When I was first asked to write this story, I was very skeptical. Being a devout individualist, the concept of communal living stirred some deep and primal sense of alarm within me. I mean, what if this kind of thing caught on, became trendy, and dragged all those near and dear to me into run-down farmhouses in the middle of a Texan desert?
Really, this thing could be the coming of the end. 2000 isn't that far off. They tell us the Cold War is over, but Lee Harvey Oswald also shot Kennedy, right? Communal living, trendy?
The fact that it was an Ottawa goth commune confused me even more. A group of 18 people who pride themselves on their individuality and prize their own space, all condensed into a single house struck me as a social oxymoron. So it was with no small feeling of apprehension that I randomly rang one of the three doorbells at the house in Centretown. I resigned myself to fate's mercy. When the door opened, the shadows came alive. Faces appeared out of darkness and the soft waving of velvet, the gentle creak of leather and the rustle of chain mail confirmed that I had knocked on the right door.
After brief introductions and apologies for the "project-in- progress" appearance of the house, my photographer Brian and I were ushered through a maze of dark and narrow hallways and even narrower stairs to finally enter a surprisingly "normal" living room.
Leslie, in a flowing velvet dress and sipping wine, perched on a chair, while Cliff in PVC leather pants and high suede boots lounged on a chair opposite her. Various other starkly dressed characters scattered on a couch while others still crowded the doorway. The TV was turned off and I set my tape player to record.
"How we got this place is really funny," Leslie begins. "I was just looking for an apartment for me and four friends . . . I saw an ad for a 14-bedroom . . . and OK, this I've gotta see. So the first person I asked was Cliff, probably 'cause I figured he's the only person in town crazy enough to go in on this with me."
Smiling, Cliff interjects, "I refused to believe it existed." But exist it did.
"The place was in pretty bad condition, a lot of spray paint," Cliff says. "Raver kids had all the downstairs area as basically a running rave -- the place was trashed!"
The second and third floors were no better. Everyone in the house is expected to contribute time to the betterment of the property, and from the looks of it thus far, they'll end up with a very classy establishment.
The house, Cliff states jokingly, "is run by a triumvirate of Leslie, myself, and Bob the Axehandle, who has yet to make an appearance."
Politically, Cliff describes their system as a "benevolent dictatorship democracy" with a little bit of communism thrown in for good measure. They keep close tabs on everyone to see who is and who is not pulling their own weight.
Still, the question you might be asking is, "Why choose to fix up a house with 18 people?' Well, for several reasons.
"We've always wanted to do something for the scene," Leslie says. "Our culture is practically changing because of this place."
Cliff has a slightly different way of putting it: "It's fun to pour out of the front door on a nice evening. You've got a ton of people dressed in black just oozing down the stairs, and watching the neighbors draw their blinds and their curtains."
Despite the goths' general advocation of pacifism and individualism, there tends to be a negative social stigma attached to the subculture, and unfortunately, many a goth has a tale of violence to tell.
Leslie explains that this is somewhat diluted by their communal living arrangement.
"This just has a good impact everywhere," she says. "If you're going into a store and they see that there's a decent number (of goth), right, people start to take that into consideration."
Cliff explains that the speaker set-up at the University of Ottawa's bar, the Nox, was generally designed for bands. On a regular dance night, conversations were not a problem on the dance floor, but in the rest of the bar it was awful. Cliff went to manager and suggested an alternate arrangement.
"Well, you know, we're showing up and dancing," Cliff says. "And I got the run-around for 10 minutes, and I finally said 'Look, I've got 30 people who come here to dance. If you want, we'll fuck off and spend our money somewhere else.' And it was like 'Uh, we'll have them fixed for next week.' And they did."
One of the "triumvirate's" main motives is to promote cottage industry -- the production of marketable goods at home. Both Leslie and Cliff know a lot of people who make things.
"Most places charge a hanging fee of about 50 per cent," Leslie tells me. "We charge them 10 per cent, which makes us enough to keep going . . . The artist gets money, and if the artist gets money, then the artist can spend money, and that just keeps everything going within the scene.
"In order to have a healthy scene like you have in Toronto, you need money."
Since the house is on commercial land, Cliff and Leslie are considering adapting "the warehouse" or "God's living room," (a large room 45-feet-by-15-feet and two-storeys high) into some sort of cafe/after-hours club.
"We're not gonna have to leave the house to get jobs," Leslie jokes. And as Cliff points out, "When we get the cafe open and running, we're gonna need someone there all the time to run it."
Cliff sees the Ottawa goth scene, which has been around for a long time, ready to really expand.
"It's been really small for a long time," Cliff says, "and so there's a lot of room to grow. I mean, I've talked to a number of small business owners who've said they think Ottawa can support a full-time goth bar . . . and it just hasn't happened."
With some careful planning, Cliff, Leslie, and Bob the Axehandle are trying to change that.
So how is it that these collective individuals have grasped life by the balls?
Perhaps Leslie provides the deepest insight.
"Goth is about a lot more than just wanting to be a vampyre," Leslie says. "I mean, that doesn't even factor in any more . . . 99 per cent of us were a bunch of high-school dweebs who got the crap kicked out of us on a regular basis because we wore thick glasses.
"So we said, 'Forget your normal social norms of dress and behavior. We're gonna do our own thing, and we're gonna be beautiful, and we're gonna be dignified in our own way.'"
Well, maybe the Cold War really is over. Maybe the only thing we really have to fear is our own insecurities and restrictions. But a question I think we all have to ask is: are we doing our own thing? are we beautiful? are we dignified? and most importantly . . . are we truly happy?