We Live This, We Breathe This

I'm standing in a tiny room, filled with probably ten times the legal capacity. The bodies are hot, sweaty and restless, clothed in warm, damp denim, t-shirts and heavy coats. We've been waiting far too long for the headlining act, filling the time with as many drinks as we can hold. It's so humid; it's hard to focus as the crowd is swaying with anticipation and a drunken loss of balance. There's a bar; the crowd is unusually tall, and the type that loves to drink and brawl. We struggle to keep a grasp on our plastic cups of beer and whiskey and vodka as the band takes the stage and the screaming begins. The vodka diluted blood pulses into my ears.


My vision is blurred and my hearing is muffled, a sure sign that the vodka has taken effect. I struggle to keep my eyes focused on the man with a large chest of tattoos that creep down his muscular arms that are gripping the mic tightly. His raspy voice greets the crowd, which roars in response. I try to ignore the girl standing at my side, looking at me. The familiar girl with dark hair and lips grabs my arm and smiles broadly. Through the thick fog of inebriation I make out that she remembers me and that it's been a long time. I nod my head and turn my gaze back towards the tattooed man. As the music growls through the speakers a sudden violent surge shoves the entire crowd forward. I put the elbows out, holding the crowd away from me with my forearms, just as I'd learned to do after years of watching crowds and realizing the inevitable punches, elbows and kicks do less damage to arms than the torso or head. It's been a very long time, but still, I'm used to it. "Are you ok?!" The girl with dark hair and lips grabs my arm. I nod my head and shout the words I know, "Take a trip with me, for soon I will sin!" I see familiar faces in front of me; we all smile and acknowledge our ridiculously frizzy, curling hair that we had discussed earlier was its natural state. The air was like liquid and the bare lightbulb fixture above illuminated a rusted pipe that dripped onto the crowd. Or was it the roof that was leaking the rain water?



I try again to focus on the stage. The tattooed man, in his saturated oversized wifebeater, is dangling from the wires on the ceiling; hovering over the crowd. I feel myself sinking backwards into a dark hole. My view is dark around the edges and I'm staring at the crowd and stage from a distance. It's more difficult to hear the gritty chug of the guitars now. It's getting harder to breathe the thick moist air and everything becomes reminiscent of the youth I've spent wedged into a solid mass of bodies purging aggression to hardcore. The adrenaline releases in a rush to mix with the cheap vodka and redbulls I'd drank earlier. Hostility. I see more faces of friends, but I don't care. I feel carefree...and hostile. My elbows make contact with everyone around me. The boy next to me decides that I should completely support his weight. I decide the floor is better suited for that and use every drop of strength I have to shove him into a cloud of swinging jagged arms and kicking legs. "Are you ok?!" The girl with dark hair and lips grabs my arm. I nod. Just then someone else in the crowd catches my attention. I keep singing, but my gaze isn't on the stage. Suddenly sharp stinging pain explodes between my shoulder blades. It takes me a minute to realize someone had just jumped on me from the stage and I had stumbled back into the sharp corner of a square column. A sign to silence my sinful thoughts no doubt. Funny. "God save me now from my past and present sins once again!"







Security pushes past me in a violent hurry. A cluster of tightly gripped bodies presses towards the door, becoming clogged just behind me. As they're jammed tighter and tighter, my hand and arms are pinned against me, unmovable. I turn my head to see more familiar faces, and still I don't care. Hostility. I can't be here, in this bullshit. Back to the stage. I take a deep breath to unwedge myself and shove and elbow my way just outside of the jammed up cluster. I can tell now that the alcohol is settling me into that angry stage of hatred that used to happen so often. The show is coming to an end and I'll be able to soothe my slick hot skin in the cold rain. The last song ends, they clear a path for the band to exit. We are standing around wondering if we can exit the same way. I see a familiar face, an intense concerned face, "Move! Move! Move!" he shoves past me. Another cluster of bodies violently swing past me, hitting poles of wood and metal as it collapses out of the door, taking half of the crowd with them. "I think we can exit this way now."