I’ve been sleeping down on the beach. The sea rolls in and crashes into the shore with a comforting rhythm to compliment the House music that drifts up on the hot air from the distant clubs in town. The sand sometimes overwhelms me as I lie there, feeling it run through my fingers, getting lost in it’s sugary softness. I am amazed by the vastness of the black night sky that engulfs the island as oppressively as the blazing sun through the day. And the sea, warm as a womb, constantly rushing in and whispering to the sand with the brown, shimmering African coastline off in the distance. I feel very isolated and far from home.
I often wander back into town and watch the stoned ravers staggering out of sweaty night-clubs with glazed and burned-out eyes sunk deep into their sunburned faces, lost with chemicals and hard, loud tunes still boring deep into their minds. Rounded clay-red and black volcanic hills rise ominously past the shady green palms, dated buses blowing up dust as they carried holidaymakers in Union Jack shorts to their complexes at the coast.
I look on in the oppressive strength-sapping heat at passing beat-up blue Volkswagen Beetles, remembering Amanda.
*****
She’s a South African German with straight blonde bobbed hair, beautiful big blue eyes and as she danced a golden light shining behind her gave her black outline a clear quality, the acid making her arms appear spliced into four sections as they moved to the tunes, the white teeth of her wide smile blue in the UV light.
“I can see your pain. I feel it too,” she whispers in my ear beside a tall stack of black speakers. “When you are hurting, I am hurting.”
Foam begins filling up the dancefloor, the whistles and air-horns blasting out.
I see bats out of the corner of my eyes flapping in the ceiling, sections of roof collapsing - but when I look straight on everything is kind of normal. I gaze intently at the flashing lights and can't count them.
“There's snakes on the floor,” a clear voice says and I turn quickly and say to the man dancing behind me: “What?”
The lad’s topless, sweating, wearing a red bandana on his head and chewing on his cheeks. “What, mate?” he shouts, grinning, trying to be heard over the music. Is he trying to fuck me up? I ponder. My mind can't think straight, very heavy images, noises echoing and metallic as my head spins and I’m not walking but drifting through the crowd as if underwater. Feeling like when you're drifting asleep in a hot car as a child and don't know if something's really been said or not or it is all part of a mad dream. I’m losing my grip on reality and it feels like hours since I spoke to that bloke or did I imagine it?
I find I can't even look at Amanda, casting quick glances but never catching her eyes with a full gaze as if it would betray my feelings, the dull ache that seemed to be sucking my stomach slowly down a tube.
And suddenly she is there in front of me and she's smiling and pulling me close to her, dancing, and I feel her hot skin wet with sweat as I put my hands on her warm waist. Her breath is hot on my neck, her pert, firm breasts pressed against my pounding chest, her eyes so seductive with huge black pupils. It feels like we've melted together and my muscles are so relaxed that my shoulders unwind like an uncoiling serpent. I feel so high and so happy to be here dancing with her with the hardcore techno grinding on, the basslines rumbling up through my feet. She lightly kisses my neck and her lips are so soft that it sends crippling rushes around my body, electric sparks shooting out of my fingertips as they caress the base of her spine. Her soft hair is on my skin as she dips her head onto my shoulder, feeling so close like we've connected on some higher spiritual plane. A strange deep connection that only acid can bring on.
But my lips are dry and cracked and it feels like I’ve got sand in my throat. I need to drink. Next thing I know, I’m standing by a booth with horrible blinding white light and I’ve got two bottles of water, one in my hand and the other tucked under my arm and I don't know how I’ve got there. I fumble in my pockets for cash and peel out a note, too messed up to deal with change. No, I don't want change. I need water, I think. I twist the top off one of the bottles and the cold liquid feels fantastic as I gulp it down, feeling it freezing all the way into my stomach.
I float back through the crowd looking for Amanda. I need to get back to her - it is a good mission to focus on and I want to slide into her embrace again, just to be with her, to talk to her.
Am I walking up hill or downhill? I’m not really not sure - why have they put sloping floors in? Surely they can't have put sloping floors in. My vision tunnels sharply and the club zooms out to look like a massive aircraft hanger but Amanda is very clear and is kissing the fucking DJ from the cafe in town passionately. The DJ has a stunning black girl with him and is locked in an embrace with Amanda, stroking her arms and they're laughing and joking. My brain seems so disconnected but soon catches up with my pixelated eyes and I feel sick. A sudden surging wave of hollow sweeping depression thumps into the pit of my guts. I go to hand her a bottle of water and she's not speaking to me. Not even looking at me; she's jabbering excitedly with the black girl and the DJ has turned and said: “Cheers, mate,” and taken the bottle of water off me. Before I know it I’m saying “No problem, man,” and I’m walking away giving the DJ the thumbs up as he winks at me.
Beside a dance platform, skin-headed Roberto is panicked, edgy and completely paranoid.
“Them lads over there are going to stab me,” he says, rubbing his nose. “They started dancing in front of me and quickly flashing their hands up and that. They’re trying to fuck me up.”
“Who?” says Mickey, laughing. “Them bastards. Fucking Mackems.” Rob had spent over an hour sitting staring at his Adidas Samba trainers and trying to avoid eye contact.
The faces of devils and flames painted on the walls flash in the strobe lights like a vision from hell. We call it Hardcore. The foam being thrown around the club, flashing multi-coloured lights and neon green laser tunnels. A heavy polyrhythm with a booming bass.
The coolness was descending as the lights went up, snapping things back to reality, the music over. I was slumped by a staircase with my head in my hands, running my fingers through my hair, lank with dry sweat, but they feel huge like sausages. Sweat drying and tightening my face. Head buzzing.
Amanda and the DJ were hand in hand as they left with the gang in tow. Her mascara had run and left dark smudges around her eyes. She sees me and says: “Have you had a good night?” The DJ says: “We're having a party at mine, mate, come along. You look a bit wasted.”
I shake my head and Amanda says: “I'll see you later,” and blows me a kiss as they walk away. One of the lads comes up and excitedly says: “Come on, it'll be great, man. He's got a pad up in the hills - there'll be loads of booze and birds. Swimming pools, the lot.”
“Nah, I'm going back to the apartment, man, I'm pretty messed up. Enjoy it.”
He shrugs and says: “Ok, whatever you think... do you want me to come back with you?”
“No, get yourself away to the party, mate.”
They look back at me with the odd wave as they leave through the door and I’m sure I can see them voicing “What's wrong with him?” I couldn't face that. Watching them disappear from the party to screw upstairs. Not in this wiggy condition. It would blow my mind.
I wander through the white buildings in the street alone in the pale blue light of dawn with my ears still buzzing from the club. A taxi drives by and the engine sounds like hardcore. I pat a ragged, solitary stray dog and it follows me slowly up the road, stopping when I stop and looking up with big, innocent brown eyes.
My family didn't understand me. Work wasn't worth the hassle. Amanda didn't want to know. But I never thought I'd feel let down by being a raver. A sleek, dark BMW pulls up alongside me and the window slowly descends with a smooth mechanical whirr. Anton the Sicilian removes his shades and faces me.
“Are you not going to the party?” he asks.
“No, I’m knackered, Anton. I’m going back to get some sleep,” I lie.
Anton eyes me for several seconds. “I saw what happened in the club. And I spoke to Mickey,” he says, slowly, deliberately. “Maybe I can help us both.”
Anton reaches down and hands me an Uzi out of the window. “It’s loaded,” says Anton. “You know how to use it?” The sun is rising orange over the pale buildings, it’s first pink fingers stretching into the sky. The dog knocks a bin over and the lid crashes as it rolls in an alley away to our right.
“Yes, Anton. I know how to use it.”
© 2009 Jon Tait