I went out last night, like I do every Friday night (and most Saturday's and the occasional Thursday). I went out to a club named Machine, washed the black marks of my hands, danced up on stage, swayed and pulsed and careened to the music.
And as I moved there was an image coming to focus in my mind. It throbbed with the music and suddenly I knew where I was: The Carousel, another Friday night, dancing with men I didn't know and searching the crowd for a hungry, empty face. My friends hemmed me in then; they kept me safe and chaste. But I knew no one here. I had come with a group of kids but I trusted none of them. We had no background, no history, no collective memory to draw upon. I've known some of them a month at most.
Why was I here? Was I simply trying to relive the past? I should be beyond this I thought. This is not who I am anymore, not who I want to be. But it was Friday night and I had gone out and there was nothing more to it.
I got home alright--taxi fair was five bucks a piece--to my dorm where my roommates were just hanging out, talking about girls and philosophy and socialism. I got home alright to my bed with the comforter already mussed and the faint whiff of sticky floorboards. I got home alright when my eyes slid shut and Tennessee rose up to cradle me.
My old friends from home are all together this weekend. But I went to far afield to return. Sometimes I wonder....
Was it really worth it?
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