kestrel

Prompt 163: Fun in the 'Burbs

163. What are the most lively and happening late night spots in your suburban paradise? If you could create a secret bar or event venue to provide more youthful partying, what kind of place would it be and what would you and your friends do there?
///

I remember the first time I ever went to a live music show on my own. It was in a joint called "The Barn," and was essentially the community center in a local housing development. I'm laughing at this now, but here I was: a naive, well-off white kid, living in the 'burbs, going to see a local band unironically named Section 8... I don't think anyone in the band even knew the meaning of "subsidized housing." Neither did anyone else in the audience, for that matter.

All I knew was that my friends were playing that evening, they paid me to do the promo poster for the show (well, all of $10: "subsidized artwork"), and it was going to be loud.

Anyhow, there I was, a dumb high school kid, seeing a band with a few friends of mine in it. Also in attendance was a fellow football team-mate, also a lineman like me. We greeted each other, and appreciated the fact that we both liked supporting our friends and we both liked thrash metal (or whatever our friends' bands would play that evening). Eventually, he and I - easily the largest and most athletic high-schoolers in the young audience, did what people did at thrash metal shows: we began to "slam dance."

Now, neither him nor I had ever been to a legit metal concert in our lives, this much is certain. But we knew things were supposed to go pretty crazy at them. So we simply did a literal slam dance: we jumped at each other, mashing our chests into one another in mid-air. Had it not been for the darkened lighting, the screaming guitars, and constant double-bass drumbeat, we could have been doing the same onstage move that Milli Vanilli made famous.

We did this a few times. Maybe we were just young and stupid and having fun. Maybe we were swinging our dicks and trying to stand out in the crowd, and see who could be the "manlier" one. There was one point when he finally fell on his ass while we were doing it. I smiled and gave him a hand up. Fortunately neither one of us were injured in the moronic showing of bravado.

I must have been doing something right, because at the close of the show, a cute little short girl gave me her phone number. We dated for a while, but it didn't work out. She was, you know, from a different high school, and trying to date someone that you didn't see in the school hallways was weird. So we parted ways after a while, she seemingly more stung than me.

Years later, I would see her again. I was covering a shift at the local branch of the corporate coffee shop I worked at that time in my life. I had already been married, and considering the last time I saw her the first thing out of both our mouths was how happy we were with our current relationship status. Maybe we were just young and stupid and having fun. Maybe we were swinging our dicks and trying to one-up one another, and see who could be the more "mature" one.

Maybe a year later, my wife left me. So that time, I think I was the one left fallen on my ass.