The last few weeks had been different from what I had expected, the
clubbing scene was not how I remembered it. In place of smiling faces
and nods and handshakes and expectant conversations I had found
numbness. The repetition of it all seemed so much clearer now, even
the drugs seemed dirty. When first started going clubbing I
remembered the highs coming on like uncontrollable frenzies, welling
up inside you and taking over your mind first, only for your body to
follow helplessly. I remembered sitting on a chair in Garage one
Thursday night in 2009 and looking around with that last, deep
breath, knowing that this was the beginning of something special. I
remembered these things, but I began to question myself... had it
really happened like that? We are all guilty of romanticising the
past – each and every one of us holds on to sepia memories and
foggy, glimmer-lit scenes of a childhood that no one can verify. Was
it really that beautiful back then? Or was I just longing for a time
that I knew for certain did not exist right now... maybe it hadn't
existed back then either, but more likely then than now... more
likely I was happy then, than happy with this. Waking up on a
sullied, stringy couch at 5:45am on a Monday morning, back sore, head
still muddy.
Even up until I had gone away, the scene seemed happier. I lay under
the blanket and tried to roll back over and face the floor – 5:50,
still no signs of life. I remembered that spring in 2010 when every
Sunday was a sun-filled scene of mayhem. Cashed up and ready to go we
were, and the city was our playground... that's what we used to call
Friday nights at Red Square: 'Playground Fridays feat. Bollocks
DJs and Neverland's Lost Boys'. Saturdays spent drinking
and screaming in fits of laughter, Sundays spent jumping around in
the grass and arguing about who was going to the bottle shop. Whose
turn was it to go buy food. “You lit the Red Square fire Tugzy,
I've got that shit on tape!!” Noonahs and nills and lawishi and a
million other nonsensical rambling strings of words that couldn't
make sense to anyone that wasn't there. They just couldn't, you had
to be there for the ride, for the weekend. There were no passengers.
I knew I wasn't just imagining these times, those nights and mornings
and frantic afternoons, I know I hadn't just imagined the last three
years... so what was so different now? I'd woken up in someone else's
house, on someone else's couch, with someone else's clothes on many
more times than this... why did this feel different? I'd just gotten
back from a four month trip overseas, and in those four months,
things seemed to have somehow changed. But looking back from this
uniquely privileged perch on Monday morning, nothing seemed to have
changed at all. The weekend was still the same, and the clubs and the
music and the drinking... maybe the drugs were slightly diluted and
gritty, but that shouldn't really have mattered. The whole reason we
had been comfortable living this life was because we knew, deep down,
that we didn't need the drugs. Drugs are just a tool, they just keep
you awake for longer so that you have more time to enjoy the things
in the scene that you're really there for: friends, music, dancing,
talking shit down Rosina Street and laughing at the kids with their
fake IDs. Then selling drugs was just a tool too – everyone wanted
them already, no one was pulling kids out of church and forcing the
shit down their throats, they were just supplying an ever-present
demand and funding their weekend in the process. Funding the life
that they loved, that we all loved.
I sat up on the couch and threw the blanket lazily off of my body,
only then realizing that there was another body lying one couch down
from me – my feet must have been in his face I think. I rubbed my
eyes, finally committing to something, and walked out the back to see
if anyone was still awake. No signs of life. Six o'clock now and the
sun starting to flood the open areas of this cramped back yard. Rouse
had a garden for pissing in, and a tree for hanging lights off –
little fairy lights that I assume he liked because of the 'Tinkerbell
from Peter Pan' connotation. Never grow up. The couches were a bit
wet, but I didn't bother to sit down, I was just out here grabbing my
lighter and seeing if I'd left anything, I was quickly decided and it
was definitely time to go. There was still time to salvage the day
and fit in a bit of something normal. Time to write a poem, or maybe
start readings for the new semester of uni. The difference between me
and my brothers-in-arms – and that's what we were; brothers – was
that I had found a life outside of the town scene. I had university,
and I had pretended for so long that that was my passion that slowly
it had started to become true... I got really, really lucky.
I padded in my bare feet around the house almost slipping on
something slippery, almost stepping on something sharp. Bare feet
turned to socks, and socks turned into one shoe, then the other as my
body started to get it's bearings. Dishes in the sink, shove them out
of the way just to get a glass of water. I grabbed what I hoped was
the last of my stuff and shoved it in my backpack, then, offering my
hand in front of Plummy's face as he stirred on the couch, I waited
for a farewell handshake... these were always the sloppiest. Monday
morning, who has the energy to do anything?
I never said goodbye to Rouse, it's just not what we did... he was
asleep in his room anyway – hidden away and fragile, not to be
disturbed. He knew anyway, no one ever left for good, it was just
until next time. And we were all coming back, we needed it for
ourselves... well that's what it had always felt like. Something was
different this morning though, something about wallowing in the pit
that we had made for ourselves didn't seem so glorious and appealing
to me on that hazy day in the suburbs. I had come back from overseas,
and something just didn't feel right any more. I felt like I wanted
to purge my system, the thoughts hadn't organized themselves in my
head yet though. All I knew was it was time to get moving.
I would come back, of course, many more times. And many more times I
would wake up in the same situation, but I was only there to visit
after this day, never to take part. From the moment I walked out of
the front door to Neverland on that briskly cold Monday morning and
stepped into the world, I would be merely a passenger on the ride I
had helped to create. Never again to be lost in the high-speed blur
of the night, caught up in the drug scene. I remember the cold and
the ice on my skin. I remember taking deep breaths of fresh air that
burned my lungs and ate at the tips of my fingers. That was the day I
woke up.
Peace, Taco.
I have also noticed the scene change in a very similar way except I wasn't overseas during "The Great Transition" I witnessed friday to monday antics change in person. The pre-drinking atmosphere changed and the experience of the sunday session slowly faded from vibrant energetic conversations that made little sense to weathered dulled out arguments and voiced opinions that were captivating but not my cup of tea. You're not the only one that misses the lifestyles we had in 2009 - 2010
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