You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Going to a fire code violation and watching the dance of the living dead.
crazy right?
It’s a Friday night and I pull into the parking lot.
The place is packed. Cars are wedged sideways and on the grass.
I walk to the canopy marking the main entrance. The man at the top of the stairs tells me that no one is being allowed in. “It’s too crowded,” he says.
I look down the steep, concrete stairwell. It’s dimly lit. It looks like a soiled crime scene, a perfect place to toss a body.
Just then the door to the club opens and some smooth groovin music pours out. I see the bouncers within and a gaggle of arms and legs. It looks like a sardine can ready to belch.
A woman exits the club and steps onto the small space at the bottom of the landing. She is furious and ranting.
“That’s a fire code violation!” she screams, her words somehow carrying over the wail of muted guitar riffs within.
“It’s so crowded in there, I cannot walk, I cannot move.”
She is carrying on theatrically, her arms waving, her tight fitting leopard print skirt busting at the seems.
The bouncer stays calm and motions for someone to give her a $10 refund.
She walks up the stairs and looks right at me.
“You don’t want to go in there, it’s a fire code violation, someone is going to die.”
I think back to the horrible footage from The Station Concert Club in Rhode Island where close to 100 people died in a night club fire.
I’ve been in this place before and I know that there is only one way in and one way out. Should a fire break out, i realize it could be a disaster. I’ve often said this to friends.
People who come here know it could all go bad at any time. It’s a basement dive bar and a good place to grab an adult beverage, listen to a little R and B and tempt fate.
“It’s crowded,” the bouncer says softly to the woman. “But we are nowhere near a fire code violation,” he says, handing her a refund. “Thanks for coming.”
The woman wants to plead her case some more, but nobody seems to care.
She disappears into the darkness as the door opens and a wail of keyboards and people exit the sardine can of potential death.
People are coming out to smoke. They look like extras from the Thriller Video.
“Is it way crowded?” I ask a man with a boil protruding from the side of his nose.
“Not that bad. seen it worse,” he says.
“Oh it’s crowded all right,” one drunk with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips interjects.
I walk down the steep stairwell and stand in the door that is now open. I can feel the drum pounding through my chest. The bouncer looks at me. Normally he would ask for 5 dollars.
“We can’t let anyone in,” he says.
“I heard,” I say as I nod and look in.
It doesn’t look that bad. I see a few places I could stand.
I look to the bar area. It’s a narrow ledge, barely four feet long. Servers and customers all order at once here. It’s crowded on a empty night. It’s certainly crowded tonight.
Suddenly, a server carrying a stack of dishes emerges in the doorway. For some reason she is carrying the dirty plates from the bar below, up the concrete stairs to presumably take them to another part of the facility. Talk about bad architectural engineering.
Either she slips or the door hits her but i hear a CRASH CRASH CRASH.
Several plates hit the concrete and explode like mini atomic bombs on the ground.
A man and woman exiting the establishment at that moment are surprised and spin around.
I watch as the female server grows furious, her brain blowing up with embarrassment and frustration.
She literally takes the next plate off the remaining stack in her arms and throws it at the brick wall beside the stairwell.
SMASH.
I am stupefied.
Before I can say a word she starts firing plate after plate at the wall.
CRASH. SMASH. CRACK.
At least 5 more plates explode.
F**K THIS! she shouts at no one in particular. She throws her hands up and storms back into the club.
I exchange glances at the patrons who just left. The couple looks shocked. I laugh out loud. I love this kind of crap. Life is a pisser, isn’t it?
The man begins picking up chunks of ceramic plate covered with mustard and chunks of burger. It looks like a garbage pail has been turned over in the entry way that leads into the club.
What a scene. A codes violation, a fire hazard, all in one.
The explosion of plates and cursing waitress sends the bouncer and door personnel scrambling.
I look around and shrug. I let myself in.
Not so bad, I think. I find a spot with some oxygen that i can call my own.
I watch the band play. I watch zombie people dance. I wonder where they have parked their lung machines. I see women who have been in the sun too many years and men who have done hard time in some Asian prison.
This is quite possibly the ugliest crowd of humans ever to assemble in one place. If the Merle Norman police were here, this entire bar would get a citation for being ugly in public.
I feel as if I am in the belly of a pirate ship where prisoners from uncivilized countries have been captured, placed in a cargo hold, that also serves as the place where the pirates relieve themselves after a long night of drinking rum and eating sour mangoes.
The dance floor is a festering disease pit of decrepit humanity, undulating and grinding on a dance floor the size of a picnic table.
I watch with delight, my brain filling and swelling with the imagery that makes me want to start writing.
She’s a Brick House is pulsing off the ceiling as ugly chain smoking – plate breaking – zombies dance like robots needing oil.
It’s like the Golden Girls go to Spring Break in Mazatlan.
I begin laughing to myself, the imagery as entertaining as anything I have seen in a long time.
It’s a spectacle. There’s the guy with the comb over and bulging belly gyrating like he’s Danny Terrio from dance fever.
There’s a woman with a face so pock marked, I expect NASA to ask for clearance to land on her cheeks.
I see the waitress who threw the plates. She looks calmer.
I stop her and shout. “what happened at the door.”
She smiles. She no longer resembles a demon she devil.
“I lost one plate when the door closed on me. I got pissed and just threw them all.”
I smile. Yep. that’s pretty much what I saw.
She moves on and I finish my beer.
Between gulps I wonder if these people will go home with one another. I wonder if they will actually be drunk enough to take off their clothes, to touch one another. God help them if they like to leave the lights on.
For some reason this bar reminds me of a leper colony. Everyone here seems to be hideously infected, and they are here by design, ordered to avoid human contact with anyone but themselves.
As I walk out, I look back at the dance floor one last time.
The specter of grossness undulating with one another reminds me of some lab experiment gone awry. So much flaggy, saggy flesh, so drunk, so worn out like sea glass washed onto the shore in a tumultuous storm of life.
The scene is chaotic and it makes my eyes wince it is so unappealing.
This dive bar is so heinous, it makes the Star Wars bar seem like a star studded Studio 54. But instead of doing cocaine in the bathrooms, people here are snorting cheese.
I open the door and see the remnants of mustard and burger stuck to the staircase.
Just then a monsterously large woman trudges down the stairs.
They are going to have to charge twice, I silently think to myself.
“Careful,” I say pointing to the mysterious crime scene splattered on the stairs. “Don’t slip.”
Her eyes, buried deep inside a skull that only a momma ape could love, probe the ground. I don’t think she can see her feet.
The night is over and I’m up the stairs. The cool air of salvation fills my lungs.
As I walk into the parking lot, and take in the full array of the milky way. I hear the club door open and a blast of play that funky music white boy spill out.
Then bam.
the door shuts. The night is quiet.
The hideous grotesqueness a memory.
And that is crazy.