the couch beside me. I rest my hand on her thigh, savouring the warmth there.

--So what’s the plan, Stan? she asks us, looking gorgeous.

--Who’s Stan? asks Mark, and we laugh again.

--And what’s he on? I inquire.

A joint passes my way once more. I glance over at Lucy, sat quietly beside Mark, grinning politely, very pretty. What would your parents think, if they could see you?

What would any of our parents think?

--What would my parents think of me right now, I wonder?

They laugh, yet again. So much laughter! –My dad... says Sarah, pursing her lips with the thought. –God only knows. They’re all people too.

--Fuck, says Paul. –My folks would kill me with all of that shit here. He indicates the ample variety of narcotics contained in the big baggy, sitting innocuously before us on the coffee table.

--Yup, agrees Mark, emphatically.

--Ah, parents, I say, and we all nod in respect, in reflective appreciation of the people that parents are. Or at least I do. Can’t speak for all the rest, I suppose.

--Anyways, insists Sarah. –What’s the plan? Dudes?

--Plan! says Mark. Our eyes meet and we burst into more laughter, quite uncontrollable, as Sarah sighs in exasperation.

--What is up with you guys?

--You high or something? says Lucy, at which everybody proceeds to laugh.

 

God, laughter feels so good. Honest, easy, infectious laughter. The kind that takes you on its own high for a while, carrying you away; trying so hard to make it stop, loving every second of it.

 

--No plan tonight, I say, somehow. –Anything goes. You don’t remember?

--Oh, I remember, she replies, seductively. Her cheek is so close to mine, I touch it slightly with my lips, slightly, and it’s electric! She turns quickly and we kiss, really start kissing, and this, too, is so effortless! And wonderful and intense and a world of its own.

--Boys, says Paul, after a while. –No anything goes in my living room!

And we stop kissing. It’s inappropriate, maybe? I glance around at the faces, entirely uncertain of the semantics for a moment. It takes a few moments to gauge the situation. Then, convinced of comfort once again, I just wrap my arms around her and hold her like that.

--Alright! proclaims Mark. –So when do we go downtown?

--Whenever, I say, nonchalant. –There’s no big rush to do anything, is there?

--Well, no. Although downtown would be a good idea, considering that’s where the party is.

I wave my finger at him, disapprovingly. –Planning, Mark. No good. What did we say?

He shrugs. –Okay. Tell you what. I’m gonna get up in a little while. And go downtown. Not a plan! Just something I predict happening. Let’s just see if I’m right.

--Alright, I agree.

--So, says Sarah. –Are you guys major drug-users, then? Is that it?

--Oh, no, no, no, answers Mark. –Well, he is.

--Me!? I object. --I’m sorry, girls, but this guy’s telling you a flat-out blatant lie. See he’s a pathological liar. I hang out with him cause I feel sorry for him, and, you know, I try to protect him from other people catching on, but... now he’s gotta go and get personal.

Mark just laughs. –We’re not, we’re not bad guys, he insists. –You believe me, don’t you? This is just a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of thing. Isn’t that right, Chris?

--What, me? Hell no, I do it all the time.

They all laugh, and me, in the zone, unflinching. –You all laugh, but it’s a serious problem. I mean, I’m sleeping in the woods, now. I got my kettle hid away under the bridge for after the party. It ain’t easy coming down by yourself in the woods, alone with a fire, if you’re lucky, and a kettle of tea, all your funds blown on cheap cigars and hard drugs... I stop, realizing that this is probably being rude, or at least arrogant. Man, the extent of my unbridled arrogance! Only comes out when I let myself spout off... But everybody’s laughing and I guess it’s too late to worry about such things now.

--You won’t have that problem, says Sarah, and these words resound through my skull, mind attempting to find some hidden treachery in this glorious comment. I squeeze her for a moment, to let her know I’m listening.

Paul reaches to the table and takes a cigarette from his pack. He puts it to his lips, traps it there, and with a lighter that has magically appeared in his other hand, sets it on fire. Inhales, and the air rushing past the flame makes a red glow at the tip of the cigarette, pulling smoke through the paper tube and into expanding lungs; I watch the whole process, fascinated. – Awesome, I say.

Paul laughs. – What’s awesome?

--That cigarette, says Sarah, with the same depth of appreciation, and I realize how very close we are right now.

 

Our jetstreams,

 

flirting.

 

And music, underlining the whole scene.

 

He shakes his head and grins. – Never seen anyone light a cigarette before?

--Never paid attention to it before, I say.

He just grins and smokes.

--Well, says Mark, wholly unable to contain himself any longer and bounding up off the couch towards the window, where the evening seems to be establishing itself, his foot tapping, as if of its own accord, to the beat. – Whadduya say we go where the people are?

-- Yup, I say, nodding, having very little desire to dislodge myself from this enchanting situation, but at the same time full of restless energy. I’m moving uncontrollably to the beats, or we are moving together. Uncontrollably. –People.

Mark gazes at something through the window, bouncing. Nobody moves. Nobody stays still. Paul laughs, his low, stoned laugh.

-- You wanna get a cab back? someone asks.

-- It’s a gorgeous night, Sarah points out, and I utter agreement.

-- Let’s get a cab, suggests Mark. – I don’t wanna waste all this energy.

-- More energy there, I grin, indicating the bag on the table.

Paul laughs at this.

            -- Oh yes, says Mark, shaking his head incredulously.

-- Don’t really matter, we can get a cab.

-- Or we can walk, I don’t care either way, really.

-- Let’s walk! says Sarah, with enthusiasm.

-- Yeah, let’s walk, agrees Lucy, smiling broadly, eyes bright and fingers tapping, and this sudden break with silence seals the issue.

Mark gives her a meaningful smile. – Sure, let’s walk then.

-- We should roll some of this up, I suggest, gesturing at the weed. Paul nods.

-- By the way, I say, turning to him. – Anything you want here, it’s yours.

He grins. – Think I’ll stick with the weed for now.

I nod, grinning foolishly, arm around what is becoming my girl. Need we go anywhere, since everyone’s so content where we are?

 

 

                                    Yes, whispers the energy

 

coursing through the room,

relentless.

 

I switch to a less intimate position, sacrificing myself to the duty of rolling another joint. I pick up a bud and gaze at it for a moment, enjoying the aroma. Then an idea occurs to me, and I glance around the coffee table, grinning when I spy the object I desire. –Ah, I exclaim. –A grinder. Bonus! I retrieve it, break off a piece of the bud, and look over at Paul. –How much do I put in here?

He peers at the objects in my hands. –That piece is good. Just break it up a bit first.

I do so. –Ain’t this a wonderful gadget? I inquire of Sarah, as I give it a few vigorous twists.

She smiles. –Yeah it’s great.

Lucy gets up from her seat and starts dancing again. We gaze at her for a while, me glancing up from the task at hand to admire the circles she’s following, really into it. I love when people lose themselves. Love love love it.

Sarah rises from my side to join her, and I can barely keep my eyes on my work, struggling clumsily with the paper and organic matter in my hands, infinitely more intrigued by the two beautiful creatures submitting to human desire before my eyes: I tell you, such a moment is a rare and invaluable treasure. At the window, Mark’s turned and is regarding it with equal fascination. His head bobs to the beat – the closest he may ever come to dancing.

Paul laughs again. The most I’ve ever heard him laugh in one evening, I think. –The natives are restless, he says, grinning.

I laugh and nod. –They certainly are.

And I roll and watch, and they dance, and Paul smokes his cigarettes, and Mark looks on, thoroughly content, and yet each of us bent insanely upon being a part of the monstrous orgy of inebriation and expectation that is accumulating downtown at this moment. Why not? Anything goes. Gotta stay in that mindframe, n’est-ce que pas?

 

Before we eventually leave, we hand around another two draws; relaxed and mind-boggled, we leak out onto the street and flow along in the direction of the action. It seems to draw everyone with a gravity of its own. As we approach, the crowds thicken, horns sound, voices call out, wanting to be heard. Canadian flags blaze by along the expressway, crazy drivers attempt to navigate the swells of human bodies. We have found what we are looking for.

Now what?

The e is still really rushing, and we have a few good hours before more stuff is necessary. A few good hours should find us in the middle of the party, and as long as we’re together, I’m happy with that idea.

But that’s me thinking ahead again. The me of this moment is a wholly different sort of person than the me of a few hours ago. Before I ran into this angel, by some enormous twist of fate. I am presently on top of the world, and they all look lovely from up here, all God’s lovely creatures, nobody can do no wrong.

She’s up here with me, beaming. –Oh, she’s gorgeous, she exclaims, indicating a girl dressed in a long, flowing robe, tied up with gold, and real flowers in her hair, long fair hair pouring from her head, with flowers in it. I nod. She is gorgeous. She’s all flowing. She’s fluid. She’s straight out of Woodstock, the epitome of the beauty of the hippie scene.

 

Where did she come from?

 

            But it doesn’t particularly matter, does it? Probably I shall never meet her, never know her name, never feel her lips, hear her crystalline voice. It doesn’t matter. There is a girl amongst this multitude that has shared each of these things with me. Graciously. Wonderfully.

--Ahhhh! roars a big guy in a hockey jersey, passing by, to the tremendous approval of his drunken peers. Paul snorts and doesn’t look impressed, but I just smile. I’ve been there, too.

Finally we find ourselves situated in the approximate center of the Bytown, the throngs milling around us, and... now what?

--We need, we need, we need to dance, implores Sarah, taking my hand and swinging it. –Dance dance dance dance!

She’s right. --But what we need first, I say, --or at least what I need first, is some water.

Mark nods in enthusiastic agreement. –Good call.

--We’ll probably find it all at the same place, notes Paul, smartly.

We all nod, agreeably. Content in this wisdom to stand around dumbly and think some more on it. We’ll have to act soon, however. Bodily demands are a great motivator, and we are experiencing many.

--Come, says Sarah, suddenly, and leads me by the hand, followed by the rest of us.

--Oh I love decisiveness, I comment, smiling foolishly.

--Do you, she grins. –Well you’ll love me.

I sigh. –You have no idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                If it’s gotta be let out

 

 

            just

 

                                    let it out

 

 

and don’t worry about which way it goes...

 

 

–Van  Morrison

 

Now is the time for anything goes, any way it goes, chasing after objects of desire, surrounded by friendliness, some exhibitionism, not a little libido...

 

...a lot of energy.

 

            --What’s this about? Mark laughs.

            --Dunno, I shout at him, loving the guy. –We just follow. Just let ourselves be lead. No worries.

            He nods, in no danger of experiencing such things.

 

            We do a lot of laughing and nodding.

 

            The sign says: Liquid Monkey. Interesting name. I wonder...

            We take our places behind twenty people or so, congregated to gain access to the Liquid Monkey. I put my hand around Sarah’s waist; the feeling is sensuous. A body, responding to my touch. She embraces me, then turns around, her back towards me, very close, moving to the beat that seeps out from the club, all energy. It’s all quite surreal, right now.

            Mark lights up a cigarette, standing very close to Lucy, looking ecstatic and a little bewildered, taking comfort in that habitual act.

            And in the meantime, Sarah’s struck up a conversation with the folks next to us.

            --So many people, says one of them, incredulously.

            --I know, says Sarah. –Isn’t it wild?

            She feels so good against my body... (Oh I can’t wait to...)

            --I’ve never been here, says the girl, a pretty little girl, in her own way; light hair, bright eyes, looking more overwhelmed than Mark and Lucy even.

            --Oh, it’s great! Sarah exclaims, emphatically. –You’ll love it. You like dancing?

            --Yeah, she smiles. I can tell she really does like dancing. We all do. Of course. We love to push our limits. See what the human body can do. Release all that energy we constrain all our lives. Push those limits!

            Sex is good for that. So is dancing. So are drugs. And many other of the crazy things we do...

            We are closing in upon the interior of the Liquid Monkey.

            --Oh yeah? That’s awesome, says Sarah, concerning something.

            The evening’s advancing on us, I notice. –So, Mark? I say, --You know what? I’m suddenly interested in taking this night to a new level.

            Mark stares at me, blankly. A cautious grin creeps onto his face. –Wha?

            I nod, comically.

            --You serious?

            --Aren’t I always?

            He rolls his eyes. –Anything goes, right?

            --That’s the idea.

            He shrugs. –New level. You’re crazy.

            Paul laughs.

            --What’s this new level talk? says Sarah.

            I smile at her. –My dear, it’s your turn for a surprise.

            --Oh really, she grins.

 

 

 —What exactly were they intending to do with that mess of substance we’re carrying?—

 

 

            The door of the Liquid Monkey looms before us, music beckoning, packed full of glorified monkeys consuming bitter liquids, the irony hovering over them all, and us, eager to count ourselves amongst their numbers. And fly among them, over above them ...and get a drink of water. Man, am I ever thirsty.

            As we saunter in, the music transforms itself in greeting, and bass suddenly hammers our arrival home. I nod my head to it, appreciatively. The folks around us are a fascinating array of individuals, many of them obviously quite intimate with the place, and each other. A girl charges by –Hey! into a warm embrace with a shirtless sweaty dancer, built like a statue, moving with a skillful but sluggish rhythm, like someone’s just shot him full of sedatives. Who knows? They begin to move with the music and one another, as I observe with unabashed curiosity. Sarah takes my arm, and I whirl to face her, only able to imagine the excitement written on my face, in my eyes, a mirror of her own expression, possibly.

            --You like?

            --It’s o-kay, I reply, with feigned reservation, betrayed entirely by the foolish grin I am powerless to control. –We just need some H-2-O.

            She smiles, infinitely enchanting. –This way, she purrs, an extremely sexy, suggestive gleam in her eye.

            I am conscientious enough, remarkably, to pause, catch Mark’s eye, signal them to follow. We arrive, en masse, at a bar flowing with tubes of fluorescing liquid, black lights, dishes filled with candies, all colours. –Water, please, requests an unequivocally congenial Sarah, of the guy behind it, pierced in all sorts of ways, who smiles at her, knowingly, and complies.

            Having water, the night is our oyster.

            --We need some place discreet, I say to her, and she smiles yet again, all energy, and leads us elsewhere, through the crowd. A crowd comprised of individuals, many of whom are, for the time being, way beyond our level of consciousness, flitting around with vast purposes inscribed upon their sallow faces, draped in colours, skin tight, furry, glowing brightly, extremely sexy...

            --Here, I whisper to Mark, --is a place where anything fucking goes.

            --I dunno, he shrugs.

            --Whadduya mean?

            He shrugs, yet again. –I dunno.

            I can tell he just doesn’t know. He’s just experiencing it. That’s enough for him. –Shall we? I say, raising eyebrows, as Sarah finds room for us all in a booth some place.

            --Excited? I ask her.

            She laughs in response. I’m fuckin excited, anyways. Having trouble containing it. Few things are as exciting as the prospect of a psychedelic adventure.

 

            And the rhythm becomes a wild throbbing crescendo, and I call out when it breaks, and so do many others, simply carried away with it, by it, whatever. Not a fuckin care in the world! Not right now.

 

(where did it all come from?)

 

(here, here, here, let it go transport yourself)

 

            Little bits of paper make their appearance, plant themselves in saliva, send metallic shivers throughout the booth, emanating authenticity. This is the point of no return. Naughty, nervous, ecstatic smiles convey themselves. We are all committed. Paul even. C’est un coup d'état.

            I experience an outlandish notion. –We should call Lucas. He’s probably wondering where we are.

            --Yeah! says Sarah, enthusiastically. –He’s a laugh.

            (Is that... starts a thought, but it’s gone and I wonder what the hell it was and it sure as hell better not be jealousy, and then I wonder, why wonder? and then the music is suddenly front and center, and I can no longer neglect it, nor do I have any desire to)

            I dance, like there is nothing else in the world but me and this rhythm and these faceless bodies surrounding me...

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            ----->Release.

 

How else can I explain it?

 

            There’s a certain added self-confidence, that piece of comfort so often missing, knowing that the dancer next to you, the lively flash of eyes, the beauteous energy of youth, and stimulants, and hallucinogens, and passion, that shapely, alluring body, that free-flying spirit is so close to your own. So very fuckin close. Nothing, nothing can touch you... unless you want it to. It’s all a confusion of beats, and faces, bodies, desires, fantasies, perspiration, hands drawing a blur of Picassos, masterpieces; her breasts are beautiful in that tight shirt...

            I lift up my own shirt to wipe the sweat from my forehead; find my water, take a sip, jump back in to join the buildup. Feet stamp their own bassbeat as the incredible sounds grow faster, and louder. Something big about to happen... something... big... bigger... and... stronger... faster... bigger... stronger... faster... WHOOOOO!

 

            (there are no words for it)

 

                        there is only this

 

(Thoughts occur with a greater frequency and intensity than can be properly followed: “So we choose to apply our minds in different ways, so many, so many different... wonder would she be into bringin that one into the mix; look how that body can move... my mind works in its own ways, regardless of how I try to direct it, or maybe... here’s what defines a culture, a counter-culture, or, if you will, an underground culture, hidden from common sight because it’s difficult to understand, to explain with any readily available set of heuristics, or laws, economics... was there ever such thing as true love? Surely when it was there, it was real... music can really make a place, set an atmosphere; what an atmosphere...”)

 

All of this nonsense is flushed away, mercifully, by the relentless music. I can bounce, effortless, could do so for hours. I look great! We all do. Well, many of us... And of course I’m waiting... waiting... those little hints that some entirely new and different influence is exerting itself upon my brain... hard to tell really; do I really feel this good? I must explore a little. See how Mark n’ Pete are making out. I slide my hand around Sarah’s waist (love that slender waist!), her indescribably wonderful face turns to me, beams of energy, ecstasy, desire, something else... –I’ll be back, I vocalize, somehow. She nods, in flawless time with the beats, and I raise my head heavenward, give it an incredulous shake.

I commence my search, passing by people of great beauty, hideous beauty. This music and these people have assumed an eerie complexion. My eyes, my smile, flirt remorselessly. I will make my way to wherever the washroom is, I resolve, and hopefully run into my comrades in the process. I’d really like to pee all of a sudden.

People dancing wherever. What creative attire! What lack of attire! What creative lack of attire!

An entirely novel set of semantics. There can be no definition for such things as where we are. Only description. Vague, vague; I love it. I find the washrooms, without having encountered Mark et al. Shrug, and enter.

I feel strange as I urinate; there’s guys lined up along the walls, conducting odd conversations; their laughter and their voices and this music and the water in the taps, very cold, as it fills up water bottles, all one ongoing, ever-changing chorus. I also fill up my bottle. Water is essential to this whole operation. The grease that makes it flow, the fuel that feeds its intense energy. It runs down our faces, over our torsos. I fill my hands with it, let the water splash onto my perspiring forehead, spilling down over my face, onto my shirt. Such an invigorating sensation.

--Havin a good night? inquires this black guy next to me, languidly amused with something, stood up against the wall as if this is his favourite place to be. He looks somewhat whacked. But what sort of judge can I possibly be?

--Deadly, I answer, grinning.

--Good, he smiles, in a manner I have difficulty deciphering. –You wouldn’t have any pills to sell?

--Ummm... I say, not knowing how I ought to respond to this. What do I know about this town? Or this place? Or this guy? But what do I care? Anything goes... –I might be able to get my hands on some. (Aware that all we do is in order to impress somebody...)

--Oh yeah? Cool, he says.

--How many are you looking for?

--Ah, two, I guess, he shrugs, appearing nonchalant.

--Listen, I’ll have a look, and then I’ll come find ya if I do, alright?

--Yeah man, cool. What’s your name?

--Chris, I say, shaking his sweaty hand. –What’s yours?

--Will.

--Pleased to meet you, Will.

He nods, moving to the music, as is everybody.

 

something vastly intriguing about human beings interacting...

 

So now I’m selling drugs to a complete stranger, in a completely strange environment? I ain’t going out of my way for it, that’s for sure. I think these things as I emerge, renewed, from the washroom into the dim, smoky interior. A girl is really getting down here, pigtails flying wildly, and the flashing lights capture her nice figure in various poses; a red, blue, green haze alternating in a halo around her. I join her. I can’t resist.

It’s fast music, and we really move, really let go to it. Taking care only to avoid a collision with some stander-by, or each other. So into the dancing that we rarely even sneak glances at one another, satisfied with the knowledge that at least one other person is conspiring in this open defiance of conventional behaviour. Pushing the limits that even this place cannot avoid. Still so effortless and graceful: the acid has yet to take the reigns from the e. But it’s certainly impinging. The whole place is just gradually assuming different ambiances; every time I switch my attention it’s like a new scene in this monstrous, intriguing, mystifying play.

I ease out of this particular scene, and she looks up, and we make eye contact,  ever so briefly, wondrous eyes, and exchange of little smiles whose implication is monumental. Then she resumes her dance, and I tiptoe away, mesmerized by this unexpectedly pleasant occurrence.

I must resume my mission of seeking out the boys, and the bag of goodies. It is not as simple a quest as originally conceived. My attention catches on every event that happens within my range of perception: two shirtless guys, built much like models, embracing each other, bodies glistening, emanating vitality; two girls giggling to one another, peering around with a nervous excitement they are making a concerted but futile effort to conceal; the dj, head bobbing within a pair of headphones, fingers ever diligent, intent upon maintaining the continuity of the vibe, loving the attention; folks waving glowsticks, wonderful glowsticks tracing the convoluted paths of restless hands...

I need to draw it all together for a moment. Focus. Where the fuck could they be? At that booth, of course. And where the fuck is that booth?

...Sarah will know.

I drink my water, gaze around with an air of purpose, to convince people who could not care less that I am not alone here, merely misplaced. I find Sarah on the dancefloor, exactly where I’d left her, and when she catches my eye, her smile is enormous, and she bounds over to embrace me.

 

I simply cannot describe the feeling.

 

--How are you feeling? she demands, euphoric.

--I can’t begin to describe it, I respond, honestly, and quickly add: --but it’s definitely not bad.

--Fuck! she says. –This is great.

I run my fingers along her back, rejoicing in the sensation. –We gotta find the boys, I say.

--And Lucy, she nods, suddenly concerned.

We go off in pursuit of this end, her leading and me in complacent tow, joined at the hand. I am experiencing what can only be the illusion of vast importance, attached thusly to the de facto most lovely creature in the world...

 

My mind picks out a distinct component of the music, a simple tick-tick, repeating, again and again, despite what the rest of it is doing. I focus on that tick-tick, it resounds through the crowd, oblivious to it. Or is it? Astounding, whatever the case.

 

They are there, safe and sound, in the booth. We squeeze ourselves in amongst them. I raise my eyebrows at Mark, who shakes his head in awe.

--Lucas is on his way, I am informed.

--Excellent, I rub my hands together. –Lucas is the party.

I am perfectly sincere.

--So, and how are we all? I ask of Mark and Paul and Lucy.

They nod, gesture, convey all sorts of signals that make much more sense than their unuttered words. Mark lights up another cigarette, and I reach out to obtain one for myself. A cigarette is certainly warranted.

Sarah lights it for me.

--So, you come here often? I whisper suggestively into her ear.

She laughs, a throw-back-your-head-and-laugh kind of laugh. –Once in a while, she answers.

--And you know people here?

--A few.

--Well, you should introduce me.

--Yeah? she says, leaning back to have a better look at me. –Alright, for sure I will.

--Love meeting new people.

--Thought you had a problem with it, she grins.

--Right now, I don’t have a problem with anything, I reply, returning the grin.

The whole booth is alive with conversation, not a character who is not whacked in some way. It’s hilarious. Mark is feverously expounding some point to Lucy, who appears thoroughly captivated, and Paul just puffs on his cigarette and nods politely, listening to the guy beside him, a complete stranger, at least to myself, who is rambling on about God-knows-what.

--Such a pleasant bunch of people, I remark, into her ear, and then kiss it lightly, repressing a sudden intense desire to nibble...

 

But, what happened to... anything...? Ahh...

 

Mark’s over there with his arm around Lucy; he’s right into the spirit of anything goes. He looks over quickly, noticing my gaze of what might be interpreted as amusement. He winks. I return the wink, then lean over the table towards him.

--Got that bag? I ask him.

He nods happily. –Okay, great. I need... five hits. (As I say this, a sudden intense influx of LSD into consciousness, a waver in the tatters of reality that are left to it, a stark portent of what’s to come...)

He nods, less happily, more curiously.

--I’m selling three of them, I say casually, by way of explanation. Then, one more for me, and one for you... and these guys may want some, too, eh?

He shakes his head, wide-eyed. –None for me; not yet. This – he leans back slightly and demonstrates with a wave of his hand – is quite wild enough at the moment.

I grin, evilly. –Ain’t it, though? Okay, I’ll give the fifth one to Sarah. And we should offer some to Paul again. Never know when he’ll say yes.

He laughs. –Here, I’ll give you five. Hold on.

He has a quick look around, recalls the privacy that this wonderful booth offers, and, using Lucy’s lap as a discrete countertop, fishes out my pills. He passes them, underneath the table, flashing me a quick look of caution. I can read his expression: no jail tonight. Anything goes, but not that.

I nod, purse my lips in a misled attempt to convey assurance.

--What’s going on? Sarah asks, slyly.

--A ha! I respond. –Gimme your hand.

She complies, all question marks. I put a pill in it, close her fingers around this object, much as she had done for me, once upon a time.

Her eyes widen crazily. –Oh no, she exclaims. –What? More?

--You certainly don’t have to, I say. –I am. I need height. Need to take this all the way.

She smiles, uncertain for once how to take this, this strange boy who’s showing no restraint, absolutely none. The strange boy whom she might have known all her life. Who may have been herself, for all she knows, acid certainly playing its dirty tricks on her perceptual, emotional, cognitive self, e thrusting these things to exponential heights. But she artfully regains possession of herself, impossibly perfect eyes piercing mine, threatening to tear me apart from within, if I allow them to have their way.

 

So tempting to let them have their way...

 

--Why the hell not? she says, with an alarming note of reckless abandon.

--But, wait, I interrupt, a persistent nagging little hint of paranoia managing despite all odds to impose itself upon the carefree exuberance and tenacious desire that account almost entirely for my present state of consciousness. –It is, of course, imperative that we not split up tonight.

She smiles, comfortably. –Of course.

I grin, realizing that maybe this wasn’t entirely driven by anxiety. There’s plenty of passion there, longing, extreme attraction, not a little libido. Whatever the case, consideration of it all is simply annihilated by these melodic words flowing from her lips. We swallow our pills, chase them with my water, stare excitedly at one another.

And then, we have no alternative but to share our excitement. All of me is devoted towards experiencing these lips and this tongue, and fingers, and body parts, mingling with my own. How indescribably sensuous, this kiss.

 

never let em tell you that you’ve missed the point... here is the point, it’s right here where you are... it’s the emotion... this, this music, this dance, this food, this wine, this kiss these two vectors whose dividing angle approaches zero... all means to attain some emotion, nothing more... so how far have we come, really, and what surplus of profundity can our points really have accumulated?

 

“never have we been able to so finely tune our emotions, though, my dear”

 

“very true...”

 

            I’m quite ready, at this point, to throw it all in; forgo any of the moronic pretentious garbage notions we’ve been basing this night upon... Or I have, at least. (Just take the girl somewhere alone, really alone). Of course, that would promptly whisk it all away, wouldn’t it? She’d disappear like the impossible hallucination she is. Quick as the clap of cruel hands, wrenching you from the most wonderful and inspiring dream you’ve ever had, slapping you brutally awake into a consciousness so banal, so completely empty that all you can do is gawk, curse the futility of any attempt to find the source of these lingering traces of Eden ever again. Such happiness requires such pretences, maybe... Must let it carry me onwards, don’t really have much choice now, do I?

            And at this point, I find myself holding steady to her eyes, and words emerge from me to her: --A million things I would like to say to you right now... I shrug. I cannot communicate with any better precision than this. She just rolls those eyes prettily, her face radiating mutuality, and intelligence, such astounding intelligence to be found there. I could probably sit here for an enormous stretch of time, contemplating it all. Instead, Paul reaches over to tap my arm. I guide my attention towards him. He is smiling comically.

            --We’re gonna go for a little walk, he winks. –Comin?

            What a notion! –Yeah, something in me responds, prior to proper internal consultation. –Ah, well, I dunno. Outside? I guess so... Will they let us back in?

            My arms fly open to accentuate my utter ignorance with respect to this question.

            We both turn to Sarah, the veteran of this place.

            But she merely shrugs. –Usually they do. But this is Canada Day. So, I dunno.

            --I guess we’ll have to risk it, I pronounce, bravely.

            --Where do you want to go? she asks suspiciously, not looking at all enthusiastic about this mutinous sentiment settling itself, as it were without warning, upon our little group.

            --Just need a little marijuana, I think, I explain.

            --Ah, she nods her head slowly, less apprehensive upon hearing this utterance, it being a rather acceptable reason for her.

            --And hey, comes Mark’s suddenly present voice. –The night is yet a baby.

            She gives him a warm smile, impressed by this cute metaphor.

            Mark, it occurs to me, is well gone, not unlike the remainder of our party. He’s got yet another cigarette lighted, as if in desperate attempt to avail himself of at least one small anchor to a ground that is rapidly departing from him. We could definitely use a draw.

            --Trivial concerns, anyways, I remark, in keeping with the general philosophy.

            Incomprehensive grins are the unanimous response to this.

 

            But the music is captured by an emerging new vibe, accelerating rapidly, an overwhelming onslaught of wild bass and rhythm, lights, sweat, testosterone, waves waves waves... SIRENS... I whip my head around to face my girl again, eyes aglow. –I have to dance first!

 

 

 

And so I do.

Carefree.

 

 

            After a while, we tumble out into the wilderness of an advancing evening, and meander in search of a place to consume our smoke, hidden from unfriendly eyes. It’s no easy task, given the massive quantity of strange eyes we’ve got to deal with.

            --All we need, I say, is an alcove of some sort... like that.

            I motion towards a group of people that is huddled in an alcove of some sort, discretely performing the very activity that is the object of our intentions. Hesitant shrugs being the only manifest form of reluctance in this matter, we scurry over to occupy a place near these fellow conspirators, and form our own semblance of a circle.

            By God, this being outdoors, amongst the outdoors crowds, sending shrieks of joy (or is it horror?) to the heavens; there’s something altogether insane about it all. It’s just, just, just another place, I feel like waving my arms about madly, as this might be the only adequate means of communicating the impossibly obscure concept my mind is grappling with. I refrain myself from such antics, however. Who would understand it?

            Smoking weed when you’re this high is analogous to drinking a nice cold glass of lemonade, on a hot, immensely lucid summer afternoon, immediately following having mowed the lawn, or some similar act of human toil – imagine all the colourful umbrellas, the wind picking up just enough to afford a slight reprieve from the impenetrable humidity that lingers over all our heads, our moods, our perspiring shoulders... it’s that refreshing.

            And that transitive.

            Everyone is trying his or her utmost to express him or herself. It’s one wild proliferation of sentiments, half-formed notions, alongside wild attempts at maintaining propriety in a highly improper scenario. Nobody, however, seems capable or willing to digest the flowing thoughtstreams of anybody else. They emerge high-velocity from the mouths and bodily gestures of their respective communicators, only to be met with the full collective impact of equally forceful counterparts, finding neither eyes nor ears, reflecting instead up into the blue-black vastness of evening sky, to disperse amongst the wind and the stars – campfire smoke – lost forever to humanity. I may be wrong in this. I can only observe and speculate, and the obstinate assault of my own cognitive whirlwind is quite possibly a source of bias in such interpretations. Or could it be that I’m simply conscientious enough to notice such things as seldom reach the conscious mind of such mediocre creatures as myself???

 

            --This, I remark, to whatever soul here might condescend to listen, displaying the joint in a waving hand, --is an angel.

 

            --Look, I whisper into her ear. –What we are capable of doing. (The buildings loom all around us, and the market reels). –All of it the fruits of human industry. What busy little beavers we are. It never stops, does it?

            She can only smile, and laugh. And she laughs with great humour and she’s the ideal human being, to my eyes. –It’s immense, she says, with immense meaning, spreading her arms out as if to embrace this immensity.

 

            I give her me, instead. Poor substitute, perhaps; although she doesn’t seem to mind...

 

            Pot’s also a potent socialist instrument. Our circle has subtly converged with theirs, so that we’re no longer two groups; we are comrades sharing a common diversion, similar interests – such is implicit in the relaxing, carefree, friendly, highly individual state of mind that this substance can induce in a person. Is it any wonder that hippies smoked pot? Indeed, if such a causal relationship as is evident in the hippie movement does exist, it most certainly began with the rush of tetrahydrocannibol into the lungs of some unencumbered soul, suddenly stammering: Wait a minute! What are we doing here, anyways? In that respect, it is very much alive...

 

            --I’m Chris, I tell the pleasant naiveté of the young student who has requested this information of me.

            --Hey, I’m Mitchell, he returns, pulsating, maybe, with friendly vibes. (Extremely fortunate, to encounter such exquisitely kind people in such a world, with very few hints of their antitheses. Could it simply be my change of outlook, this normally having been skewed disproportionately towards pessimism by a few freak encounters with true assholes, or, if such is a somewhat inappropriate term, at least by those with dispositions far more dark and grotesque than my own? Perhaps all propensity to anxious responses to people has been suppressed here. My mind is rambling. What does it care for conventional behaviour? What does it fear of violence and intimidation? I might tear a guy apart right now, if it came to it. We’re all such slaves of mindset. We evolved in such ways... Rambling on in here. Must shift my attention to the external. This fellow demands some conventional token of goodwill. There are folks with which to communicate. They may have some answers! Were that such questions as these could be easily answered. Suppose they should be posed with a bit more clarity first.)

            --Nice to meet you. How are you fine people enjoying your evening? I’m smiling widely, and in my sincerity manage to sound completely sincere. No small feat.

            He stammers a laugh. A good, hearty, pothead laugh. Few sounds are so relaxing. We have nothing to fear from these strangers. –Pretty damn good, he replies.

            I glance around at the wildly animated group of people that I find myself amongst. Some of them intimate friends. Others completely foreign to me. –So, I ask Mitchell, finding no lack of curiousity with which to familiarize myself with this stranger, --you a student here?

            I’m almost certain he is, though. Such recognition doesn’t commonly require a complete mastery of the subtle arts of perception. Accordingly, he answers in the affirmative.

            --Here in Ottawa? I pursue.

            --Yeah, he says, slowly, obviously having attained one of the higher degrees of a buzz, without being especially accustomed to it. I, however, am thoroughly immersed in my element with such people. With the added advantage of being far and away clear of any level he will hope to attain this evening, if my dubious perceptive talents do not deceive me...

            --So what are you taking?

            --Music, he says, grinning quickly, shyly, as if it were a funny thing for him to be studying music. Can he be ashamed of it? (Of course he’s not ashamed). What on earth is there to be ashamed of in the creation, from the purest source of what is obscurely referred to as humanity, of lovely sounds to soothe us, to incite us, to inspire us? Is it the lingering possibility of that archaic sentiment, that a man shouldn’t be getting by simply doing things that he enjoys, things that allure his senses, that challenge and uplift him, while so many others are doing the dirty work, having fallen prey to the miserable necessities of life in a burgeoning society, expanding itself with reckless abandon, like a pervasive tumour, decimating the resources that afford it life, indiscriminate... as it were? If only he knew what I was getting by on... If only I knew...

 

And anyways, what could possibly have more utility, in its truest sense, than music?

--That’s awesome, I say, with enthusiasm only slightly exaggerated, as if in a subconscious effort (that I am nevertheless somehow conscious of) to compensate for his uncertainty concerning the righteousness of my character.

--Yeah, he nods, smiling happily, --I think so.

I shake my head with a show of incredulity. –I am crazy about music.

--Oh yeah? he says. –What kind of music do you like?

--I like, I start, and pause, uncertain despite having fielded this very question a multitude of times (it being a perfectly fantastic means of familiarizing oneself with a stranger), how to do so on this occasion. And now it’s my turn to recognize in myself a very similar apprehension of the prospect of suffering the disfavourable scrutiny of my talking-partner. Because, does he like trance or does he simply detest it? It’s usually one extreme or the other. Does he lump it in, as I once did, with any manifestation of technologically-produced sound, as techno, as so much garbage? Or does the popular success of such things serve as an affront to his identity as a musician, as a person who can, with relatively rudimentary and time-tested tools, and his own honed skill, and even his own ingenuity, maybe, produce some of the loveliest auditory events that ever graced the vast universe? This last possibility is quite an understandable one, to my sensibilities. For I also enjoy making music. In my own way. This is another of my great anxieties, of performing musically with anything but perfect skill. Of being found wanting somehow in something I am passionate about. Of having tried and failed, and publicly, too. At the moment, all this occurs more as a wild curiousity than any particularly salient emotion – simply one of those things that is forever occurring in our minds, and manages to (often thankfully) escape our conscious contemplation. We evolved in this way...

--I like all sorts of music, I manage to reply, this being the usual phrase with which I artfully circumvent whatever difficulties may arise from the unpleasant notion that someone else may deign to find my taste wanting. It they’re sincerely curious, they’ll persist, is the general principle.

--Oh yeah? Mitchell persists, looking suddenly both very enthusiastic and relaxed. –Like what, do you like, like, Pink Floyd at all?

--Oh I love Pink Floyd, I respond, glad for this courageous act of name-dropping, beginning to develop a very real interest in pursuing this conversation.

--Yeah, Floyd is a world of its own. Then you must like – he stops, playfully apologetic – well, not to suggest that Floyd can be classed with anything at all, but, well, you must like Zeppelin, then.

--Yup, I reply, raising my eyebrows. –Zeppelin’s great.

--Yeah, great, he says, nodding approvingly. –That’s great!

I’m still, despite the sprawling openness of my mind, hesitant to throw in techno here. That could be the end of it; and it’s so perfectly congenial...

 

                                                --but, insists a voice,

                                                anything goes, man.

 

It’s right. I take the leap: --But I’m really into the techno tonight.

...positively hanging on his response...

It’s an open-mouthed, raise-browed, unmistakably interested look. My risk, apparently, has yielded a profit. He turns his head slightly skyward, eyes still locked upon my own, and assumes a faintly introspective aspect, a mannerism so ingrained in our expressive vocabularies that it must have its evolutionary origins in remote antiquity, the type of bodily signal that almost unfailingly precipitates a genuine question. A mannerism, I realize with amazement, that I have internalized with sheer completeness...

--Oh yeah? What sort of techno are you into?

 

I catch a floating thought, like a distant echo: he’s not a bad looking fellow, though... a bit awkward, maybe, but incredibly likeable... no real threat, though...

This, I realize with some disgust (and subsequent amazement at this innate response), is me evaluating the situation practically. Ensuring that I am secure, and, equally as important, that Sarah is secure.

I laugh inwardly at the disgust (to laugh outwardly, as I would like to do, would undoubtedly be construed as an insult to this fellow), reasoning: it’s human nature, and you, my friend, are inescapably human, as unfond as you are of being classified... It’s intriguing enough that my adaptive mental faculties are perfectly functional, although in this conscientious state I may be capable of overriding them if I want to...

 

--Oh, I reply, encouraged by the sincerity of the question. –I love trance. And ambient, and anything wildly creative, and anything that tears me off my feet and physically takes me with it. Anything that qualifies (to my particular system of concepts) as having artistic merit.

I stop, hesitate, wonder if I’m rambling, if the transcendence of my state of mind has found vent in my words and expressions. Of course, I console myself, he’s well-stoned, and anything obscure and possibly delusional can gain lucidity under such conditions...

 

I’d also like to toss in jazz, and classical, and Radiohead and Van Morrison and B.B. King and The Chieftains and U2 and Tori, just to ensure that I haven’t totally destroyed my musical credibility with this boy. That, of course, would be a disaster.

But, who the fuck cares?

(There’s a common heuristic for you. One of the worst. Who the fuck cares? Used to avoid the painful fact that at least one person – the most important person – does care. Does give a fuck.)

 

And my Mitchell’s nodding and smiling, anything but cynical. I thank him silently for it. I even pull Sarah (not unwillingly) to me, out of whatever social eddy she’s blissfully swirling in, and introduce her to the boy.

And Sarah, of course, can instantly recognize his qualities. –Are you from here? she asks, beaming.

He shakes his head no. He goes to school here, though, she is informed.

--Oh yeah? Which school?

--Ottawa U, is his reply. He is somewhat overwhelmed by this new development, and I don’t blame him.

She nods, excitedly. –Mitchell’s in music, I feel suddenly compelled to add, anxious to be a participant, however redundant, in this new conversation, the origin of which I, in fact, was an instrumental factor.

--Really, she intones, eyes fixed on our new companion with a freshly profound interest.

 

Been this way before, you know. Been so hopelessly entranced with this girl, or some girl, well beyond the point of no return. Enjoyed it with an intensity beyond words, found such a depth of pleasure in letting go in this way, throwing caution carelessly in the face of some of my most deep-seated fears... and ended up... Well, fuck how it all ended up. The point of living... you can’t worry too much about the pain... must deal with that separately... now here, we’re getting closer to the crux of anything goes... Meanings are merely something else to flirt with.

 

            We gotta start walking, walking. I attempt to voice this sentiment, yet have little in the way of rational endorsement, other than my own mindless zeal, whose rationality is anything but certain. Eyes consider my ill-stated proposition curiously. It is now I who has a peculiar need to alter our location and circumstances. It’s rather odd – are we not mingling with society here, enjoying ourselves profusely? Such substances as we have surrendered ourselves to, however, are rarely satisfied with anything remotely static. The joints have ceased to exist. A change of pace has become a pressing necessity.

            Slow nods, clever little smiles, gradually acknowledge this necessity. Its impetus expands, in fact, exponentially. I can see it in their eyes, in the glow of their faces, in the restless motion of their energized bodies, a demon come upon us, unawares, casting us with vague apologies and expressions of kind farewell, with breathtaking force, out into the street, where we find ourselves once again facing The Liquid Monkey, bereaved of our newfound friends, collectively at a loss.

            --We gotta find Lucas, Mark reminds us, sounding frighteningly sober for a moment – a fear that is quickly assuaged by a glance in his bewildered direction.

            --Oh shit, says Sarah, her voice immediately concerned. –Where the hell would he be?

            --Could be inside, suggests Paul, shrugging.

            We all nod at this reasonable contingency, except Mark, who expresses disagreement. –I don’t think so. I was looking.

            --What, from there? I grin, motioning towards the shady corner that had served as our dwelling place for the last... how long?

            --No, no, he insists, grinning nonetheless. –I had a good view.

            --Well, why don’t we call him? is Lucy’s excellent solution to this new dilemma.

            --I tried, about five minutes ago, replies Mark, shattering yet another fine proposition with incontrovertible evidence; frowning, however, at his success.

            --No answer? says a voice that I am almost certain is my own.

            He shrugs, indicating he is at a loss.

            I, myself, cannot decide how to approach the question. On the one hand, I don’t exactly intend to spend too much of the precious time available to us in search of a somebody, misplaced in an tumultuous ocean of somebodies. It’s an extremely futile endeavour, particularly in the various states of mind that each of us is (presumably) experiencing. On the other hand, there’s Lucas, our buddy, which is a status that places a certain conventional onus upon us to locate and incorporate him into our little sphere of altered consciousness, a fact accentuated sharply by the further fact that we’ve already made arrangements with him towards this end. And that he is really the source of this whole business. Even more crucial, however, is the reaction Sarah might make to any attempts on our part to excuse ourselves of this unpleasant responsibility. I don’t expect that it would have any positive effects upon her currently high opinion of us, and especially of me...

            Fuck’s sakes, this is exactly what I meant to avoid by the fucking anything goes creed. This, right here, is a major test of my resolve in that regard... Fuck sakes. She’s so perfect for me.

 

            And fuck, man, that boy is quite capable of taking care of himself...

 

            I decide the best thing is to put it off somehow; let it resolve itself. I’ve got a strong suspicion that the drugs will impose their own resolution.

 

            Wild. There are visual events happening at every angle. Melting, blowing, streaming in an ostensible wind, all things so sudden, yet nothing at all abrupt... The jetstreams have actually been made visible!

 

            --We should go back in, I say, abruptly, resolutely. –I’d like to experience that place for a while longer.

            --Yeah, she agrees, clinging to me.

            Everybody nods. This is a solution that works. Lucas will be either in there, or on his way there. In fact, this is pretty much the only good course of action. Standing out here, however bizarrely stimulating, will not suffice. There’s still e in here! and weed! vying for possession of my desires, my motivations, my perceptions, my appetites, my cognitions. I’m enslaved to the necessity of novel stimuli. And action. And love. I fucking love this girl. Nothing banal about her. So, it’s the only logical step to take. We go in.

            The next problem is the logistics of getting in. There’s quite a substantial line-up formed in a haphazard and shifting snakelike pattern that has its venomous fangs sunk firmly into the door and twists its ragged, convulsing length indiscriminately around the street. Tightening its grip; choking that street. (We’re choking ourselves...) We must brave that hideous, treacherous beast of a line-up. Head first.

            Nothing for it but to go right up in the face of those in charge, plead our case, and await our verdict. I head straight into this prompt, fearless resolution. Anything fucking goes.

           

            The guy at the door eyes me curiously. –Hey, we were just in there, I tell him, voice hopelessly plaintive, and his face becomes confused almost, as if he doesn’t recognize me. It couldn’t have been that long ago.

            He shakes his head slowly. –There’s a big line, he informs me.

            --Yeah I know, but we were already in. We paid cover and everything. My mind jumps with a sudden idea. I produce my hand, with its stamp clearly visible upon it. He assumes an introspective expression (he knows what’s going on; he’s no amateur here, having to babysit crowds of child-like candy flippers, e-heads, cokeheads, potheads, drunks, junkies, queers, creeps, whores, pimps, transvestites, goths, hippies, students, and on and on, night after night; I certainly don’t blame the guy... too much); this annoying little game is abruptly demolished by the sudden appearance of Sarah, wrapping her graceful arms around me from behind, shocking us all with the electric force of her benevolent energy.

            --Hey, she chimes, flashing him one of her incapacitating smiles. –Big night, eh?

            He grins, nods, motions us in without another word, only human after all, and despite his intimidating stature and grim demeanour, no match for the merciless charm of this unbelievable girl. My girl. At least for the moment, which is all I’m concerned about. I gaze at her with adoration, and, after ensuring we are out of the kind bouncer’s field of vision (still highly sensitive to such respectful consideration), touch my lips to hers. We linger for a moment.

 

            Lucas is awaiting us, having evidently eluded Mark’s vigilance after all, a failure that the latter laughs off with characteristic humility. He (Lucas) has got a stunning model at his side, smiling, politely, vacantly almost. The whole night quickly becomes something entirely different, somehow... vibrations resonating in wholly unpredictable patterns, off-beat, experimental, you might call it, were it wrought by human hands (and yet, how more human can you get than this place?)... not necessarily a bad thing, I think... difficult to gauge... I forbid myself to attempt any reckoning... reason currently not my strongest asset...

 

            We smile at one another, an immediate understanding that tonight is for us, and no such things as hard feelings. Never any hard feelings with Lucas. Unlike Pete... man, I need to dance. The music is ripe. Take my mind away from this thinking scene...

            --We skipped out for a little walk, I tell him. –Guess we missed you.

            --Yeah, he yells back. –Well, Tammy got me in at the back.

            He indicates the model, whose attention is elsewhere, scanning the crowd, as if in search of someone worthy of her precious attention.

            (How presumptuous of me!)

            Lucas says something into her ear, and her wandering eyes condescend to meet mine for a moment. An unnerving pleasantry. She reaches over and says, hi, and, indifferent to whatever response I may have uttered, her eyes immediately resume their previous engagement. I purse my lips, nod, uncertain as to the nature of this beautiful monster. (Is she whacked? Preoccupied? Simply a bitch? Some crazy combination?) But myself I’m also indifferent, to be honest. Lucas can have this one. Lucas can have all the girls in the world, Jody and all – well, maybe not Jody – but leave me my Sarah...

           

            I’ve lost my water bottle, somewhere in our adventures, a realization which provides an excellent excuse to curtail my boundless cognitive wanderings in favour of a mindless mission. Remove myself from whatever source of consternation... Get water... and dance. Dammit, dance. Enough of this lingering propriety. Take that girl by the hand, kiss that hand, like a gentleman, and go dance for a while. Just what you need.

 

That, and water.

 

            With these objectives in mind, mumbling something that has (and requires) no coherence whatsoever, I wander off in pursuit of them.

 

            And, despite myself, I think: here I am on a mindless mission. Life is all about mindless missions, really, always with some greater end in mind, of course, but it’s the mindless tasks that get us by; otherwise, far too overwhelming a responsibility, life. Plans, and dreams... It’s a much different place, with this insight in mind, everybody shifting, standing, dancing, perspiring, mindlessly. One can’t be thinking like this all the time. Just an impossible demand on resources...

            I am approaching the bar. Transvestites await my arrival, considering me, another body to consider, another possibility, another passerby, seeking water. Seeking means to sustain life. Their thoughts are doubtlessly sexual. They are very sexual, very confused, maybe. I’m uncertain how to relate, but loath to let this prevent an attempt.

            --Hello, I say, happily. The recipient of this friendly salutation appears almost startled.

            --Hi, she says, managing to recapture some composure.

            --How’s your night going?

            She nods, venturing a smile in response to my unexpected congeniality. –Pretty good.

            --Good, I smile.

            Her companion has been intrigued, apparently, by my appearance and audacity. I am flirting, perhaps, inadvertent but carefree –Who’s this? she inquires.

            The first, unpossessed of this knowledge, relays the question to me. –Chris, I reply. –What’s yours?

            --Michelle, she says, nervously sensuous. –This is Nichole. (Nichole grins, winks, naughty, ruthless).

            I nod, polite, and the barperson directs his capricious attention my way (finally!), and I indicate that it is water I am seeking.

 

            Wipe sweat from my forehead; it’s oozing from me everywhere, water leaking out of every pore, I’m drenched in it – a goddamn sieve! –Man, I’m sweating like crazy, I let them know, which elicits wary smiles, half-concealed distaste. Perhaps it’s not the most attractive thing, to perspire. To acknowledge perspiration. Smacking of human frailty, fallibility. But what the fuck do I care if I loose attractiveness in their eyes...? (That’s somewhat dishonest, I realize. Attraction from any human source is flattering. We are incorrigibly vain creatures... but this is a mere fancy. I’ve no real interest in their suggestive eyes, other than the narcissistic implications. Not disgust, not distaste. I’d be far too hypocritical holding such ideas about people, based upon their choices, their indulgences, their expressions, their respective pursuits of happiness... I am disinterested only. Or inhibited by convention, maybe... or simply and utterly confused... let’s try and be honest, here.)

            Blah! I get my water, wave these two souls a cheerful adieu, and seek out the washroom, where there is more water. Can never have too much water, in these situations. That dude might be there as well, a tireless sentinel, taking up his post at the edge of the men’s room; I’ve forgotten all about him, poor soul...

 

But he is not.

 

            The washroom, in fact, is uneventful. It’s just, piss, and splash some water over my steaming husk, savour the fleeting refreshment, and out again. No wonderful crazy dancer, even, to greet me this time as I wander back into the fray. And now my mindless tasks have been accomplished, with commendable efficiency. I suddenly find myself desperately perplexed, at a dreadful hiatus, a standstill amongst strange sweaty beings, chattering excitedly, circling like ravenous vultures, buffeted by lights and beats, all fluctuating insanely...

            I was going to dance... This acid stuff, not that it removes the desire to dance, but it simply eradicates all propensity towards concentrated thought, and in the merciless world of swirling ideas and sensations, there’s no concept of sustained activity. Mindless tasks become great adventures; I dance in energetic spurts, only to be snatched away by wandering fingertips, or glowlines, or some madly intricate series of sounds, or the question: where has Sarah got to? or the boys? What’s Lucas up to now?

           

            These, inevitably, return me to my little group of intimates.

 

            And Sarah’s sat up on the big cozy seats hidden in a bend of wall and post, and she’s chatting happily with Mark, two of my favouritest people (God knows what happened to Lucy and Paul and Lucas and his disdainful princess!), and I bound in to join them, thinking, what could they be talking about besides me? Upon which egotistical notion I berate myself, and am righteously crushed to learn that they are yammering excitedly about business, a topic that couldn’t be farther from myself, but of which Mark (and seemingly Sarah) have a profound interest.

            But they turn at my arrival to bestow amorous expressions of welcome upon their mutual friend, and I squeeze myself next to Sarah, eyeing both of them with genuine joy. –You’re discussing matters of money, I see, say I, officiously comical.

            They laugh. –Never, assures Mark, in his wonderfully facetious manner.

            But Sarah is less apologetic. –What’s wrong with the discussing money? Makes the world go round.

            I nod, graciously. –But does little to add to tonight’s wonderful festivities.

            --Oh, but it’s all about that, really, she shrugs, playfully contentious. –And besides, a topic’s a topic.

            Mark raises his eyebrows, as if to say, she’s got you there.

            But me, I’ve little sense tonight. So I persist –Yeah, but if I started going on about death and pestilence and the sorry shape of the world, it would probably put a damper on things. –Not that talking about business does that, of course, I’m just saying... (sounding like a damn fool) –I’m an idiot, don’t mind me, blundering in and ruining your lovely conversation about money and all, two of the best people in the world... carry on, by all means. I’ll just listen peacefully from the sidelines, if you’ll let me.

            But they laugh again, and Sarah punches my arm gently. –You’re mad, she declares.

            --I’m whacked, I admit, with nary a sign of the shame a proper God-fearing man should harbour under such a circumstance.

            --Ah, she grins, --it’s nuts, isn’t it?

            I give my sweat-drenched head a shake, then look up at them both. –You know, I haven’t really talked to you guys all night.

            It’s true. I suddenly find myself in a talkative mood. I want to be elsewhere, away from this social monstrosity, so sweaty and loud and crowdy and impersonal... but there’s plenty of time for that, right? Plenty of time to sit and come down and smoke weed and chatter through the morning sunlight hours, hidden behind garbage-bagged windows, low trance... plenty of time for it. And besides, I’ve got way too much crazy energy; I could hardly sit still; even now my body’s urging me to movemoveMOVE!! (I might go for days...)

            --I know, laments that sweet brown-eyed girl, shining carefree aura. –But anything goes, Chris, baby, remember?

            I nod. How the hell could I forget? But I whisper into her ear –So glad I bumped into you tonight... what strange and awesome forces must be responsible for such events...

            And she gives me a peculiar look, as if wondering what strange and awesome forces drive me, and my incorrigible nonsense, which is somewhat of a worry, but any such things dissipate as she leans over, brings her face close, and we share another kiss, impossibly good, playing with tongues, dancing this way with the beats, boom boom boom, and the lights, and the voices crying to find audience upon some receptive ear, and my hand touching her very real body; but this is brief as it is beautiful, since Mark’s sitting with us, and that’s rude.

            He’s well into his own trip, however, and shows no sign of having taken offence...

 

            --So, what else can we do tonight? I demand of my dearest friends. –We gotta do more than this; we gotta talk philosophy, eventually, and smoke lots of weed, and maybe take some mescaline, and listen to buskers, and mingle with them, maybe... see the night unfold, feel it. (and it occurs to me that we’re well into the sphere of influence of that second set of pills, me and her. No fucking wonder!)

            Mark shrugs, predictably, easygoing and content in many situations, especially those involving drugs. His anything goes would be a cinch, left to his own meagre devices... But Sarah’s got a plethora of devices up her sleeve, I am certain, as do I. It was her, for instance, that brought us hence. And she’s in the know. And she’s every bit as gone as myself. That milky skin positively gleaming. Oh, to taste it...

            --There’s a party, she murmurs. –I know where it is.

            --A party! (my hand, as if of its very own accord, has wrapped itself around her side, holds her close by this means, touching a sensuous place, right beneath her breast. Her eyes close in reaction to it, she turns to me with a perfectly wicked grin, brings her lips to my forehead...)

            So tempting to let go right here, let it all go (anything goes!), right here in the midst of all these wonderful and mystifying people, right here with her, me, all skin, bodies, passion, perspiration (why draw borders, why pretend?); but it’s quite, quite, quite impossible, I realize, there are always limits, always limits, on everything... this is no fairyland, not yet... we’ve changed very little in some ways, from the bands of apelike beings you see in illustrative depictions of primordial man and woman, and yet, of course, although you can’t exactly just select a mate and drag her off to the cave, having first maybe addressed the necessity of physical, emotional competition with the other males of the group for exclusive rights to her, or other such rational things, beyond all the little games that we’ve instilled as conducive to “civilization” (how about the Islamic approach!), it hasn’t changed all that much... except that without the games a pathetic introverted runt like me might not have the incredible opportunity to brush lips and bodies and tender fingertips with such an exceptional specimen... fuck. No small wonder some people have a big problem with realism...

            --Yeah, she laughs, --a party. You guys interested?

            --After-hours, you mean?

            --Yeah, not for a long, long while yet, she grins.

            --I would love a party, I say, --how about you, Mark?

            He nods, smiles, flabbergasted, shakes his head randomly. –Yeah, he agrees, with exasperated, happy laughter –why not?

            And we smile, and feel good, because it is difficult not to feel good while Mark is around, a soothing, heartwarming testament to the notion that humanity’s really not all that bad.

 

            Since there’s loads of time in the night, apparently, I set about filling every moment of it. I decide to do this by dancing, really dancing now, really getting lost out here, losing myself in tireless, seamless, effortless motion. There is a new dj, playing real fast, real hardcore techno, time after time, and it’s quite impossible to stop, to be honest. And I don’t wanna stop, don’t want to address anything stinking of human frailty, perspiration streaming off my forehead, dissolving me, and me oblivious, and swinging through it all, once and for all casting off anything and everything, it’s all quite singular here, this and only this and no extraneous motives or desires, and no nothing nada... fin du monde.

            And Mozart, old childhood intimate, lovely musical tortured genius hero and all of that, he’s here and he’s this and here’s what drives such men and such women, driven driven by the ephemeral attainment of perfect simplicity and not a hint of anxiety, not a fucking hint of anxiety!!

            This, this is me. This is all me.

 

            Clap, clap, clap hands!

 

            Stamp, stamp, stamp feet!

 

            Steal fleeting glances. Wipe. Perspire. Drink. Bounce. Shout.

 

            Get immensely lost, complete abandon, surrender to the buildup, as it builds up, crazily builds, will it never BREAK?

 

            A glimpse at life as a radiowave. How they must dance, such an essential activity for them.

 

            Sudden pause, time to sneak a quick bearing on it all, notice that this floor is full of people, dammit, not just faceless dancing props, but that’s what they become once more the beat crashes down in a wave, merciless, relentless, invigorating.

 

            Just bass now. Just drums now. All me now. All fucking me.

 

            Sleek... hot, hot... hard bodies... this is all so sexual energy... so pure too damn pure maybe... I love it what can I say... let’s get to the orgy... yet this is the orgy, realize it, let it touch you, your moist skin, your pupils insanely dilated... ahhh, let it pull you back like a dream, like a dream you can go back to, half awake in hazy bed-morning, fighting, fighting... no more fighting, no more pull you away, no more ruthless clock-hands... this is me, this is consensual... this is humanity exerting itself against itself... see?

 

            Is this what I’m fumbling towards, never satisfied, always searching searching; is this some pale semblance of that impossible end???

 

            And this, too, is another vantage point on life. Yet another view, another two-way mirror with which to observe the vastly intricate laboratory of universe, of human behaviour, of philosophy, of chemistry, physics even. Another tool here with which to refine my ever-evolving model of existence. I am a scientist; here is the experiment I have designed – or rather allowed to develop – and all of this is a huge wealth of critical data, more, perhaps, than a man can hope to integrate or even consider in full, given ten lifetimes.

            But I’m not merely lodged behind a mirror. I’m immersed in this; I’m an integral part of it. Which affords me much deeper insight, maybe...

 

            Trains of thoughts whistle by, twining around my jetstream for a while, then off again, no warning, to be replaced by more and more, immense meanings given as entities, fleeting by eyes, ears, whispering traces of a far vaster meaning, then dart off impossibly quick before I can grasp onto them... But so close, so much closer to these things where I am... or such conceptual acuity...

 

            And then I’m sat beside Mark again, observing, just he and I, like it started out; like it was last night, only much different somehow. We toss each other bewildered grins, looks of amazement, conversation hardly necessary between such good friends. But he leans over, eventually, and begins one.

            --Man, what the hell’m I doin? I’ve got no idea. I shrug helplessly at him. –But it’s fuckin great, though, I think.

            --I think so too, I agree, my smile broad.

            --But, still, I’m wondering what I’m doing. I mean, I got a girlfriend, don’t I?

            I raise my eyebrows. –I don’t see her, I say, grinning madly. But what can I say, really, to this? What sort of advice can I give, frolicking as I am in some fairyland of carefree debauchery and pleasure and freedom; what possible insight can I currently have regarding the relentless troubles of conventional social existence? Such ideas are absurd at the moment; I have no right to advise others, particularly good friends, upon any of the issues that might arise outside this moment. So I shrug and hold my tongue. Which can muster, for once, no comment whatsoever, anyways. Or at least nothing I wanna say.

            He grins. –Nope. But still, something tells me she’s here. Like she’s sat up around that corner, and not too pleased, ya know?

            --Well, I say –I really can’t give you advice on that, boy. It’s me we’re talking about.

            He nods, grin actually expanding until I’m afraid for the top half of his face. –Worried about the ramifications, eh? he challenges, slyly.

            And I also grin; no way I’m even gonna attempt to argue this point. –Nothing’s limitless, is all I say, looking very sage I’m sure.

            --Well, he counters, --there’s time.

            I laugh. –Not for us, boy. That’s all I got to say. We only got so much time. And youth, too. And many men died to give us this opportunity...

            --Whaa? he exclaims, incredulous and happier than ever. Maybe cause now’s he’s got the excuse he’s looking for or something. Or maybe because it’s against his nature to be unhappy for any extended period. To dwell on such things, whether they’re trivial or not, which is meaningless at the moment...

 

            I sip my water.

 

            And now I see Sarah and I’m glad, and she introduces me to the people she’s chatting with, animated like an excited bird, like birds I remember singing busily to me deep in the woods as I strode purposefully, intent upon some task or other, hardly any time to appreciate the birds and their singing for me and the rest of the things of nature, that I would stride through as if all I could think about was getting this fuckin job done and then back to a meal, and a beer or two, and all the banal luxuries of man... But that was way back...

–This is Paulo, she says, and likewise introduces Angie, and Matt, and Laura, and an East Indian name I cannot quite catch, but it’s too loud to clarify it, and I’m in such a state that such a thing seems so insanely impossible; but I can smile, and my voice rings off despite its getting very little input from me, or so it seems. How is it that I am saying these things? I seem to think them only after they’ve been uttered. And so fluently and so elegantly. What is this demon that has replaced myself within myself? Whoa. Good fuck.

--I am, um, so completely whacked here, babe, I tell her, and it’s me talkin now, not the demon, and it’s good to know I’m still around, and she whispers back into my ear –so am I baby, holy shit... You smell good.

I smell good? She says it so sensuously, so naughtily, so hungrily, so forcefully, and I wrap my arm around her waist and squeeze her slender body, that perfect body, so she knows... so she can feel my hunger, my passion.

--Man, wish I could, fuck, just be alone with you for a while, and then be able to, you know, just march back in here, in and out, like it was nothing.

And she likes this, and squeezes me back, and why be here, when we could be elsewhere??

--C’mon, she says, grabbing me by the hand –let’s meet people.

--Yeah, alright, I reply, and here we go again, through strange bodies (how we love these bodies pushed close together so you have to come in contact, but only as a necessity, you see, as you’re walking by. As if we couldn’t make the place bigger: who likes the idea of being alone?)...

 

--This, she introduces me to two guys, two guys out-of-it –is Chris.

--This is Mike, we shake hands, nod respectably –and Bart.

--Hello. Nice night. He nods, shakes his head in disbelief as to just how nice this night is, or so it seems to me.

            --Oh, c’mon! she says, spotting something else, yanking me away from my new friends. –This is Natalie, and Lindsey, and Paul.

            It’s the girl I was dancing with. Holy shit. She looks at me and grins, and we hesitate, and then shake hands, and I say –Hi, how are you tonight?

            --Pretty good, she says, her voice angelic –we were at Zaphod’s earlier. It’s pretty packed over there!

            --Oh yeah? Never been there.

            --No? she shakes her head.

            --I’m not from Ottawa, I elaborate, feeling this necessary. –Just up for the vacation.

            --Oh yeah? Where are you from?

            --Well, I rehearse –I’m working in Sudbury, but I’m going to school in St. John’s.

            --St. John? she repeats.

            --No, St. John’s. Newfoundland.

            --Oh. Oh, really? That’s a long way.

            --Yeah, I say. –Well, like I’m working in Sudbury for the summer so I didn’t have far to get here.

            I’m feeling totally stupid for a moment; as if she cares about the specifics of my life circumstances.

            --What about you? I inquire. –You from Ottawa?

            --Yup, she nods. –Born and bred.

            --It’s not a bad town, I proceed, feeling dumb as ever. Helplessly dumb.

            --Nah, it’s alright, she says, and I’m beginning to notice that everyone I’ve met who’s from here seems to brush it off, like yeah, it’s alright, but I’ve got aspirations elsewhere. Why? It’s a decent town. A civilized town.

            --So, I saw you dancing earlier. You were pretty good.

            --Thanks, she replies, happily, and I’m glad I said it. –You too.

            --I love dancing, I say, as I always do, brushing aside the compliment gratefully. What art!

            I wanna tell her how it’s crazy that I met her, that Sarah introduced me to her, after dancing with her that way. Cause I never meet the girls I dance with in that way. I just kind of make eye contact, and just take pleasure in the sensation of being together with this stranger for a moment, the knowledge that she is attracted to you, that under different premises, we could easily be together, and then just walk apart again, two fireflies flirting so briefly in the night, and gone again. And now I meet her, and this happening of course at a time when I’ve just met another firefly! This happening at the hands of the that firefly. How ironical our God must be! All these diamonds fall into your lap at once, and never when you expect them to, and you end up never knowing most of them...

            But I can’t tell her any of this, of course. She’d think I was nuts. God forbid.

            And what about anything goes...

            I’m beginning to realize just how important a utility self-constraint serves in our social lives. It’s damn everywhere. Learning how to master it, maybe, that’s a clever trick. It’s what makes and breaks social success... For this is a game, as well. The biggest game of them all. Some of us are players (Lucas, for an obvious example)... some observers. And me, I run up and down the sidelines, feeling like one of the players, but glaringly not so, as I do with pretty much everything that fascinates me. But dabbling in such a way, you never get really good at any of it.

            I blink at this new girl, Nat, wishing I could share all these wonderful insights, but knowing I cannot. And besides, I simply must not fuck up this Sarah thing.

            --You on anything tonight? she inquires.

            --Oh, I reply, wide-eyed. –What am I not on?

            She grins.

            --You? I ask.

            She nods.

            --Pills?

            She nods again, and breaks into a big smile. –Oh, yeah, in a big way. I gotta go dance!

            And she flits off fairy-like to do so, pigtails bouncing, but not before giving me a big hug, and I’m left marvelling after her, lost in all this wonderful mystery. The feel-good movie of the year! says a voice in my head, which proceeds to laugh maniacally.

            Okay, time to move on.

 

            I start dancing, as Sarah chats with the friends. I’m aware that they’re glancing at me, not knowing what to think, perhaps, cause once you’re introduced to someone you automatically start judging them and forming expectations, and, well... I’ll talk to them eventually. Just watchin my hands move in crazy spirals at the moment, so happy I can feel the rhythm, cause if nothing else I know I’ve got rhythm. It’s such a wicked rhythm, and I play with it, do new things with my feet, and no dance is ever the same, or so it seems, cause I can’t remember moving like this before, to this particular rhythm, with these particular circumstances. In fact I’m quite certain I’ve never been here before, and that’s a particularly amazing thing to realize.

            The music takes a very gradual pause; the work of an extraordinary dj. My compliments to the dj. And I similarly slow, gradually, and stop, and boom, I’m right there amongst... oh fuck I can’t remember their names. There was just Natalie that stuck in my head, Nat, who’s run off to other pastures, and the other two I’ve met but remain nameless. I’m grinning at them all and Sarah pulls me clumsily to her and I’m grinning at her now.

            --You okay there? she smiles so heart-stoppingly at me.

            --I think I am, I nod, stupidly. And now I’m in a stupid mood. Nothing better than a stupid mood. Never a better sign that you’re perfectly comfortable than when you find yourself in a stupid mood, and amongst so many strangers! And –oh my God, I say; a space has opened up behind us and all of a sudden there’s a truly mind-boggling sight. –Sarah, I shout, and she turns, surprised. –Who’s that? I ask, pointing starboard.

            She turns, confused, and slowly her mouth works itself into a grin and she replies – it looks like Mark and Lucy.

            --And what are they doing? I inquire, stupidly.

            --Looks like they’re dancing, she laughs, delightedly.

            --That’s... that is priceless, baby. This is something that no man may ever witness again.

            --I dunno. He looks like he’s really into it. Could be the start of a revolution, Chris.

            --Oh man. What’s next, Paul?

            --Paul’s right there, sat down with his new friend, she indicates. And he is, too, with that same guy from way earlier (how earlier?).

            --I should go say hi, I tell her. –Haven’t talked to Paul all night.

            --Okay, she says. –Ah, should I come?

            --Oh, fuck. Yes! Of course. I mean, if you want to of course. It’s...” I feel like I’ve dug myself a hole somehow... “your night, baby.”

            Man. What?

            This ain’t turning out to be a boy’s-night-out type deal.

            She laughs. –Okay, I’m coming then.

            --Well that is ex-tror-dinary! I comment, just entirely blown away by my own behaviour now. Atrocious.

            I sit down beside Paul, and Sarah, who has no room, decides to sit on my lap. Oh Jesus! –Hey! says Paul, and I say, Hey! back, and Sarah adds another Hey! and we all laugh it up.

            --This is Lorne, he says, by way of introducing his associate. I shake his hand and so does Sarah and we nod, but it’s too loud and awkward, physically, to say much to him. So I just hold on to my baby and gaze past her, to where Mark is there, feet hardly moving, but arms really goin, and with great rhythm, too. He looks great out there, and so does Lucy, really cutting it up. Paul has a cigarette and so does Sarah and Paul’s friend Lorne, and, so as not to be left out, I reach out for my smoke, too, which Sarah hands me curiously.

            --This is insane, says Paul, and I nod emphatically at him.

            --You enjoying yourself?

            He nods, but looks unsure. –Yeah, man.

            Well then he is. This high makes me extremely interested in the well-being of all my fellow partiers, always making sure everybody’s having the most possible fun, often neglecting the possibility that not everybody’s where you are, boy. Don’t mean they’re not enjoying themselves.

            --Guess I don’t even have to ask you, he laughs.

            --Heh heh. No worries, I reply.

 

            And the two transvestites float by and Sarah calls out to them and they flutter over and embrace her, and she says –My God, how are you guys? It’s been a while!

            And they notice me and I can see they don’t know what to make of this, but immediately Sarah’s introducing me to them, and I shake their uncertain hands warmly, and they attempt grins but look unsteady until Sarah asks them what’s new, and the awkwardness drops from their faces and I’m just amazed, because I simply felt no awkwardness at all, but if I put myself in their shoes, I wonder... fuck, I just don’t know. But I do. I do understand, I think. But I don’t feel natural in pumps, goes a thought, and laughter erupts inside of me and I can’t completely contain it and I chuckle, looking around quickly to see whether this little social fumble was noticeable to the others. It was not, I think. I want to laugh again. It’s impossible to stay serious, and besides, I have little desire to.

            Phew. I drink some more water, and I’m almost out now. Time to get more? The necessity is suddenly an awful burden. I don’t want to move right now. I want to stay here, where I am, with all my friends around me, and Sarah on my lap, chatting with cross-dressing men who are attracted to me, I think, and Mark is dancing! I’ve got time, though. Plenty of time.

            I sigh. Haul in on this crazy cigarette.

 

            Lucas drops by, supermodel in train, and he bestows upon us one giant of a laugh, and we all have no choice but laugh back. He looks right at Paul, this incredulous look on his face, and exclaims –Phew! and it’s quite easy to see he’s rollin like mad. He is Mr. Extreme, our Lucas.

            The girl (what was her name?) is also “enhanced”, it is clear to see, and appears quite uncertain what to do with herself. Her natural defence in sober society, of aloofness, of an exaggerated display of self-confidence, compensating for an extraordinary deficit of the same, is conflicting with the internal onslaught of good vibes, or so my merciless imagination would have it; she looks around in awe, as if observing the world around her for the first time, and she smiles at it. A smile on the face of that ideal-looking being is an image of the purest beauty. Insane. Where does Lucas find them?

            And me, here with Sarah on my lap, and Lucas, with whom she was intimate not twenty-four hours ago, and my eyes glued to his new acquisition as if he were merely about seeking out all the best girls and modelling them for my amusement... and trying them out, too. Man, what a retarded, asinine, peculiar, insane, candid thing to be thinking!

            I tighten my arms around Sarah’s slender waist and lean into her back for a moment, and my nose is in her hair, and what a wicked smell. She’s rockin non-stop to the music, and she squeezes me for a moment with her hands to let me know she hasn’t forgotten what she’s sitting on, and she’s talkin, jokin with Lucas now and I’m here like I’m holdin on for dear life, and all because Lucas is around. What the fuck? I love the guy.

            All this touching is beyond belief!

 

            Lucas and his girl start into the music, and I admire his style, slow, rhythmic, sexy. The boy has innate style, I’ll give him that. Sarah, unable to contain herself, lets herself go as well, but I’m right into an acid sequence of some sort, and derive such immeasurable pleasure from watching these beautiful people dance, especially with Mark in their midst – every bit as agile – that I would rather just sit in comfort.

            --You up next? I ask Paul with a smile, who simply laughs in reply. His laughter is also rhythmic, I realize, and aren’t we all? Just manifesting it in our own unique ways? Cause none of them is dancing the same, yet each of them does it wonderfully, expressing who they are, what they’re about, all their respective life philosophies shining out in the way they let themselves go, with far more clarity, perhaps, than they could ever hope to articulate. WE ARE SIMPLY EXPRESSING OURSELVES! (Even when I dance alone, likesay, it’s always really with some audience in mind. And feels so great to think some audience appreciates us for who we are. Why else do these things when alone? Practice them for the appreciation of others, and the pure satisfaction that we derive from such appreciation. Ah hmmm...)

            --You know, I tell Paul –I wish there were a way to step out of here for a while, see what else is going on in this massive human gathering outside, and come back when I felt like it, just like that.

            He nods. –Ain’t easy to do on a night like this.

            --I’m in no state to face long lineups between me and where I want to go. Not when there are so many things to experience.

            --You want to leave? he inquires, curiously. It’s purely a question, not a suggestion. He don’t wanna leave. And neither do I, well not for good.

            --No, not for good, I answer. –Like I say I wish I could step out for a breather, you know, and get back in. Dunno if that bouncer would be so generous twice, not with this crowd on the go.

            --Nah, probably not, he agrees.

            Well, nothing else for it. I get up and dive into the dancing mob and start the bouncing thing, feeling so sleek and weightless and beautiful; hopin that Sarah can see me from where she is doin her own thing; and Lucas’s girl, too. Just because it’s nice to know that, yes, that possibility exists, in some other dimension. If space-time paths had meandered somewhat differently. Thinking about it that way is insane. How many possibilities exist and have existed, now outside my event cone...? Whoowee.

 

We are all just shooting stars

 

 

            Whatever; I just slide into the dancing thing.

            And suddenly I’m very thirsty, and no water in my possession.

 

            I move out of the dancing-zone, into more of a walking-zone, feeling very strange on my feet for a second; once I start to walking though the strangeness abates. I take the steps one at a time, consciously so, and the moment seems every bit as exciting, bodies moving and mouths chattering and lights flashing and the music booming; but suddenly I have an intense inclination to take this all elsewhere. Shuffle our little party along elsewhere. There’s just so much going on out there, and we’re missing it dammit! And of course we are, because there’s nothing wrong with where we are, in fact everything is great, but there’s a wild, very human, drive to experience, to know it ALL...

 

 

                                                                                                                        ...ALL OF IT.

 

            The dude is at the bar, and so are the two guys, er, gals, that are also Sarah’s friends. I feel dumb cause I’m uncertain as to how to refer to them, even though I realize this stupid uncertainty is just chemically-induced paranoia, such as is a common result of being too highly conscientious. I simple grin at everybody, ensuring they get the impression that I’m a big fool and yet have no problem with it. The bartender hands me water, and to indicate gratitude I intensify my foolish grinning momentarily; snatch the bottle and glide artfully off into the melee once more.

            Mark is sitting down now, sweating profusely but emanating one of the liveliest auras here; between him and Lucy, who’s sitting very close to him, the place is lit up with good vibes. And these are vibes. They are so real as to be nearly tangible. I migrate, mothlike, towards them. I totally feel like the guy last night, the energy-stealer. (Hey, he’s just a dude like all of us. Has developed his own less-adaptive methods of finding pleasure.) That’s not me, though. I ain’t stealin no energy. They’re radiating it freely.

            --So? What was all that? I grin at Mark, and he meets the grin squarely with a killer of his own.

            --I don’t know what that was! he laughs. –But it was nuts.

            --It was, I agree.

            --Man, he says, leaning closer. –I almost wanna take another one.

            I laugh. –Don’t have one unless you need one, I advise, as though I am an expert of some sort.

            --Yeah. Don’t think I do, he says. –Don’t think I need much of anything.

            --Water? I suggest.

            --Well, yeah. I’ll have some of that, he laughs.

            --Listen, I say, confidentially. –Think we should explore the night a bit more?

            He shrugs –I dunno. You think we should?

            --Well, maybe. See, like, I’m thinkin, there’s so much more to this night that we’re not experiencing, and this is great, but there’ll be so much of this at the party later. And more intimate, too.

            --But probably a lot stranger, I’d say, he remarks, his tone reflecting uncertainty.

            I nod. –Probably. But hell, if we all stick together, it’ll be perfect anyways, don’t ya think? I mean, we’ve got women tonight. And they’re totally into us. Would you have guessed we’d be here and now – (pointing downwards to indicate our immediate situation) – when you woke up this morning?

            He laughs again. –Fuck, I couldn’t have imagined anything that’s happened this whole last week!

            --Fuck, I agree. –And think! We’re probably only staying here in this one place because it’s comfortable now, and we’re enjoying ourselves here, and we’re too nervous to give up this enjoyment for something less certain...

            He shrugs at this, eyes wide. I realize as I’m articulating the fleeting idea that it’s at best only half true, or at least only one way of looking at things; but that’s that, and it’s been said and can’t be unsaid, nor would I bother. Especially not with Mark.

            --And remember, I add, wryly –anything goes.

            --Yeah, he smirks. –Well, if that’s the case, let’s go explore!

            I raise my eyebrows curiously. –You wanna?

            --For sure. Let’s do it all, fuck planning, right?

            --Sweet. Now we just gotta persuade the others.

            He nods. –You seem to be doing a good job of that. I’ll let you handle it. I gotta get more water. He shakes his empty bottle mournfully.

            --A ha! I say, displaying my own full one. –Gotta keep on top of that!

 

            She’s sitting, chatting with one of the friends she introduced me to earlier, whose name, of course, eludes my knowledge now. Lucy’s on her other side, groovin silently to herself, looking mesmerized.

            --Hey, I whisper into her ear, leaning, and she puts her hand on my hip and grins seductively and says –Hey, in return.

            --How are you enjoying yourself?

            --Excellently, says her smile, her bright eyes. –How are you? Sit down. (She motions for me to sit on her lap, and I consider it, and shrug. Why not?)

            --So, listen, I know how you’re having such a perfect night here and all, and so am I; but me and Mark were thinking we might go for little adventure. But only if you and Lucy wanted to. And Pete of course. And maybe Lucas and his friend... I add.

            To my surprise, her eyes widen, and she laughs. –You wanna go somewhere else? she asks, and her voice sounds enthusiastic almost...

            --I dunno, I shrug. –Thought it might be a good idea. I mean, maybe we can come back later, or go to that party or whatnot... (My composure is self-destructing here.)

            But she goes –Fuck, Chris, that’s a great idea. There’s so much more going on tonight we could see. I mean, I’ve been thinking we should go check it all out.

            Holy shit! –I know, I agree, ecstatic at this new evidence of our simultaneity, ecstatic beyond any other words.

            --There’s this jazz club, Chris – the Brass Lounge – and man, I bet you’ll love it. You like jazz?

            --Love it, I reply, shaking my head in disbelief.

            --Good. Let’s fuckin go then!

            --Anything goes, I reiterate.

            --Yeah, anything goes for sure.

            --What? inquires Lucy, suddenly out of her reverie.

            --Wanna go on an adventure? asks Sarah, like it’s a child she’s addressing.

            --Sure, answers Lucy, her voice childlike, assuming the role.

            --Great! It’ll be so much fun! says Sarah, her voice even more affected, enjoying this new game.

            --Where are we going? Lucy asks, innocent as a white fluffy cloud.

            --Oh, you’ll see!

            I look around for Pete. He’s over at that booth still, been there all night I suppose. Well, time for a trip, Petey boy. I glide over to him.

            --Wassup?

            --Not too much, laughs Pete. –I could use another draw.

            --Yeah? Me too. We are going on another adventure, I think.

            His eyebrows raise. –That a fact? Where to?

            --Well, we should have that draw before anything, I guess.

            He laughs and nods. –That’s a good idea.

            --Alright then. Let’s get on the go!

 

            We are eventually outside again, a wonderfully clear, crisp, rambunctious nighttime now. Lucas has joined us. (--Yeah, fuck it! he said when Sarah had inquired whether he might grace us with his presence. –I’m always up for an adventure.) His companion, however, has not. (--Hook up with her at the party later, I guess.)

 

 

 

 

So it is us.

 

 

 

           

            The sweat is whisked away by the relatively cool summer air out here, breezing gently by us, and it’s such an indescribable feeling to be outside again after all that confusion. The E is back here on top, goin strong. Was always there, I realize, but I’ve been neglecting it, poor bugger. So many other things to capture my attention. And E craves attention. Demands it. Feeds off it. And now it’s happily feeding off mine once more...

Our illicit-activity alcove is graciously devoid of foreign bodies, and so we scamper over to occupy it with our own, and Mark and Pete find a seat on a concrete divider of some sort and set to work constructing a few more joints for us to enjoy. The beats are still boomin from the building beside us, muffled and bassy – wicked. I start a little dance again while we’re waiting in a huddle for a little injection of marijuana into highly receptive minds; Sarah loves it, and laughs a little laugh of delight and I’m in love with her again, even with Lucas here, and he laughs too and so does Paul and so must I, and Mark looks up in bewilderment for a moment, before returning to his duty. Lucy’s just smiling dreamily. All good people. All my close mates.

            --So, you’re a jazzy girl, too, remarks Lucas to Sarah, who replies –I’m an everything girl, and we all laugh, including me, and I refuse to let this distract from my enjoyment of the night, cause anything fucking goes dude, and don’t forget that. Don’t fuckin forget it. It’s something can’t be done half-way. That’s how people screw themselves. But enough...

 

 

            enough  of  that  talk.

 

            And I look to Mark for comfort, cause Mark’s the reason I came here in the first place, and regardless of anything else it’s me and Mark out on the town, two good Canadian boys makin a night of it in the capital city, on a national holiday, takin time out from busy, fucked-up lives and intent upon having a good time. It’s all that, and fuck that’s what friends are for. There’s a great phrase...

            And on cue, Mark looks up, so suddenly that we all turn to him, the silly look on his face, and then we suddenly, and simultaneously, become aware of the joint he’s lifting before our eyes, fixed on his face, and we all laugh, delighted by this cheap little trick, and Mark smiles foolishly and how can anyone not love a creature like this??

 

            Certainly not Lucy, who gazes adoringly at the guy. (Trouble here? Forget about it, it’s tonight only... that’s your only concern, boy.)

           

            I’m being passed a joint, and it’s well rolled, I notice, appreciatively (Mark’s not usually such an artist), before I put it to my lips and apply suction...    inhale...

           

            Feels like air, going down. Crazy.

 

            I’m suddenly acutely aware of my body, my leg moving helplessly to the beat, my stomach, never happier, my fingers, my face, sweaty and hot. My stupid, stupid glasses, squished in my pocket, next to my right thigh. And I’d love to have Sarah touching my body, kissing my body... but gotta forget about that for a while... plenty of later for that thinkin.

            Lucas is talking, has been doing so since he started, hardly stopping for a break during tokes, and I haven’t caught a single word of it... shit, what am I doing?

            --And then when it stops, and you’re hangin there, thinkin, I can’t hold it anymore! and then you hold it a little more and BOOM right when the energy’s gonna burst outta you anyways, and you go right into it so easily...

            --Yeah, I know what you’re talking about! I interject –What a wicked tune.

            Lucas nods excitedly at me. –Buddy knows his way around a build-up.

And he’s so big and so slick and a smooth dude, and I’m nothing beside him, or so the thought flitters across my mind and I catch it angrily, and then compromise: we’ll just have to see if she wants me despite him...

And now Paul lights his draw and the circle remains unbroken as the cherry bounces playfully, almost, in its capricious orbit, propelled by our fingers, glowing brightly once in a while...

 

...eyes from wandering clusters of inebriated bodies glance off our little scene here, expressing everything from alarm to timid yearning, to wicked smiles, vibes of goodwill wrangling with those of insecure malevolence... We are all but oblivious (narrator included), rapt (or wrapped?) in our little esoteric puff of smoke, comfortably floating far beyond this world of pride and rapacity...

 

 

(or such words feel nice, anyways, trickling through my muddied mind)

 

And Sarah’s now arguing the merits of jazz with Lucas, who’s tossin in little lines as bait to keep her going on adamantly –and it’s the original techno, boy, except it’s so much more natural sounding, and raw, and the mood itself arises from the people and is influenced by the people and the mood in turn influences the music, and, I mean, it’s so... integrated. It’s great.

And instead of agreeing, and out of pure mischief, Lucas remarks –Yeah, but you get a lot of that with techno, too. I mean, look at that place and tell me we weren’t feeding off each other’s moods.

--Yeah, maybe. But not to the same extent. Anyways, it’s different.

--True, it’s different. Not as high energy though, Sarah.

--Oh I think it can be. Especially on Canada Day. They’re not gonna be playing blues, for instance.

I laugh, feeling somehow extraneous yet again, but intent upon asserting my presence. –That’d be pretty funny. Or fucked up, anyways.

--But I’m just fuckin with ya, Lucas relents, of his own accord. –I like jazz, anyways.

And Sarah turns to me and smiles, and hugs me, making me infinitely happy. –And how is your night going, baby? she asks, sexy as ever again. –Wanna listen to some jazz?

--I would love to listen to some jazz, I grin, and we gaze at each other, very close, but we don’t kiss, for some reason.

            But I’m back on top of this whole city, itchin to see what’s up (or down, I guess, eh?), and I know so very well I shouldn’t be succumbing to this spell she has over me, but it’s beyond me now, I’m thinking. Anything goes only if she says it does.

            But she does say it does. So it does.

 

It does, dammit!

 

(and anyways, it’s out in the air now... and Lucas doesn’t seem to be phased, and of course he doesn’t, don’t be an idiot.)

 

            We find ourselves devoid of joint and rambling and bantering aimlessly in an alcove of some sort. We want to move on now. Paul takes the initiative of making this knowledge public. –I say we start walking, he suggests.

 

            And we do.

 

            And Sarah links herself into my arm and I’m beamin as we’re strolling through the crowds of excitement and joyous intoxication. –Can’t believe how many people are stuffed into these few blocks, I remark –and nobody gettin rowdy or anything, just everyone here to have a good time.

            She laughs. –It’s the Bytown, boy. (As if that’s supposed to explain it all). –But you’re right. It’s a huge crowd tonight.

            We pass some English-style pubs, with patios that are teeming with bodies, and pitchers, and waitresses, and some great traditional music playin. It’s a treat to hear, so unexpectedly like this. –That’s wicked to hear, though, isn’t it? I throw out the comment, and Mark nods at me. –Yeah, he agrees, and Sarah hugs me. –Wait till you hear the jazz we’re going to.

            She’s really into it, I marvel.

            --Can’t wait, I say, and then some dude walking all crooked runs right into Lucas and stops dead, having little alternative, and looks up with angry indignation, but then sees who he’s dealing with: 6-foot-2, 230 pound Lucas Ryan from Lab City, impossibly cool, who’s got his patented grinning/bemused expression on, as if he can only scoff at the idea of wasting energy on this wanker; the wanker (wisely) stammers a muffled apology and staggers off again with his buddies, and Lucas bids farewell with a laugh.

            --What a cunt, I say, and Sarah punches me, and I say –Wha?

            --Cunt, eh? she challenges.

            --Well, the poor guy can’t help if he’s a cunt, I reply, obstinate. Cause, after all, anything fucking goes, and Lucas is a buddy and buddies gotta get each other’s back after all, n’est-ce que pas?

            --Ha, she laughs, unimpressed.

            --I’m an ass, I relent, quite helpless, anyways. And why the fuck be a cunt yourself when there’s only trouble gonna come from it? –You’ll have to excuse my vulgar language, I say, playfully –I’m just not too fond of... wankers like that.

            She smiles. Seems to like this adjective (ass, that is) better. Or perhaps the application of it to myself? –Me neither.

            Lucas laughs again. –They’re a laugh, anyways, though.

           

            Imagine, this whole night becoming fucked because of one drunk asshole. Not fuckin likely. Not when anything fucking goes, got that?

 

            --They let you dance there? I ask Sarah. –Cause I may not be able to restrain myself once the vibe gets a hold of me. (This E is relentless, especially augmented by her tight little body brushing mine. Mmmm...)

            --Oh, yeah, she says. –Dance all you want, baby.

            --Wicked. See these two crazy bastards goin at it on the floor? I turn to Mark and Lucy, walking side-by-side, chatting to themselves.

            --Yeah, exclaims Sarah happily. –You two were insane. I’m soo proud.

            They just laugh and Lucy replies: --Fuh-uck, and Mark laughs some more and I see how happy he is and I’m fuckin happy for him. And I’m happy for me. And for everybody! Cause we’re all having wonderful lives, at least tonight, and we really are in the best country in the world, at least tonight, and I’m thoroughly grateful to whatever force it was that landed me where I am right now. Thank God, whatever that is. Thank Mom and thank Dad, for being who they are and making me what I am, and thank everyone I’ve ever met, even the biggest assholes, cause they’ve all inspired me in some way... and I’m still fuckin alive and glad to be, is the best part. You can’t go through life without enjoying it, and you can’t enjoy it unless you let yourself, which is such an easy idea now that I’m where I am and who gives a fuck if everything I utter to myself in this euphoric state is hopelessly biased; it’s still fuckin true.

           

            Through the intense montage of sounds assailing our ears from all directions, I suddenly make out a pattern that sounds curiously like jazz, and sure enough we soon emerge from within a milling throng of bodies and there’s the club, the Brass Lounge, and there’s Sarah ecstatic beside me, going –Ah, this is just what we need.

            There appears to be quite a lineup outside, and I say –Looks like quite a lineup, but she shakes her head an emphatic no, and replies –Nah, it’s just people standing around. We’ll get in quick. And sure enough, the lineup morphs into a haphazard conglomeration of little groups before our very eyes, and there’s only five people actually waiting to get in. And we wait no longer than five minutes, and Sarah smiles at the bouncer – or doorman, I suppose is the better term here – who’s tall with a tidy goatee that gives the impression of his being an intellectual, and he’s got a naturally benevolent expression on his face, which lights up, naturally, when she greets him, and he says –Hey, babe. What brings you by?

            --Just showin off the place to some friends, she beams –this is Chris, she says, and he smiles at me, a sincere gesture, which I reciprocate warmly, and we shake hands.

            --Ralph, he informs me.

            --And this is Lucas, and Mark, and Paul, and you know Lucy, she continues, and he encompasses them all in a hefty smile, and wide eyes, and nods, and I wonder whether he’s not somewhat high himself. He must be. But then again... Lord only knows.

            We flutter inside, and the music hits us with full force; someone up there’s really layin into his guitar... I gotta have a look. The place is packed, and it’s strange that we’re flyin so crazy and everybody else here’s on the drink, and lookin at us strangely (or so it seems) as we squeeze our way forward to where the band is playin, all sorts of energy wafting off us.

            And we get there and there’s a little crowd of people dancing, smiling and carefree, and with a really natural sort of freedom that is a breathtaking sight to behold. Sarah is rapturous and she pulls me in with her and we dance to the music, such a different sort of music, not nearly as high energy, like Lucas said, but instead there’s a real comfortable feel to this; the energy and hormonal melee that we just came from replaced by an easy atmosphere, good-will and togetherness, and it’s great, it’s really fucking great, and I’m tingling all over from the appreciation of it. The place is just rife with good vibes, way more so than at the Liquid Monkey, where they were just, well, wild vibes.

            Mark and Lucy are stood up against a wall, real close, and they’re admiring the dancers, and Lucas has already sparked up a conversation with the guy next to him, who’s nodding and laughing.

 

            Doesn’t take us long to fit in.

 

            It doesn’t take long for the sweat to return, either, and we’re hot again and loving it, groovin to a phenomenal display of musical talent, feeling the soul, and then there’s a pause, which is somehow amazing (this night has hitherto been relentless action – a pause is a priceless novelty), and we all clap and cheer, and the guy on guitar speaks into the mic: Well, well, what a craazy evening. Y’all seem to be makin the most of it!

            And we holler an appreciative response.

            --You’re soo right, I whisper lazily into Sarah’s ear, embracing her from behind. –What a time!

            --Yeah, I just knew you’d love it, she says, turning her wonderful face towards mine, and it’s very sensual all of a sudden, despite (or perhaps consequent to) where we are...

            --Oh yeah? How’d you know? I ask, playful. –You hardly know me.

            She laughs at this. I can feel her whole body shake as she laughs. –I dunno, she answers. –I just feel like I do know you, ya know?

            I do know. How I fucking know! –Oh, I know, I whisper, lowering my lips to touch hers and perhaps share this knowledge more completely...

            And the band starts up again, merciless.

            I break into an instantaneous strut and Sarah sees it and laughs and I soak up that laugh hungrily. Laughter. I realize that maybe it’s laughter that really does it for me. Puts me right over the edge, when a girl’s got a wonderful laugh and when she laughs you’re instantly filled with an inexplicable euphoria, and you just feel so intimately acquainted with this girl, and all because of that sweet wonderful laughter. It doesn’t hurt, of course, having those piercing brown eyes and that ruthlessly gorgeous smile, and a body that makes you infinitely impressed by the craftsmanship of nature... Whoo man.

            Needless to say, I’m still struttin here, smiling foolishly, all for her benefit now, never more proud to be a peacock...

 

            Eventually, I find myself stationary, away from the dancing marionettes encompassing the band, and Sarah’s gone to the washrooms, and Lucas is here beside me, only we’re not saying too much and it’s starting to get on my nerves, to be frank. So I turn to him and grin.

            --So? What a night.

            He returns the grin. –Nonsense, he remarks, of the night, and swigs his beer (never one to do justice to his narcotic highs). –It’s all nonsense, boy.

            --Nothing better, I say.

            --Nope, he agrees, and then we’re back to nothing, which I suppose is no different than usual, but there’s this fucking monkey on my back, as the saying goes, and it keeps sticking its fingers in my eyes whenever Lucas is around, and that’s just not cool when you’re tripping and you’re rolling and you’re spinning in wild, unconstrained orbits about a lovely young lassie that you must have dreamed up; so it’s about time I got that fuckin monkey offa there.

 

(anything goes)

            So I say: Hey, listen, that Sarah’s a great girl.

            He looks at me and his grin is one of amusement this time. There’s no sign of animosity or bother of any sort in his expression, but then there never is with Lucas, and I think either he’s a great actor, which is quite possible, or he really knows how to withdraw his emotions from things – a talent that, if it exists, I am extremely envious of. –Yeah, he says, smoothly. –She’s not too bad.

            --So, listen. There’s no problem with you if me and her are... I move my finger back and forth in an attempt to tastefully represent the specifics of what me and her are doing, which I could in no way articulate anyways.

            He grins, and laughs, impressed by this uncharacteristic act of bluntness. –Nah, man, he shrugs. –She looks like she’s really into you. Do that up, then, I say. (He nods at me, knowingly, but has the tact to refrain from referencing his own experience with the girl, which I do not want to know, at least not now, when I’m running in frenzied circles over her). I nod back at him, a little grin to show my sincere appreciation. And it’s a wicked feeling now, that this whole situation’s been brought to terms, and that monkey’s been flung god-knows-where, and now there’s nothing – sweet fuck all – to interfere with this night, and all because anything goes.

            And how much easier and efficient it is, I marvel, interacting with people under such a state of mind... As if we spend so much energy fighting wars – wars against our neighbours, and wars against drugs, when if we brought the two together there would be no wars at all... A matter of vested interests... A topic I do not want to think about now, here, enjoying myself; although, maybe it’s because we refuse to consider such things in our moments of leisure that they persist... Fuck it. Not now. Time is too precious to jeopardize such happy moments with worldly concerns.

 

            Someone’s brought a harmonica out, and I drift, lazily, absolutely carefree now, towards her; she is everything tonight. Her and this harmonica. And no fucking strings attached. (To either).

 

(sesame street also had a harp...)