Dark Den Electric

The invitation was vague at best mostly because of the illegal nature of the venue. It simply said 'use your cunning'. We wandered around the building trying to not look conspicuous and attract the attention of any unwanted police. "The entrance has gotta be here somewhere!" someone sighed in frustration. "Wait! A cop car... look nonchalant!"

I turned to him and said, "You know, my favorite euphemism for cops is a British one. The Filth. Or the Plod. I think we should adopt that here. Although I am fond of calling them the P.I.G."

After a couple of laps around the building and a trip through the urine soaked alley especially ripe smelling in the summer heat the entrance suddenly revealed itself to us. A quick check for cops, one hard rap on the door and we were suddenly standing face to face with a large, imposing door man wearing a balaclava and a bandana over his face to hide his features. My first thought was, "Wow. They're serious about this illegal venue shit here."

Three flights of long stairs led to a hot stuffy smoky room high above a fortune cookie supply house. It had long been illegal to smoke inside any building in this city, bars and dance halls included, so the novelty was high as people lit up cigarettes and fat joints near the open windows. There was one small bathroom where a line was already forming and a random bathtub in a room in the back where guys were allowed to go pee to reduce the bathroom line up. The building was turn of the century old and so dimly lit that you could barely see your own hands.

This was my kind of place.

The music pumped loud digital beats straight through the floor, up my legs and into my heart. As soon as I made it through the door and paid my cover, my body started thumping and moving all on it's own to the beat. We started pouring burning whiskey and rum down our throats to lubricate our social situation and dove onto the dance floor into the thick of throbbing, sweating bodies all transfixed by the DJs prowess on the decks. Some stood just moving their shoulders and shuffling their feet, others flailed their limbs about the place in tight circles trying to call some pagan god of the dance and drink, some swayed, some just tapped their feet... but everyone was moving somehow.

I let my long hair fall over my face, closed my eyes and as the swimming feeling of whiskey and rum took me over I moved and didn't stop until the music died and dawn forced it's ugly way into the world.