A Daemon's Babble

The Water Violet Club

There is a place on the corner of 4th and Vermont Street, an empty lot next to a run-down motel. The grass if soft and a bright green with strange looking weeds in the front, and most pass it on their way to work or school without even passing a second glance at the large lot. It did, to most, appear to be an ordinary lot. There was even a FOR SALE sign stuck up, with graffiti spray-painted on the back. Occasionally a person would see a person step onto the lot, and they wouldn’t think anything of it, thinking it would simply be someone looking at the lot.

But, no, that lot is not a lot. There is something on that lot. And if you have good eyesight, then maybe you’ll be able to see it. You might have to rub your eyes a few times to see it.

The Water Violet Club rests next to a run-down motel on the corner of 4th and Vermont Street.

Its walls are stainless steel, silver and they glisten in the moonlight. The sign in the front, the sign that once read FOR SALE turns into a bouncer with dark sunglasses to hide his black orb-like eyes, a tuxedo that remains in impeccable condition. The soft grass bends back to create an emerald walkway to the front, and the strange weeds turn into Venus Flytraps, the owner’s favorite. A large neon sign that never lights up the same color in one night flashes, hanging above the two double doors that serve as entry. ‘The Water Violet Club’ is written in curly handwriting, with a little signature at the bottom, as though one person had created it. V.L.F.

Once you step inside, there is a loud blasting of music. There are always different people on the stage, never the same unless the applause is loud enough. Speakers are lined up at every wall, and the bar is stainless steel as well, sleek and with so much alcohol behind it, it would be able to knock out a giant. Beer and wine. Monsters line up on the seats, garbling and grunting in strange dialects as they sip their alcohol from glasses too fragile and delicate for their curled and crisped claws. Bodies on the dance floor dance, slicked with sweat and pressed up against one another. They sway to the beat, and the type of creature you are makes no difference in this place of neutrality, this place that is spoken in only hushed whispers, this place that is called The Water Violet Club.

There are girls who sit in corners and giggle and laugh, their intricately tattooed hands covering their mouth as they laugh at petty jokes and jibes at others. There are tall women with fur on their neck and with nails like claws, their eyes as big and as shining as the moon, with those moon-like eyes split by a spindle-shaped pupil. There are young men with lecherous smirks and quicksilver smiles, smiles that melt hearts and razor teeth that tear skin. There are people who pass through walls yet hold objects in their hands, there are girls with fangs and hooker shoes who look dangerously bored, there are girls and boys with eyes that spin in their sockets. The employees you’ll see drifting around, their only difference between the guests and them is the badge with the three initials. V.L.F. The bartender, a boy of perhaps an eternal fifteen, washes glasses and twitches his nose as if the alcohol disturbs him, no badge but a tattoo of the initials on his shoulder, whispers surround him that perhaps he is nothing more than a spell created by the owner of the bar, this V.L.F., if the boy catches a whiff of this rumor you’ll get to hear him laugh.

If you’re lucky in your visit to this Water Violet Club then you might see something out of the corner of your eyes, a brief flash of movement, a person that you might be able to catch if your fingers are nimble and your eyes are sharp. She perches on the backs of empty chairs, her knees bent and her smile drunk but her eyes as clear as crystalline, in one gloved hand she holds a small glass of champagne that never runs out, and hushed voices surround her as she listens to what others think of her. One hundred percent human, she claims, but perhaps not quite. Her black hair tumbles down her shoulders and back, reaching far past her ankles, her skin tan and always with a trench coat no matter what season, her smile crooked in all ways. And over her right eye, where it is suppose to be, is a metal eye patch that is held there by a thin wire that wraps around her head, a strange golden insignia emblazoned on the metal, silver wrapping around the wire, and if you perhaps catch her and ask her exactly why her right eye is missing, the story will never be the same, the FBI, aliens, a freak accident that involves penguins. And people will believe her because this is her domain, and if she wanted you to believe her, you would, no mater if she said ridiculous things, if she said polar bears lived in Africa or that vampires sparkled in the sun. But if you ask her nicely and not to sell it to a reporter, for yourself, she might smile gently and say she took care of her property and then she’ll walk (struts like a bloody peacock, the bartender will say) away, a swing in her step and a click of her heels, one hand on her hip, dressed in her trench coat and gloves.

And V.L.F. is tattooed in gold in the hollow of her throat.

And perhaps, if you manage to stay sober long enough at The Water Violet Club, late at night, late, late, late, V.L.F. will get up on stage and toss off her trench coat and sing. And perhaps you’ll be amazed by her voice, most are amazed by her skin, the skin that nobody sees, the skin that is tan but it swims with black ink that dances around, words that make no sense except in her own world, and what V.L.F. does is not sing or own a club or strut like a bloody peacock, but V.L.F. creates. The club is her domain and she can create anything she wants by taking out her purple pen from behind her ear that nobody sees and writes it on her skin where it fades and appears in real life for she is a Writer of Words and a Changer of Scenes, and The Water Violet Club is her world and she may paint it the color of her choosing.

And V.L.F. will blow a kiss and The Water Violet Club will close, the bouncer with the sunglasses ushering all the monsters out, and then V.L.F. will sit down and rest with perhaps a girl that drifts through walls and the bartender with her initials on his shoulder, and she’ll laugh and smile because this is her domain and her home and she loves it.

And once you leave, the emerald walkway will turn into grass and the Venus Flytraps will fade into strange-looking weeds and the bouncer will turn so still and shrink into a sign and you’ll no longer be able to see The Water Violet Club.

Until the next night, when the moon is high and the stars are winking and people are returning from work, and if you have good eyesight, it will fade into view with the bartender and the girl that passes through walls and a girl with a crooked smile and a golden tattoo perched on the back of an empty chair, sipping a glass of champagne.

So, what are you waiting for? Go to the corner of 4th and Vermont next to that run-down motel and rub your eyes for the neon sign will light up in front of your eyes.

A crooked smile will be waiting for you at the corner of 4th and Vermont, in a place of whispers and hushed conversations, a myth, a legend, a world all in itself, in a place of stainless steel and music that is called The Water Violet Club.