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The Nightclub
by
Alex Vergara
Alone atop a grassy knoll sits a square red brick building with a horseshoe shaped driveway and an overhang, much like the entrances you would expect to find at a Las Vegas Casino or an upper class southern home. The faded black asphalt riddled with small stress cracks and crumbling potholes, the outline adorned with patches of grass and mud. Small trails of worn down earth extend past the drainage culvert and the sharp curving road. A marquee perched on a pole extends upwards into the heavens to deliver information, like a town crier would in the days of old. A decorative wooden fence, like a python embraces a courtyard of stone, sculptured furniture. The nights have worn the exterior as it begins to show signs of fatigue. Streaks of white, green, and brown adorn the walls. Thick orange rust lines every foot of metallic trim surrounding the building. Even now, after so many years of frequenting this establishment, I wonder why it hasn't been condemned.
Remnants of shattered glass are found from the gully, to the courtyard half a field away. Windshields, beer, and liquor bottles glass, bleached by the sun, sparkling in the pale moonlight add to the ambiance of the night. The steel frames of the windowpanes stand chipped, scribed, and pitted from the weather and vandalism that it has encountered. The concrete stained with chewing gum and bodily fluids is moist from the afternoon showers. A once bright neon light now flickers and indicates the way to the entrance where an oversized gorilla stands with a wand in his hand searching for his lost
banana. Within the walls waits an old beat down hag; life has not been kind to her. She looks up only to ask for a fee, like a something out of Greek mythology.
As your eyes begin to focus and sort the shapes and shadows masked by the intense smoke and light, the layout presents itself. On the right, one of two bars, this one serves to the juvenile crowd who cannot drink alcohol. Just next to it, the DJ booth were all the emotion and energy is created. A small window separates it from the dance floor were the essence of youth, pleasure, and feelings are displayed. The lights bounce around in sequence adding to the frenzy of the sweat-drenched participants. The music calls to them, two by two they leave their seats to leave everything they have out on the dance floor as a sign of protest, and joy. Further along are the countless rows of folding tables and chairs draped with a thick white table clothe which has seen better days. Half burned candles adorn them along with gold and silver colored tin ashtrays, cigars still burning. The only inhabitants of this wasteland are the wallflowers who never bothered to learn to dance; they stand guard over the possessions of the dancers. Throughout the interior, the cracked floor tile lay half secured to the concrete foundation, wet from the countless overturned glasses that have fallen victim to the overcrowded room.
Why is it that with all the crime, health, and structural conditions associated with this place, do we continue to participate? Why not attend other functions in classier company? Freedom to enjoy life without being judged is why.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Alex Vergara
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