The lights on the stage blinded me that night. A primary technicolour melange that never stayed the same for even a moment. They flew by me in shots of flashy, raw moving magic. I had had enough to drink for two days put together. Running up a tab of one hundred and forty dollars already and it was but barely halfway through the night. I wiped the sweat from my brow and I got right up into Nick’s face. He was so much like Lemmy and Zappa. So much so that it hurt to look at him because he was just this perfect little garbage angel. His girlfriend was gorgeous, too. Tall, blonde, and very Eastern European. Of course, she was. But I wasn’t here for the frontman with the infamous rep. Hooking arms with my girlfriends on the scene that night, we danced in rhythmic and entrancing waves, front and center whilst the other people sat from a ways back at their tables like it was a formal occasion. Rock 'n' Roll was never to be a formal thing but a primal and intrinsic thing. Something that comes naturally to aid the dying spirit in becoming ferocious again. Like the snapping of teeth and leather shorts against hot skin on legs. 587Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq1SNPA25Mi
My eyes darted about the room, in frantic fashion earlier that night. I’d gotten there before everyone else, along with my in. My way in was a friend of mine from the school I just dropped out of. Emily. She was a sweet girl but she never washed her hair, poor girl. She was sweet and patient and a little bit too understanding. But could you blame her? Word on the street was, she had it bad for the bassist; Connor. Asking his bandmates for his whereabouts before I could. You see, the roles could have been reversed except I knew that he’d be there soon. And I wanted to hold my tongue play it as cool as I could. He had already asked me personally if I’d be there even earlier that day. So how could I mess it up before it even became something palpable? Other than the fine-tuning of nerves and mincing words.
The cool breeze of twilight pushed past the open door at the foot of the stairs leading up to the stage before Jimmy came through the frame and stuck his tongue out at us, cherry red, and set up his guitar. Then came Mick, on rhythm, hauling up his large amp and even larger frame before circling back to the van in cool and collected and almost barely-there fashion. Concentrated on the task at hand. And finally, in came our precarious frontman, Nick. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Mick and Nick? Kind of like Mike n Ike. I thought of that then and laughed to myself as the guys fumbled up along the stage with various wires; bits and baubles. Like wild, unencumbered cavemen trying to light a fire. They looked good. Wearing something very them; each one in a sartorial tradition of Rock.
The late August sky started setting around 8 or so. When some friends of mine I hadn’t seen in months poured through the door in their fantastic, cool, and modern way. They flowed like cool mint tea on a hot Israeli summer day. There was Marguerite, Eden, and Mark as well as Rita. Mark was from the outer edges of Montreal along Outremont and Ville St Laurent, Eden born and raised in Israel, and my best friend Marguerite, who lived just a stone’s throw away, deep within the manyfold Armenian neighborhoods of Ville St Laurent. Rita and I were more downtowners. Lined with a thin film of the city’s golden light and sticky orange construction cone summer dust. They all carried the vibe of a rich kid in a modern paradise. Worldly before their years and filled with a dim but not dull vibrancy and the empty longing of professor’s children.Beautiful cherubs full of life and cautious naivety. We were all so new to life, so fresh from the cellophane wrapper of comfortable nights rent-free. Now we all paid our dues. Whether physical, mental, metaphorical, or emotional. There were dues due.
I sat at their table, catching up with apologetic eyes and of-place demeanor. We had not seen each other for a long time. One too many days spent wasting away on my ex's bed not having sex and arguing. It was hard to describe how that part of my summer felt to anyone but myself. I was late to the party but was here nevertheless. After much catching up about the ways young adults live their lives. With the drinking, the parties, and the intricacies of social mores between young man and woman, I saw the man I’d been looking for. The golden god of the evening, Mr. 30-something, Connor. Decked out in clean, comfortable clothing. A wife-beater under a thin linen shirt and relaxed jeans; his hair clean-shaven at the sides and tied up in a bun. Concealing flaxen blond locks that reached just beyond his shoulders. I stopped what I was saying mid-sentence to get a load of his stature. I glazed over him as he moved through the room with his horribly rude and obnoxious, bad side of thirty friend who had mistaken Mark for another Mark and disregarded my cute little comment altogether.587Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHym5n2zlBe
“Hey girl, how are you.” Conner smiled a cheeky smile and entertained Emily’s meager flirting after calling him to our large table of friends and the newly, beautifully, acquainted. And then he looked up and over the table to see me sitting next to Eden. We locked eyes and shared a knowing look. The whole world stopped for me for just a moment. The room would have stood frozen in time if it could. It did for me.
My eyes held his gaze more confidently than I could have ever imagined myself to be. I raised a hand to say hello, my excitement almost palpable in the air above the table. My heart raced faster with every sip of my drink that played across my lips. Cold, fruity alcohol to calm the nerves. So they say. Connor was the bassist for the band, Nick’s baby, The Cold Sweats. Ultimate and infamous Montreal party band. Tonight we were at the novel Park ave club Madames. Lord, my palms were getting sweaty as my poutine and my cocktail was brought to the table. I didn’t want the fries, I just ordered them so I could drink and drink, I did. Connor hurried excitedly over to the now empty spot beside me and graciously accepted my offer to the soupy, soggy mess of cheese and gravy and fries that sat there. With a wild and satisfied look on his face, he mentioned that the food on the road had been subpar and that he was eternally grateful for my offer. Every time he smiled, my confidence wavered and my heart caught in my throat. God, I was way in over my head. After he left the table I felt my whole body unclench and release the tension of a thousand hopes. I held fast and hoped to god he'd invited me for a reason.
“So, if you’re a groupie, which one are you fucking?” Rita exclaimed. I flicked my bottle-blonde hair out of my eyes with my freshly manicured fingers.587Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAQCs3rxqu0
“Of the boys? Hopefully that one,” I whispered through the din and pointed at Connor, “but none yet. I fucked the alleged manager.” I exclaimed with the confidence of a runway model. To be clear, he was not the manager but I made no claim set in stone. I chuckled heartily and swam in my head a little. I was getting tipsy now.587Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ2UO2ZwIXl
The show was set to start soon with the opener. They got on stage and warmed us up for The Cold Sweats. The openers were alright. Although, my attention to the name of the band or what they played was elsewhere; too focused on making a good impression on Connor, Connor, Connor. Or was it the whole scene? I was absolutely restless. Ordering another drink, The Cold Sweats finally got on stage looking all sorts of cool. I stood up at the hint of a note indicating the beginning of the end and then the rest escaped me. The show passed by in the blink of an eye. Literally one blink and it felt as though it were over. After all but dancing on the tables. I and the girls had danced and shook our hips, our hair, let our bodies skim one another, snakelike. Charmers, all of us for just a moment.A wild testament to the fact that the music was good and that we would keep coming back to see them time and time again.587Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNDF8M7UzfD
I was left sweaty, exhilarated, and exhausted as they all came off stage one by one. And one by one I gave compliments to in turn. Their smiles were radiant and happy but not satisfied. How true to their nature! Though Connor stood there and took every compliment in like a sponge; smiling his charmingly crooked smile. I was internally paralyzed by a thousand tonnes of sexual tension and nerves. I shot him a look of pure, unbridled desire to no longer be a young woman and to become wholly, entirely a woman in the plainest sense of the word. The significance of the difference resonated so deeply within me right then. My eyes hungrily going over every detail as to encase it in my memory just in case my just a little too old to be jailbait ass failed miserably at this inquisition. The lights from the stage shone on me for a moment, illuminating my hazel eyes and blonde hair like a true garbage angel myself as my eyes gained a mind of their own. Intense intent is like that of a tortured soul looking for peace. 587Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSwKqk0uZYG
“Woah, hey what’s that look you just gave me?” Connor spoke up in a warm and playful fashion, winking.
“Nothing!” It was not nothing.
“That was so not nothing!” Connor teased with an exclamation that reverberated within me. I was almost sure he was going to turn me down right then and there but that was all he said, holding a cheeky look in his glittering eye.
Stiff as a board and wiry as someone on crack, I somehow convinced him to have a drink with me in a few minutes under the warm lights. The tension between the question and the answer hung between us with the permanency of an electric shock. I held my breath as he coolly and purposefully made me wait for the answer. Looking pensive as he had already made his decision just to be a tease. He told me, after much thought and consideration, oh the agony! To wait while he loaded his bass back into the van and wait I did. He’d be right back.
All the while, Emily looked at me more discouraged than a high school dropout working at a movie theater in a Midwestern suburb and went home. Grabbing her thin denim jacket from the chair it had been resting on and making an excuse that she had an early day ahead of her. I gave her a solemn hug, knowing the truth that tried to conceal itself behind a resolute smile. I, however, did not feel bad. I had officially become the girl who I dreaded in my youth and it felt good. I was getting skinny, lean, mean, and glamorous. Something I had always feared and admired to the point of an assumed hatred. But how could I hate myself now? I was just getting started.587Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5yI3U4nki5
My friends were leaving now. I saw them slowly getting the courage to gather their things, pay their tabs, and go. That slow wrap-up where the conversation seems to fade but hangs on by a thread for just a second longer all the same.Because you really don’t want to go anywhere at all. I hugged Marguerite hard, for the first time in a long time and told her we would see each other again soon. With the giddiness of schoolgirls, we mentioned how radiant the other one was and how much we’d grown in just a few months. I also hinted at what the rest of my night would be. That and if my parent’s ever asked, I went on the town with her. It was just simpler to lie. Then, looking at the speckled, fake granite flooring of an old roller discotheque, we parted and she wished me luck as the object of my affections for the night came up the stairs in almost unison. One fluid movie-like scene, melting into each other.
“I was supposed to buy the bar but unfortunately the girl I was engaged to at the time and I never got to it and then she moved on. Last I saw of her she got engaged to someone else. The guy she’s with now, I punched him!” His stories mesmerized me with the subtle plainness of real life. And the unbothered way he jumped about his sentences in a linear yet broken fashion.
“Well, that’s one way to take care of him.” I sipped at my drink for a little while, playing with the straw between my lips like the stem of a cherry. The sickly sweet cocktail hitting my tongue, cold and unforgiving to my teeth.
Time passed now, languidly. It was drawn out and yet sped up like cassette tape or black licorice shoestrings. It stopped when we were in the room together but every time I looked at the clock while he went away to the bathroom or to the bar, time passed us at exponential speed. I wanted to sit in the booth at the back of the bar for the rest of my days. Suspended at this moment between certainty and nervousness. I felt wanted, appreciated in the way a man appreciates a younger woman with all of her vitality and her passion towards the things that others have already grown very tired of. Oh, and the way he said my name, damn. Cheryl. That low rumble of satisfaction on the flourishing of the “L” wavering like an extended silent note. All but a metaphor to what may come later if I played my cards right.
We had been talking for hours by now. It was two in the morning and getting further into the night as time went on. The cool blackness outside presided over the remaining warmth of twilight. It was now very much dusk and still, I did not want to go anywhere if it meant the night would end. By now my hair was down, grazing my shoulders in loose and bouncy curls. And in my head, I swam circles around my thoughts at every turn. With every sip, hanging onto the words of the man sitting beside me. Feeling alive, very much alive. For years I had felt as though I had been asleep at the wheel, letting others decide where my life would end up. But now I was 18, freshly released from the accursed labels of true youth and sitting next to Mr. 30-something. Listening to a life that was very much not mine, wholly intrigued. I knew I had no way of relating except for the way all humans can relate to drama and betrayal. I omitted every mention of my life in factual order by using: “some time ago” and “time has treated me well so far” instead of saying: “when I was X years old…” The neutrality suited me better. Made me less branded by my actual age. I spoke with pomp and circumstance. As any scrappy liberal arts dropout should.
“Cheryl.” There it was again. The electricity inside me went off at a thousand volts. I turned toward Connor, expectant.
“Yeah, what’s up?” And then, as I spoke he planted a very passionate kiss on me. Like cool water to the face, I woke up to what was happening and kissed him back with as much intensity as I could muster without being weird. Wow.
We stood at the entrance of the strip club waiting for entry to use the ATM and call a cab. Inside, girls were dancing in the dim technicolor parlor. It was clean inside and lined with a thin film of sexual desire as the strangely pink and yellow light cast down across the girls dancing. What a beautifully weird setting. Payment for the semblance of sex... They say it’s not okay to get into a car with strange men but where’s the fun in that? Anyhow, the night unfolded as nights do. The sky got dark as tar. Lots of lights and streets, whether they be yours or theirs, or the guy the next town over’s and feeling the heartbeat of the city against your own, palpitating chest. all under the umbrella of summertime electricity and warmth.
Morning came fast that day, the sun slowly rose along the treetops as the wind shook so slowly; giving way to a cool and brisk cut through the humidity of August. Everything was covered in dew. The banister, the grass the taxi cab waiting at the curb, and so on were the tiny little encouraging voices within my spirit as I now rolled along highway 40. The world was waking up as the taxi man sped along the highway, quickly passing other cars. Other cars on their way to work. Where I would be soon, selling designer shoes, wearing a tight black dress and a chignon, and wearing a name tag. Such a juxtaposition to what I had worn to the show. A floral short jumpsuit with a big coin belt and go-go boots I found at a thrift store two minutes from home.
I paid the cabman and sauntered up to my home in the most self-assured way a young woman could. I pushed and punched past the cardboard in the back door to avoid being barred by the lock on the top of the door out front. Where I was greeted by my dog, Lucky. The large Malinois toddler we had, showing off his belly in expectancy for someone to pet him. It was a wonder he never thought I was an intruder. I was thankful he was a smart boy. I loved my dog more than anything in the world! He was like a baby brother I never had but better because he actually could not talk. Or at least not like us. Lord knows he tried to formulate words at times.
The house looked warm in the silvery gold sunlight of the early morning. I took my makeup off, washed up, and poured a cup of coffee. Getting dressed in work clothes, I pulled up my stockings, the ones with the subtle rip in the knee that I failed to throw out, and sat at my kitchen table with a sigh. Phone in one hand, news in the other, and my head knocking against the pure mahogany table worn down with time and circumstances of life. I was exhausted and satisfied all the same. What a night. I wanted to do it all again tonight. There wasn’t a gig I would miss by any band now that I had had the pleasure of seeing some of these beautifully, newly acquainted souls. Life was good, all in all, it was good and pure and perfect. The way perfect looks through rose-colored glasses and idealism. The way a girl looks at life when life has just finally begun. And with that notion, I felt freer than I had my entire life.
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