Quarter to four and the last song was singing sweetly into the club. I made it a slow one, a good one, to let the people come out of their adrenaline haze of dancing and partying. It was a signature song of mine to end off with.
Destiny turned her face
Nightmares and fallen shapes
State of dreaming has left me numb
Blue eyes and wandering lips
True lies with fingertips
Hidden tales of forbidden
Love...you left me miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable...
I finished my can of Coke, placing it next to its three other fallen comrades. It was my first gig as a DJ after the Halloween rush. I made it a policy to give myself a month or so off after having to play at so many places, and when I did go back to work, goth venues were off the list until well after the New Year. There is such a thing as overload, and I don't do music that I'm not in the mood to play. And ever since I started actually working with Dylis, Wolf Filth's music leaves a bitter taste in my mouth on the best of days.
Maybe we're just sleepwalkin'.
Maybe we're just sleepwalkin'...
The music faded away, like a dream. "And that's all there is to it tonight, folks. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." A call of jeers for the lame pun. "Suffer, mortals. I love you all, now go home and enjoy your hangovers."
Crowds dispersed, as they often did. I grabbed my gear, which thanks to this club actually having a stable DJs booth was merely my playlist laptop. I slapped on my back pack and started making my goodbyes.
"Rhys!"
A lanky man with long blonde hair and a face nearly as long came running up to me. "Rhys!" He repeated. His Scottish burr rolling my name, making it sound more like the traditional Rice and not the anglicized Reese that I preferred.
"Hi Alain," I said. I tried to match the man's enthusiasm. However, the set took it out of me and there was never really any way to match Alain's gleeful charm. "What's up?"
He smiled, he did that a lot. "Some of the guys wanted to know if you wanted to come hang with us. We're planning a ritual and thought you'd make a good match."
I shook my head, "Too pooped to pop." Alain and his buddies were part of the occult fringe. I'd been a part of their rituals before, which were essentially five person raves where they danced, fucked and smoked their ways into perpetual oblivion to alter their perceptions of reality, and therefore the waking world. I liked them, but my ritual orgy days faded when I got a boyfriend...at least until he gave permission.
Alain, clearly disappointed, nodded. "You still working on that book?"
That book was my treatise on urban magic. My blog, the small little thing on the occult as it manifests in cities, had some small following, mostly by people like Alain. "Dribs and drabs here, a few projects got in the way." I ignored the flash of memories of armies of dead things fighting each other on the behest of a bored little godling. "I'll let you know when I finish it."
"Cool," he said. "Oh, remember those guys who came by the pad a while back? The fringe CUT guys?" I nodded. "No one's been able to find them any where."
I resisted a smile. "Church probably got to them, then. Put them in the L. Ron Hubbard 5000 brainwasher and put them back to work." It was an easy lie. Much easier than 'my friends, a werewolf and a half-demon, ripped their faces off and closed off the tear in reality and sanity they opened up.' We don't tell these kinds of things to friends and loved ones.
The occultist laughed, "you know it. I'll tell you if I hear anything."
I nodded and watched my friend part. I repositioned my bag and moved over to the bar. "Whatever soda thing you have back there, I need the caffeine."
"Diet or regular?" the bartender asked.
I eyed him, "Do I look like I'm on a diet?"
He said nothing, and hit the draft for regular soda. I downed it, tasting the sugar and caffeine shoot through. "Ah," I said. "Gracias."
"House," he replied, shaking me off as I grabbed my wallet. "You don't drink much during sets. No point in hitting you up for the driver drinks."
"Appreciated," I said. A few of the bouncers moved in the corner of my eye. I followed them to a booth where a girl had been passed out. If she looked underage, that probably meant she was underage.
"You got a phone back there?" I asked the bartender. He produced a landline from behind the bar. Checking back, the bouncers were talking to the girl, who was answering their questions. Hopefully, her address would be one of them. I punched in the phone number of an old friend. "Hey Tom, it's Rhys. I got a girl here who needs a ride home. Can you get someone you can trust to get her there? I'll consider it pay back for the stick up a while ago."
A few minutes of negotiating with Tom and conferring with the bouncers, and the ride was secured for the disheveled young partygoer. I trusted Tom to not bring in someone who couldn't be trusted in handling the situation like a human being. I also trust him to know what would happen if I found out.
I left shortly after the car pulled away, the girl leaving a lot more relieved and a hell of a lot more sober than before. How did I know that she would be okay?
I asked, of course. Asking about the immediate future of a girl trying to get home was small, but it was important, at least for her and at the most for me.
As I stepped out in to the cold winter of New York City, I felt a sense of satisfaction that was only in part from me. Explaining my connection to the City is difficult. It's instinctive, the City throws you something and you need to make up your mind what that means. That the cab that took the girl hit every green light until they made the turn meant to me that it was going to be okay. If they hit a red light, it may mean nothing, may mean something. May mean everything. New York didn't spoon-feed answers, and it expected those who could speak to it not to be spoon fed.
I walked up through the Village, a part of the City that always felt at war with itself about remaining posh but never too posh. Like you wanted to be a part of it but couldn't, and in many ways shouldn't. My walk lead me into the more real residential spaces of Chelsea, the bars finally closing and the bartenders, bouncers and dancers all going to after hours clubs in some of the seedier holes in the ground. Some went home to sleep before they had to wake up for their second or third jobs.
My footsteps lead me into a diner. It was an older place that didn't even make the attempt to hide that it was a greasy spoon. Fluorescent lighting and too bright paint made it glaring against the orange hue of the streetlit exterior. I took a seat at the counter, noticing a group of brightly dressed people in a corner booth. A further look told me that they were brightly dressed, but barely dressed at that. Streetworkers on their lunch breaks.
They kept to themselves, and talked together. They looked like a private group. Considering what they did, that wasn't surprising. They were the only ones who knew the things they had to do and were expected of them. They were the only ones who shared in their pain.
As I waited for my pancakes, the door swung open. Four cops, in heavy winter coats, came walking in. The room got still, but not a still as the booth in the corner. The hookers kept their heads down, not even wanting to give probable cause to the police. The police, in turn, didn't seem to notice or care and took a booth in the front.
I didn't pay them much mind, I flipped on my headphones and started playing some music. My pancakes, runny with syrup, didn't last long. If I had my way, I'd have circled them from above and swooped down. I didn't do that, on the grounds that I didn't want to be kicked out of yet another diner.
With my food gone, I threw a few bills down on the counter. The waitress eyed me something fierce. It was clearly too much.
"Next round of coffee for that booth," I gestured to the cops. "And that booth," I gestured to the hookers. "Are on me." Somewhere, I sensed almost a dozen set of eyes hit the back of my neck. They knew I had just gestured about them. It wasn't that large of a diner.
The waitress eyed me, but took the money. I sat there, finishing the remains of a milk shake while blasting my music, while the waitress went off to do another coffee rounds. I kept my back to all of them, but kept my eyes in line to the door.
After a few minutes, the hookers filed out. Most of them looked to me for a second, as if they were waiting for me to say and do anything. When I didn't answer back, they slunk back out into the night. A little while later, the cops followed suit, nodding to me when they left.
I grabbed my things, and fished out another twenty for the tip. The waitress again eyed me. "Why?"
I shrugged, "We're all New Yorkers."
"That's not an answer." She said.
"It is." I said with a smile. "We're a part of this really great dream that is New York. A shining City where everyone and anything can happen. It's merciless, unforgiving, but also protective of its own. My job, or at least my hobby, is to try and help the City and the people in it."
"And a cup of coffee is supposed to help?" She asked.
I shrugged, "Does it hurt?"
She didn't answer that, she didn't have to. I smiled and walked out. No, it doesn't hurt. It felt good to help, to make the City a bit better. If some day those little bits of luck pay back, I'll take what I get. If not, I'll keep walking. Like the twenty I left on the counter. The blessing I put on it and the diner isn't much, will barely last a day. Maybe it will help out the waitress and maybe the waitress will remember me the next time I come by.
Lyrics from Sleepwalking, by the Chain Gang of 1974
