A sleep deep into the night
“You can kiss a hundred boys in bars” *
Dear friends,
The stage lights flared brightly. At that moment, I saw my friend.
He was smiling at me.
I stretched my arm through the crowd, into the darkness, towards him. As our fingertips touched, he screamed: “HEY BABE!”.
The night was still young; the air, heavy after the afternoon rain. I could feel an extra thin layer of moisture wrapping around my arms as they were rubbing against strangers’.
Heads were swaying to the rhythm of the music. Hands were reaching the stage while drag queens were serving their dance moves as if splashing the sacred aura onto their heads would heal all pains and bring out wholly new humans.
I saw familiar faces across the room. They danced their own dances. They laughed at their enjoyment. In a common space, tiny personal universes bubbled up in the air and bursted.
I looked at my friends. Their faces were briefly lit. In a month or two, some of them will no longer be here.
Once in a while, my previous roommate in Brooklyn would knock on my door and let me know his friends would come over on Saturday afternoon for a pregame.
“No worries,” I told him. “I will have some dates till late anyway.”
The fact was I had no dates on that day and I would bike from Williamsburg to Carroll Gardens just for a cup of flat white then walk back home across Domino Park when it was already dark or just would hang out at the skatepark opposite our apartment and wait until the group wrapped up and went out.
The roommate left me some cookies on the cooling rack – usually choco chips topped with Maldon sea salt flakes.
The following Sundays were usually slow. I went out early for a loaf of sourdough bread by Nick + Sons while he woke up around noon, making a bowl of instant ramen and snuggling down on our sofa watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
Late Friday nights on L trains home from Manhattan, I joined a car full of party goers to gay bars and clubs around Montrose Avenue station.
As the train slided under the East River, there would be some people screaming in surprise.
“My ear just popped!”
Brief moments like those live on forever in my head though Brooklyn days were two years ago.
At 1.30am, I left the club.
The driver waited for me in front of the alley.
“Is it a bar or a club down there?”
“It’s a nightclub,” I answered while hopping on his motorbike.
What I didn’t tell him was that the villa hosting the club will be demolished later this year following an opera house construction project.
Till next time,
T.
(*) Chappell Roan – “Good luck, Babe!”
This week’s top picks
“I plan to visit Berlin this year, for club hopping – starting on Friday night, ending on Sunday afternoon,” I told a friend while we were sitting in front of Savage's Red Cube.
“Get those materials for your up-coming essay. Have you read Zadie Smith’s Joy yet?” he replied.
“Not yet. But is it “joy” as “happy” or “join” as “participate”?” I confirmed as the music was so loud.
Another friend cracked up. “Joy as happy or join as participate,” he repeated.
The essay:
https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/britlitmodernity/files/2015/08/Zadie-Smith.pdf
On Thailand’s middle class debt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hpCpEm6PeE&t=268s
A friend who works for an installment lending company, when being asked how the job was, told me: “KPIs get better as the economy gets worse. Deep inside I feel bad for my customers.”