Night Owls

The sun sets.

I sit at my window and I watch it go down. The way blue becomes purple, and fire becomes wine, and there’s a line of molten golden that’s been poured along the outline of the hills; a little bit spilled in the harbour, fanning out amongst the yachts and tiny islands.

Curled up in the wicker of a crimson-cushioned chair, I’m waiting for my phone to ring.

It does.

“Hello, Tegan?”

“Claire.”

“We’re going out tonight, aren’t we?”

“Damn straight we are.”

Because there’s no such thing as a Friday night (or a Saturday, and on some occasions, a Thursday) when we don’t go out on the town. We were made for nighttime, truth be told. The glare of day, the tethers of routine, the bright, hard, scuffed colours that come with the sun falling down on the earth are like an assault on the soul. I kid you not. I crouch in the office, at that desk far away from the window, and I wait for the sun to stop grilling me with its eyes. For the soft shades of dusk, the muted colours, the smoothed lines, the way the streetlights and neon weave into the dark asphalt.

That’s where I belong. It is.

#

I feel like dressing up.

No I don’t.

Or do I ?

I try on a little black dress, but I feel like an imposter.

I try on jeans and a t-shirt; but I don’t like that shade of pink.

That green is better. I like the puffy sleeves.

I don’t comb my hair. Hair like mine just laughs at a comb: yeah, nice try buddy, very nice try. That ain’t gonna happen. Some kinds of hair it’s just best to give up on, let the frizz win, let it run free in the wind.

Text: are you ready or what?

Answer: course I’m ready. I’ll head past your place.

#

I catch a glimpse of my neighbour, on the way out. I turn, I offer up a half-smile.

Because you know, I wish I could be her. Not all the time. Not mostly. But sometimes when I see her rocking up to her flat in her tailored business suit, with her hair in a neat, high pony-tail. She has this liquid sophistication that I can’t even touch. My hair could never be wrestled into that neat style. I don’t know how she does the perfect make-up, or looks so un-harried, un-beaten-down by the storms of the day. I don’t know how she walks so elegantly in those heels.

Well, I don’t do the heels. Never have. And maybe that makes me like a totally failed girl, but I just never seen the point. I have these slate-grey flats that are piss-easy to walk in, or to run in, or to skip in (because you know when I’ve had a few drinks, I like to sing to myself and skip around lamp-posts). I can skitter down the road in these shoes, breaking into something not quite a jog-skip, no problem. I can be at Claire’s ten minutes or less.

#

She opens the door. Dressed in black. Black trousers with a whole bunch of extra straps and buckles, a black top with no sleeves and a butt-ton of glitter.

“Are you planning on getting laid tonight or something?”

“Not planning. But I keep my options open.”

“You look seriously hot.”

“I always look hot.”

She’s a way better girl than I am. She takes time to put on her face, to get her make-up all nice, her hair styled and yet effortless. Her shoes match her outfit – though in my defence, black with black with black, it probably wasn’t rocket science – and there’s a little heel on her shoes, which no matter how late-that-it’s-early it becomes won’t slow her down a bit on the dance floor.

We head out arm in arm, walking down the road, until we get to our first stop.

#

I love Radigondo’s. Not just the name. It’s the kind of bar where just anybody, no matter what their story, or what pigeon-hole somebody might want to shove them into, can feel like they belong. It’s a gay bar, and a straight bar, a hippy bar, a biker bar, a country bar – a touch of metal, a touch of the darker stuff. But you know what? I always feel safe here. I feel like I walk into an embracing womb, the warmth descends through the smoke and settles on my skin, knowing me, reassuring me.

Home.

More home than that pokey flat, or that sterile office.

Tracey and Teeka, Rod, Dori and Rheed are all ensconced in that favourite booth of ours. And so we hurry over to them, waving, handbags in the other hand.

“Just in time,” Rod calls, “it’s your round.”

And then we don’t piss around. We order the good stuff. Drink doubles. We curl up, we rest our feet on each other’s lap. Teeka decides to kick off her shoes. Tracey decides to draw patterns in some spilt salt. And nobody minds.

We talk about everything. And sometimes nothing. Sometimes I think what comes out of our mouths is barely words. But who cares? It’s the sound of familiar voices, the visceral closeness. The hum in the air of background music.

We buy rounds until the world has no edges, until the colours fizz and change places.

“Fuck, I need to dance,” Dori says, though really any one of us could have said it, somebody will, sometime in the night.

#

So, we end up in two or three out of any ten clubs. They’re all loud and pumping, and painted in bright neon lights, there’s a strobe, or a black-light, or a floor-full of dry-ice smoke. A mist striped with colours; where a person could get lost, or walk into Narnia or something.

The music blasts not just your ears, but it rattles through your bones, it shudders in your rib-cages like it’s trying to stop your heart. It feels sometimes like it actually will.

“Shots!” Rheed calls out. He goes up to the bar while the rest of us melt into the dance floor. Clair flashes like diamonds. Her arms move like snakes. Dori curls like vines, she flowers in spring colours, and her smile spreads across the dance floor while she feeds on the music and it feeds on her as much.

Rheed comes back, clusters of little glasses in hand.

We drink as we dance.

Dori gets the next lot. Her fingers slide easily around them, and as she dodges through the crowd, she never spills a drop.

Rod’s got the attention of a lady in white. She’s dark, and her long hair is luscious with curls, the blacklight highlights her every movement in that filmy, flowy dress. She has his full attention, he’s absolute lost in her, moving in and out of her. Their eyes lock. There’s a magic there. I dance around the outside of that, our little phalanx of arms and legs, while their connection ignites there, and it feels like a privilege to watch it unfold.

#

Some time or other, we’ll end up on the ridge.

Rod says goodbye to his white angel when her friends come to drag her away. He holds up his phone to show her his number, and she texts it so she can call him – soon, she promises, she won’t forget, she’ll see him again. The friends giggle and push her, they head out the door with their heads together whispering urgently about what she might have found.

Rod learns from the signature on the text that her name is Yvonne.

Will he? Won’t he?

It’s not as simple for us as it is for others. Sooner or later, the edges are going to fray, the small things that can’t be denied become undeniable. Truth hurts.

I can see in Rod’s eyes that he imagines an encounter. A steamy night to treasure as a memory, but how can he take it any further?

But we end up on the ridge. We always do. There are lines of trees, thick grass, wildflowers growing. So weird how they hold onto their colours in spite of the deep dark. We lounge in the grass for a while. We probably smoke some weed.

And then, there is a moment, a point in the depth of early morning, when the seconds elongate, and the other time is born. Our time. A small gap, that others don’t see or notice, or if they do, shrug off without understanding. But we night owls, we know it, we’ve been told we were born in it.

We stand on the rocky edge, testing out our wings. They’re about as substantial as smoke, but they hold us up all the same. They let us soar. And we blend into the night, the darkness races through us. It’s beautiful for a while.

But eventually the skyline turns turquoise.

I look back at Rod and Dori. Sure enough, as the light waxes, they fade, their lines and colours grow less distinct. The night sustains them, the light kills. As the sun rises, they fade from existence. I don’t cry. The sunset will revive them.

Rheed’s pale skin senses the heat, it burns and buckles. He throws a smile. Next time. There is a basement that shields him until the hours turn again. He listens to my heartbeat, but I know he’d never steal a drop.

#

I walk home with Claire, feeling the heat on my back. I can see her change, the way her skin withers, and her bones bend. She was meant for daylight even less than I am. By the time we’re at her door her back is hunched, her face is all screwed up, her teeth jutting out like little white knives. She didn’t used to like to let me see her that way. But we’re past that now.

“I’ll call you later,” I tell her.

“You do that.”

“Hey, sorry you didn’t score.”

“There’s always tonight.”

“You think Rod… and that girl…?”

“Maybe. Really, anything can happen.”

I walk home to that pokey little flat, to heavy, drawn curtains. I’ll sleep for a while, I’ll eat, I’ll watch some TV. I’ll stare at that crack in the curtains. Just waiting for the sun to set.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work