Looking For Midnight
Pt. 2 - The Other Side of the Night
The other side of the night begins at the Faux Pas. Cabrera gives us a vague description of the place as we walk over. Some kind of alt-lounge?
Of course, the alt-perspective comes with a slew of its own issues. Shaved heads and aggressive tats [tattoos] don't necessarily play well in Middle America. Good luck getting a decent job with all that ennui.
You are who you are, I suppose. Although, at a certain point, eating peanut butter in a hovel gets old. That's when there's a turn to the practical.
Whatever dynamics may or may not be in play, the place does not lack for personality. And you don't just get the aspiring aesthetes. You get a fair number that straddle both worlds. They're not going to jump off an artistic cliff. But they also have serious reservations about joining Middle America.
Sooner or later, the desire for decent food and shelter will have them gravitating toward the center of the frame. This will pull them into an office full of cubicles. They'll find some nice people there. They'll find a lot of things there.
* * * * * *
Part III - See the Young Man
Writing Class 201: Professor Marlowe
See the young man settle into Middle America. It's not the worst place in the world. On a good night in suburbia there's remnants of the old spark. There's stolen moments with the barista. It almost tumbles into a full blown affair.
There's a pool at your complex. Midnight swims are known to beguile, especially when they're against the rules. It's always more fun when you're pushing the bourgeois line, isn't it? A few flecks of individuality livening up the cookie-cutter world. It's almost enough to get you by.
Pretty soon you'll be able to upgrade to Ikea furniture. The surprisingly good canvas your old friend painted is now in a proper frame too.
Mina, the barista, goes for these remnants. She goes for your tousled hair and the unpressed linen shirt. Before she intertwines with the other semi-groovy guys who seduce her around the steaming coffee bins, you'll have your moments. It's almost enough to keep you going. The usual concerns pull on her joie de vivre. Her less-attractive sister makes loads of money at the Corp. Mina's not clear about the future. It's a big question mark that gets heavier with each passing year. But it hasn't reached critical mass – not yet. The constancy of the questions haven't quelled her ambiance – not yet. It never will entirely. If it weren't for the mild anti-depressants, abortions and sizable family support she would dry up by 40.
But her mounting concerns haven't ripped into her core yet. She still harbors a glow and when one of her rare laughs trace across the room everybody swoons.
* * * * * *
Faux Pas (Cont'd)
You don't get blasting amplifiers at the Faux Pas. You get a few combos playing delicate things. Usually, like tonight, you'll have some guy in the ironic pompadour twanging a Gretsch while some Hungarian girl sings and sometimes taps the bongos.
She'll lean into the mic every once in a while and say something to the crowd but they barely notice and continue talking about a Gustave Doré sketch or the old guy at the drive-through beer barn. But Gretsch and Hungarian keep it low enough so that you don't have to yell into each other's ears. The tinnitus inducing venues come a little later.
Standing around is no good at the FP. This club is extra narrow with a river of people churning by. But, tonight, that doesn't matter because, somehow, you got a booth.
The tall dark wood deflects sound and there's a cozy, womb-like feeling in there
Like the half-artistic/half-practical people, these towns are suspended between two worlds. They stamp out efficient worker drones, but they're also a cauldron of imaginative notions. For an elongated moment, young ones are at liberty to consider expansive ideas.
What will it be this time?
