We stepped down the cobblestone steps, our backs to that gothic tower of bricks seeing us off into a damp night. Jesse’s face was blue as he stared down into his phone and said: C’mon, I think it’s this way.
It’s west? I asked.
No, it’s in this direct—I mean yes… it’s west.
You’re sure?
He told me he was good for it.
The guy who walks around without shoes?
Yep.
Wonderful, I shrugged.
We had our destination in mind: there was to be some sort of house show 15 blocks across The Fan, a neighborhood situated on the outer edges of walking range. We didn’t get invited, and there was no social media use among this crowd—it’s only advertisement a lonely flier that had flapped free of its staples off a telephone poll.
So what had happened was, someone told someone who told one of the Crust Punks who were passing American Spirits around a music circle in front of the tower who let the word slip. My friend Jesse had wedged himself into the conversation in exchange for a hand-rolled cigarette, and that was that—we had our plans for the night. It was to be some strange gathering of misfits and music and drugs that had no interest being known to anyone except to those who managed to find it.
We carried on down a cobblestone alleyway, underneath the amber glow of street lamps, breathing the smell of damp October leaves. Jesse nearly tripped on an errant brick angled up from the lumpy pathway, the tops of his black boots flaring out being a size too big. I squared the bottom button of my flannel and thought, are my clothes lame? Should I have worn my jean jacket instead? No, fuck it. What’s cool is not caring. But they might not know I don’t care… They’ll see right through me. They’ll see a kid with supportive parents, no debt, destined for a straight job in a stable field. Would they stop me at the door?
It was the kind of self-loathing diatribe you slip into before diving in with a scene of people furiously avoiding the wrong kind of ism’s.
I hit my beer and slipped it back behind my flannel. Jesse hit his beer and let out a belch to the sky. We walked past a bar with a patio out front and a cop shepherding a crowd of drunken clubgoers inside. The cop broke his attention on the queue and turned to us and said: Hey kid, what the hell is that?
What? Jesse said. I’m drinking cherry coke.
Bullshit. Come here! We continued walking, not straying from our path or making eye contact as if it’d offer some sort of cover.
Hey! I said stop! The cop stepped over the rope and beelined towards us and began his pursuit. We spent a brief moment staring at that fork in the road of cause-and-effect, but then the two of us sized up his pudgy physique and determined the odds were in our favor. Jesse said: Run! This way!
I dropped my can and began running. Four years cross country preparing for this…
We took off down the block, hung a right past a corner store, then a left down an alley. A van was pulling out of a backyard and we froze in the headlights like deer. The cop was closing in on us, holding his belt with one hand as his other hand swung wildly. We turned, squeezed around the van, and continued down the alley. Jesse was in the lead—zigzagging us up and over city blocks, underneath the spotlight of a vacant gas station, through a razor wired lot—with an arrogance that God was somehow on our side.
We settled behind a dumpster, crouched on one knee, wheezing for breath. A twirl of wind knocked a tumbleweed of trash through the alley as it settled behind a steaming kitchen. I heard a gulp and turned to Jesse and asked: What the hell is that?
Oh, this ole’ thing?
He smiled from the corner of his mouth and lifted his beer to his lips and took another frothy sip. C’mon, he said, we don’t want to miss the opener.
We arrived at a crooked row house with the lights turned off and a couch blocking the front door. Is this the place? I asked. Jesse gestured towards his ear as if the city would provide the answer. We both listened: the incessant thumping of kick drum, the metallic crash of trash can symbols, and an oscillating buzz of tube amps seeping out from the cracks of this worn-out brownstone. A smile emerged. With his back to the house and his palms up, he said: See! You said we wouldn’t find it…
I nodded, swallowed, took a deep breath in and out, and made sure my face revealed no doubt. Better than The Chateau, I said.
That frat hellhole? Jesse said.
Yah. The place on North Allen.
Of course this will be . . . those dummies just bought a four-way funnel…
A four-way funnel?
Yes—four beers, four mouthpieces, all at once.
Now that’s innovation.
Sure, but this house show is where we wanna be… this is gonna be mind-blowing.
I think so.
C’mon, let’s check it out.
We followed the noise, squeezing through the dank alley as the discordant soundwaves of some faceless scene drew more and more into focus. We turned sideways against the bricks as a group departed. Then it opened up into a backyard that reeked of stale smoke and malt liquor. There were wool hats, thrift store jackets, denim patches. People in groups solving the world’s problems. Very strong opinions in every direction. Enough conviction to topple a statue or hurl a molotov through a window. The antagonists of all things mainline . . . What did I know enough about to step into the arena?
There was a table blocking our entrance with a girl stationed behind it collecting donations. Who are you voting for? She asked. The side of her head was shaved and I felt our answer was very important to her.
The goddamn Mormon! Jesse said, slamming his fist on the table.
I’m serious, she said. We’re polling everyone.
The political system is a fraud. He said.
Of course it is, but you only get two choices.
That’s a fallacy.
What is?
That we only have two choices. They want us to believe that, to keep us shackled.
Look at the polling, man. You can pick one of two of these corporate lizards.
Have you read Atlas Shrugged? Jesse asked.
No.
You should read Atlas Shrugged… It’s mind blowing.
She rolled her eyes and said, Great—you can go hang out with Kal The Anarchist. Not breaking eye contact with us, she pointed at the far corner of the backyard. There was a guy in black leather with a bullet belt wrapped around his waist holding a large cardboard sign with sharpie written on it: ASK ME WHY GOVERNMENT IS IMMORAL.
Then she turned to me and asked: How about you?
Me?
Yes, you.
I’m voting for Change… I said with a tang of sarcasm, hoping to tow some sort of line I was unsure of which side to be on.
Right. She said blankly.
There was a moment of silence as she sized us up back and forth. Then she held up a bucket and said: Donations or beer for the traveling bands in here… enjoy yourselves! Then she let us through.
We floated from group to group for a while, wedging our way into each of these mini revolutions, nodding along, sipping beer to fill the silence. The Kid With No Shoes showed up, quickly settling in with his friends who were plotting to spray paint ACAB on the Robert E. Lee statue.
Jesse was lipping a cigarette when he turned to me discreetly. No chance in hell, he said, the cigarette bobbing up and down.
What’s that? I said.
No chance in hell I’m walking around without shoes . . . with all the broken glass and needles.
Oh yah… crazy.
Is he protesting sweatshops or something?
I dunno, but we know it’s not for financial reasons.
What do you mean?
He’s in my World Cinema lecture.
Ah… so he managed to put together $15,000 for tuition?
Yah.
Suddenly, there was the click of an amp and that dumb blaring of guitar spilling into the backyard, as if to say—come on back to the pit, motherfuckers.
In congregation, the backyard made for the door and squeezed through the filthy kitchen and climbed down to our underground mass. Half the floor was dirt, the other half was sheets of plywood with a few pallets stacked up for a stage. There were floor lamps of different sizes illuminating the ceiling an argyle pattern of brown. Blankets nailed to the walls to absorb sound. Amps serving as coffee tables for empty cans and ash trays. To the side, a janky HVAC and crooked pipe that might’ve been reattached many times and a cardboard sign warning the shoe gazing dancers: DO NOT FUCKING BUMP INTO THIS. The outlet behind it, a mess of power strips and extension cords maniacally knotted together, delicately keeping the place powered. If the black mold doesn’t take this venue down, I thought, a fireball will.
I followed behind Jesse as he wedged through the crowd and found a spot up front, face-to-face with the band. They were a four-piece outfit wearing brown leisure suits and clear chemistry goggles. As they tuned their guitars and fidgeted with their pedalboards, Jesse said to the frontman: So what are ya’ll called?
What?
What’s your band name?
Oh—Cloud 9. We’re called Cloud 9.
That’s sick!
Yep.
Are ya’ll on Spotify?
Hell no… we’re on Bandcamp.
Nice . . . I love the chemistry goggles!
Yep, we think they’re amusing too… enjoy! Then he turned to his Orange full stack and adjusted a knob back and forth like some stoned pastor preparing his sermon.
A moment later, the drummer clicked his sticks twice and off they went, playing songs titled DREAM SEQUENCE and LET ME OUT, summoning harmonies and melodies into the basement, stuffing the room to the brim as the pit of stinking punks and hipsters worshiped in a crashing dance of elbows and knees. Their genre? Math rock: complex, with atypical rhythmic structures. Extended chords that confuse the senses. A high-brow mode of post-rock that calls for a mustache twirl or a dive into the pit—nothing of the practical sense.
There was a brief moment between songs to catch your breath, dust yourself off, and grab another Pabst. Jesse turned to me with wide eyes and asked: Did you follow that beat?!
No—I couldn’t find it.
Right! It’s not in 4/4.
It’s not?
No man, it’s in seven.
An odd time signature?
Yes—it’s fucking genius!
A garage rock band named Neurotics was on next. Their guitarist limped onstage in a tattered brown leather jacket. Bags under his eyes like a junkie. He slung his beat-up Les Paul around his shoulder, plugged it in, and unleashed the wicked scream of feedback onto the crowd. Then their frontman climbed up with a tambourine in one hand and a tallboy in the other. The drummer dropped his head behind his long black hair and began beating the floor tom. They played their classics—LOTUS EATERS, THERE’S NO LEFT SIDE, and EARTH GIRLS ARE A DRAG—none of them longer than 2 minutes.
Some time later, it became time for everyone to go.
The music dissipated and the sixpacks ran dry and all-of-a-sudden, priorities shifted from Dismantling Late-Stage Capitalism to getting over to Christian’s Pizza for the last of their $1 slices. They closed in 30 minutes and the merits of their thin crust was now a hot-button debate.
Jesse and I drained the last of our tallboys and dropped them into the overflowing trash can where they rolled onto a battered wooden floor. Each gash and each splinter telling the history of an indignant clash between landlord and tenant that was likely not much different than 100 years ago.
We stepped outside and began our trek home—ears ringing, throats hoarse, our boozy breath now visible in the early-morning air. When we arrived at our dorm, the kids behind the desk were asleep, the TV shows on their phones illuminating their laps a blue/green as partiers snuck by without hassle. We walked to the end of the hall past the bulletin board and into the dimly-lit stairwell.
Slogging up those spiral steps, we found ourselves thumbing some odd-metered drumbeat against the greening brass handrail, looking with big heads into an open-ended future, wondering—was that time signature in five-four? Or was it seven-eight?—with a naive certainty that we had somehow found the right place at the right time.
More from Carmeron Ritter can be found HERE, HERE and on his Twitter below.
