I took Natalie’s number but never got round to calling her, and I took a flyer for a night that I would never forget. It went proudly in the centre of my partying wall of fame at work, a permanent reminder of how fucking perfect the world can be. As a bonus I’d been invited to another rave too; this one however wasn’t on any flyers.
I May Have Mistaken Him for a Chrysanthemum
March 2001.
I sat in the back of the car with Al. Up front were James, who was so excited he couldn’t sit still; and George, who was driving. I’d met George briefly at that first rave at the aircraft hangar, and I’d made the mistake of asking Paul who the Jesus looking fella was on the drive home; it was then that I’d found out he was Paul’s older brother. The fact that he’d laughed rather than making me get out and walk meant he’d probably thought the same at some point. Apparently he was also one of the DJs at the beach party I’d been to. I don’t remember him, I may have mistaken him for a chrysanthemum. With his long dark hair draped over his thin face, and Christ-like goatee; he was only missing a flowing white robe and fanatical following of people.
We met at the White Hart in Hemford and dropped as we left, it seemed to be the done thing. Turning up to a rave sober would be too grotesque a thing to even contemplate, the sights and sounds would destroy a right angled mind.
A DJ Sy Bonkers mix CD was playing in the car, and a tune came on that got George animated.
“Have you heard this track lads?” he asked as it started building up.
“Nah dude, good is it?” James replied. Our collective silence in the back answering for us.
“Was round a party at Paul’s the other night when this track came on.”
“Yeah,” James said in a bluntness reserved for statements as pointless as that one.
“I was lying back in my chair listening to the build up,” George said. “You know, I was rushing so hard I had my eyes shut. When all of a sudden....then....er....fuck, I can’t think what I was going to say. Hold on let me put that last track on before....”
The ecstasy had got him good. Coming up on a strong pill could make it hard to hold a thought in your mind. Thinking was like trying to type on a computer with the delete button held down.
“Yeah so like I was saying. There I am lying back in my chair with my eyes shut when suddenly this tune kicks in, proper banger it is.” George had a hypnotising passion for music. We all loved music; music and ecstasy, it was the one thing we had in common, but you could hear how much he loved it in his soft voice. “Then this repetitive beat comes in and, well you’ll hear it in a minute. Anyway I can feel something moving so I put my hands down on my legs and they’re shaking. Stomping up and down on their own. My feet are actually leaving the ground, marching in time to the beat. Suddenly I’m acutely aware that everyone else at the party can see me stomping my feet up and down, but with my eyes still shut I can’t see them. I just couldn’t stop though.”
Al laughed, “So when you opened your eyes everyone was looking at you as if you’d lost it?”
“That’s the funny thing Al, when I did finally get the courage to look, everyone else in the room was doing the same thing. The whole room was full of people stomping their feet up and down.”
The track on the CD had caught up now. We were listening to the same beat he’d been talking about, that same repetitive thud that had been playing when he’d started to tell us the story, and now the dynamic of the car had changed. I felt my toes in my trainers start wiggling up and down to the beat, followed by my hands slapping the tops of my thighs as the sound tried to take me over too. This was it; we were off to a wicked rave in who-knows-where, the four of us stomping a path down some unknowing motorway.
Jaw quivering and with massive distant eyes George turned to Al in the back. “S-see what I mean mate, mental tune-”
“George!” James shouted as he snatched the steering wheel and pulled us away from the central reservation.
“Shit, sorry mate monged out there.” George snapped himself out of it.
“No worries, just try and concentrate.” James reached over and turned the stereo down to help.
Al and I smiled at each other in the back. That was close. They do say you’ve got more chance of dying on the road driving to a club than you have of dying from taking ecstasy when you get there. I wonder what they’d have blamed that one on though.