Being the subject

So it was Friday night, after a long working week. We wanted to do something. Had a few options from calling around. The Wadadlian called by and invited himself along. Set up the back of the van - few cushions and a flight box of alcohol choices (we all drink different tipples). Wadadlian stuck in the back, we sang along to tunes at full pelt on the way. We do half decent renditions of Just a Giggilo, Bohemian Rhapsady and screaming Jay Hawkins’ I Put a Spell on You. Spilling out at the first venue we found live a Latin jazz band whipping up a crowd dancing in cramped conditions. Easy to forget yourself in these situations, feel the bump from the crowd and release the exuberance of after work joy. So dancing a serious salsa with the Wadadlian, easily swung to the rhythm and then taken back to the Panther for our own intense special less formal rhythm. The band came to a halt at midnight and we piled back into the van and headed back across north London to old neighbourhoods from the dimming past. Two floors. Pizza. Softish metal upstairs. We got beers. Hanged briefly and decided to check out the downstairs. Dangerously chipped stars lead to a gothic cellar bar the likes of which I hadn’t been to since Bails stopped dating goths. There was a lot of black dyed hair, velvet clothing and long eye ticks. Dark music. Pale faces, many shaved sides in the heads - men and women. My two companions leaned up the wall and watched in interest. The goth dance is a thing of steps and rules, you do it and it doesn’t matter if it matches the music in timing. It is done in a sort of square. And alone. Vampires, in intense introspection was the conclusion. Vaguely freaked out by my siren dance wafting and drawing them into a trance, we eventually left and went back upstairs. The music had taken a turn for the better - we knew the tunes and they were dancing songs. As it turned 2.30 Madness started their baggy trousers chant and two men besides us immediately aged themselves into our generation by jumping on the appropriate jig. And there we had it - the middle aged masquerading as youths, rolling out to go home.