K-hole

The music blasting from the speakers is so loud I think my eardrums are going to shatter at any moment. I’m swaying in place gently, like I’m adrift on the loudest ocean in the universe, sonic waves crashing over my head like clashes of cymbals. The darkness perforates my eyelids, all heavy, creamy pinks and veiny blues, muddled together, shot through space and time like the leftover radiowaves of a really noodlesome supernova. It shoots up my nose and sets my tongue on fire. Skeletons make bony fists at me and shriek like hellhounds. I’m drowning in all of it. People push by like silverfish in a southwestern stream, tails and fins glimmering in the light, unreal. This is what it must be like to be subterranean. Each century feels shorter than the last. Caves lurking around, water dripping from stalagmites, eerie as rats squeaking for their lives. Galia pushes a drink towards me, and I push it back in our loopy game of chess. None for me, none for me, I’m gone. Please call back later. There are a couple of sailors standing on the table in the middle of the club, dancing to their hearts’ content. Their best night ever is feeding into me and I lap it up like honey. The colors are all saturated, maybe it’s purgatory, maybe ancient. Somebody spins me. I keel over for a second, gagging, gasping, trying to cough out the acid taste in the back of my throat. If I throw up right here we shall be kicked out of the club instantly, no questions. The noodlesome supernova is back. If they let go of me I will die. Why is everything in slow motion? Seeping like blood, red. I ask Galia if everything is in slow motion, and she says no, it must be me. I forget to listen for her. The waistband of my new black cargo pants is soaked with unknown spills. The DJ is playing ABBA and I’m losing my mind. Slowly, sharply, all at once, here and forever, away outside between white membranes. There’s a white membrane all around us, trapping us in place like wasps as we dance. And suddenly I’m face to face with Death because he kindly stopped for me, and I turn away because I don’t have the patience for it. I’m incapable of not screamsinging to Lana. I shall say yes to heaven of course I shall, for it’s right here as we speak. I’m not inside me nor outside. Somewhere below, teething, not in a bad way, a mask over my face. Nowadays the late-night devils are really getting to me. My arms and wrists are heavier than lead, dragging me deeply into the ground. The 20th century deadline crouches on haunches. My boots skid on the vodka-sticky floor, crunching over plastic cups all deteriorated testimony of summer nights. I get spun again and it bewilders me. Every night and every club make me miss my Xenon days like a dog whose had his ears nipped off, gnawing at bone. Play something better, better, play music made by weirdo men in their garages in new waves! Rock cannot be dead! My thoughts pour through my ears like molasses, and I cannot catch any of them. Gimme, gimme, gimme, I take another big noseful of it. We crouch around each other protectively. I can hear the bouncers staring at our backs, eyes like flashlights in the radiant crowds. I’m at the edge so I throw my bouquet of flowers left over from the grave. I forget the name of the club, but everyone is fighting. To get away from tables, stealing in entries, getting too drunk and faking wrist stamps, shouting about cover charges, shoving and kicking like animals in the dirt, shoes off, mascara streaming, all blue and black and rusty and mouths open but no sound coming out. I take my arms and make myself into a human shield between the crowd and Galia, you must not touch her! Mind your turn! I remember that time Jade called me scrappy. And when I’m hitchhiking, I always say the driver ought to be more scared of me than I of him. The music pulses against my skin, hollow and stuffed, heads full of straw, falling over each other, shining fluorescents into our skulls. The dogfights are settling in, all teeth and eyes. If one more person shoves me I surely will fall over. Right into the woolly puddles. We passed the setting sun many times before Galia yanked us firmly by elbow out into the humid New York night and we gathered ourselves on a big rock, singing our choruses as we ripped open the ribcage last of the powder in the baggie.