The Culture of Hooking Up

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The night air feels colder but musky as always for Friday night bar and club hoping as I wait in the line outside the club. I'm used to standing alone, but sometimes that still doesn't make it any less awkward. Especially, today because the things providing me an extra shred of warmth happen to me two-hundred half cut pieces of paper, printed front and back. I'm simultaneously sorry to the trees, but also trying to save them. Especially, now with all the different smokes floating up into Earth's atmosphere. Car exhausts, cigarette smoke, and other things you can smoke. Then again, drinking isn't much better. There always seems to be different shades of glass peeking through the sidewalk cracks more often than weeds. No matter how many times it's swept aside. Even more so on this street, just one of the blocks that make up the so-called, "party square." All the bars and clubs within walking distance of each other.

     Some may ask, even after all this time, why did I chose this particular club?

     I feel a tiny shard of glass underneath the heel of my boot just as I get to the front of the line. Matt, the Friday night security guard, gives me a head nod. I nod back and gesture to the half slips of paper curled under my forearms. He cracks a smile but only for a split second before straightening his stance and expression back to an intimidating, "don't f*ck with me persona."

     "As long as you clean it up."

     I give him a little salute back, and he opens the little black seatbelt strip in between the same small poles holding the front of the line together, albeit barely, as always.

     I could say that's why I picked this club because it's one of the only one's to give me permission to research when I asked. Even though, in general, I wasn't entirely asking, rather, trying more so for a warning statement. But if I wanted to do things like I'm doing today, I needed the pat on the head. Also, Matt, and the Thursday night security, Broc, and the Saturday/Sunday duo, Alec and Elijah, surprisingly caught on to my frequent presence pretty quick. Maybe it's also because I was and usually am alone. Even behind the dark rectangular frame of the glasses they all seem to wear. I even tried to make a joke about it once, but that didn't go so well, so we stick to head nods and occasional "thank yous" on the rare occasion I'm in the mood to be nice and happen to remember this big-big world is filled with a whole lot of tiny people, and I am only one of them. Also, needing to do research helps. I need people for my paper, and my paper needs people. Especially, today with all my tiny sheets of paper.

     I went with two-hundred, but who knows how many people will actually take the time to fill it out. I'm really banking on the girls who bring purses with pens to nightclubs, which is already skewing the results to begin with. But it's only four questions, and I've come prepared with two bags of number two pencils. One for each bar. And I'll even leave two handfuls under each set of stairs.

     But as I continue to shove and trudge my way around, I can't help but think maybe I should have gone with three-hundred. But then again, save the trees, and this big-big world we live in that we often seem to forget when we are inside this dimly lit club.

     "Hey!"

     "Watch it!"

     "Um, move!"

     "Oh my god, this is my jam!"

     "Hey! Where's my drink! I ordered first."

     Even me.

****

"Whatcha got there, Louis Lane?" Jack's smile is contagious as always, and as always so out 
of place. He doesn't belong in this dimly lit club world, and he never has. But I invited him today, sent an actual text, because it felt right, and that's all I'm going to say because I'm trying not to think too much about it.