violet in the rain

we rode our bicycles to the club in the drizzle.

“ye fallen angels of heaven! you keeping up, man?” oscar yelled from in front.

“don’t worry about me, man, i’m right here.” i said.

the mysterious drizzle multiplied, and we pedaled faster. (the rain cast itself finely, and earnestly, westerly, forming a perfect pastichepatisee of puzzles on the pavement.) and the rain felt beautiful and sad against my face.

we pulled up to the club on the eponymous drag and locked our bikes. the club doubled as an art gallery and tripled as a coffeehouse style restaurant, featuring cheap eats like tangine, a north african stew and grilled lamb chops, and people ate on recycled treadle tables and old, scuffed-up captain’s chairs. on the bottom level was the stage and a huge soundsystem for local and touring indie acts. at the bar you could grab a bottle of chimay, pbr, whatever.

we grabbed beers and sat down.

“she plays the piano - the band’s name is 'sunset rubdown', man, they’re killer.”

“i was here last month for 'clap your hands say yeah,' and those were the goods."

"just wait."

the room was getting crowded, and the scenesters were self-consciously eyeing scenesters. after a few more minutes the lights dimmed and the scherzo of the stagelights stole across the room like the footprints of phosphorescent bohemians. for the first time, i saw that girl illuminated at the piano. she sat there smiling in her wild west black dress, matching her mascara, black as black, a wild flower blooming in the misty night; so hip, so strange, so new.

"what’s your friend’s name?" i asked.

"violet."

and what of the others? a long-haired, bearded thoreau cat strung the bass, looking wild-eyed and apocalyptic; the drummer was a younger kid, slim in a t-shirt, with self-indulgent fingers and a faraway look in his eyes; the frontman was shaggy-haired with a slim cotton tie, and he tapped his foot daintily and bobbed his head to the silence and hum of the crowd.

hark! music.

the piano keys compressed. cool and complex, the room echoed a fairy tale solo sailing over our heads. then the others struck up. it was a cool sound, eerie in its cadence, and it hushed the crowd, save for the clinking of ice cubes.

“music’s the only thing that makes sense anymore, man. play it loud enough and it keeps the demons at bay,” i said to oscar.

“true enough, man, true enough.”

watching the show felt like sitting in an abyss of reality, between fulgurations of all that grabbing and taking and sighing and dying outside the club. just sitting there felt like attaining a state of rapture and utter ecstasy during a dionysian thiasos.

i couldn’t stop staring and felt a pang of jealousy as she made love to the piano.

“my, you are staring,” oscar said.

“my, i do like the view,” i said.

"she’s my best friend. i’ll introduce you later."

"that sounds fine," i said.

when the set ended, oscar told me to wait. he was going to talk with violet. when he returned, he said, “her bandmate keith’s having a quiet, little shindig. feel like going?”

"i could get down with that," i said.

"cool. we’ll meet violet outside in five. she’ll walk with us."

we met outside and exchanged conventional phrases (eyes locked. heart pain! so much to say. no, not too much). oscar and i walked with our bikes alongside violet. it was past two, and through the drizzle, the ghostly-white, pale-white, soft-white lights festooned in the river birch trees shone above the street. the wuuush of leaves were heard, only broken by, yonder, the bird’s treepalip, and on the corner was a long, long line snaking around and into the falafel palace, as we made our way to the party.