Home Again

You park in the church parking lot because it’s free. It’s 12:20 a.m. It’s 12 degrees below. You’ve got five minutes to make it before they start charging cover at 12:30. Five minutes because they set their clock ahead to make a few extra bucks. Five minutes unless that one guy is working - the guy who has a crush on your buddy and will basically let him in for free anytime, you too, if you are with him. You throw your coats in the trunk so no one steals them (“Freeze for fashion!”, your buddy says) and you RUN in your A-shirt and jeans the two blocks to the bar and damn the light's red so you cross the street mid-block between the cars, your nostril hairs freezing, your knuckles turning red, slipping on the black ice on Hennepin Avenue, dashing by other gay boys and the few other people out at this time. You make it to the door and jump back and forth hugging yourself as the straight girls in front of you argue that, like, they really are twenty-two and like, they just, you know, left their ID’s at home and c’mon couldn’t you just let them in, they drove all the way from Buffalo. With a flip of the hair they huff away (“This is so lame!”). It’s 12:27 on your cell phone. 12:32 on the clock on the wall of the bouncer’s little wind shelter. Damn, too late. You start reaching in your pocket for a five-dollar bill… but that guy is working. He nods at your buddy. “How’s it goin’?” he asks, all gruff and disinterested-like. Your buddy gives his most winning smile, “Goin’ better now that we’re here!” The guy nods his head toward the door. Your buddy pushes you through first and BAM!, you are hit by a wall of hot, humid, sweaty, cigarette-smoky, stale beer-filled air and THUMP, THUMP, TH-THUMPING music. You feel the condensation on your frozen belt buckle as you push your way through the bodies to the bar and order a vodka cran for you and a sloe gin fizz for your buddy. Drinks in hand, you take one lap around the bar, looking for new, unfamiliar faces and cute, familiar faces that might be looking, oh god, is he looking your way? Then you squeeze out to the dance floor because they’re playing that song (I see you baby!, shakin’ that ass!, shak’in that ass!, shakin’ that ass!”) and you head for your spot, away from the shirtless circuit boys and their prickly arms, away from the tweekers’ corner and their wandering hands, away from that one guy who is always staring at you with his mouth part way open and you and your buddy start dancing real close not because you're in love or anything but because there are so many people that, you know, you just have to. And you throw your head back and laugh. It’s Friday night and you made it! Home again.