What Happened This Evening

OK, so he finally took off the woman's coat. It was white, had a fur collar and fur around the cuffs, looked like something from a Thrift Store. He had not shaved in a while. He lumbered, looked awkward. In the room there was a stage, two upright pianos on either wall, on one of which someone, some other guy, was playing "Frosty the Snowman," per a request. The guy who had been wearing the woman's coat was talking to someone, yet another guy. This third guy was old. He was vibrant and he was old.

So in this room other people, both men and women, were beginning to congregate. There was a stage, and many different places to sit, but no one sits on the stage. I do not know what would happen if someone tried to sit on the stage. Couches, benches, and painted wood boxes intended for seating (at least one of which was labeled "bench"), were arranged in such a way that allowed all of us to form as an audience, which was probably why no one tried to sit on the stage. For the stage there was lighting. Behind the curtain, I could hear people milling.

It had cost five dollars to get in. The girl behind the bar at the back of the room sold bottles of beer for one dollar, but did not have an opener, so I opened the beer I bought from her with a bic lighter. She was impressed, if only slightly. As I approached the bar, she was pouring a vial of ginseng into a bowl (which looked like one of those bowls they serve rice in at Chinese restaurants), into a mixture that seemed a punch of some sort. People drank this punch out of dixie cups. I remember her now, this girl who I had impressed with my lighter trick: later I saw her walk by she was wearing leather boots with a Frankensteinesque soles on them, which elevated her.

Outside it was wet, dark, and cold. Too cold for this time of year.

I try not to worry so much about the weather.

By the time the show started, the room was full. But still, no one was sitting on the stage. People were sitting on the floor, and it reminded me of the gymnasium functions I went to when in grade school, in which all the students sat on the floor, but the teachers all got to sit in the folding chairs. Except for this one kid, who was always getting in trouble - he got to sit on a folding chair with our teacher. He had been a troubled child. We did not envy him for getting to sit on a chair. Now, at this thing I am at this evening, I am sitting on a chair. I guess you could say I felt like a teacher. But not really.

The Acts started with an introduction from the guy with the woman's coat, who I mentioned earlier, and an actual woman, who was not wearing a coat. Toward the climax of their introduction, both of them, both the emcees (I guess I can call them that), removed some of their clothing, and underneath they were wearing ladies' underwear, which had a golden, metallic sheen. Their underwear glinted under the stage lighting. They did a showtoon-type number, with many people, both men and women, backing them up in song. Some of these men and women were also in metallic ladies underwear, others were dressed in fur coats, possibly representing Inuit tribesmen, and still others were I think supposed to be Japanese girls, with pink wigs funny short dresses and older-model cellular phones. I thought the stage looked like quite a cramped place to be, and was happy to have my chair, even if I felt sort of like a teacher sitting in it.

Here is a rundown of the acts:

A guy, who I think was supposed to be a carpenter, came on stage and began hammering the stage. "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson began to play, and first he hammered to the beat, then danced like Micheal Jackson to the song. Once the song ended, he began hammering by himself once again, and it sounded monotonous, solitary, and sad.

A girl in a sequined dress (at least I think it was a sequined dress) played accordian.

A guy who said he was a web designer and a girl who has a Masters degree in something but works at a juice bar get together to play a game called numbers. Bear with me as I try to reconstruct their dialog:

"Twenty-One.""Twelve.""Forty-Seven.""Seventy-Four.""One Hundred Twenty-Three.""Three Hundred Twenty-One.""Thirty-Seven.""Fuck."

A guy takes a digital camera, puts a nylon strap around it. He hits record. Then he swings this camera around his head. I think about what might happen if the camera broke free, whether it might hit someone and hurt him/her. I duck. He stops filming, hits fast-forward. He hits record. He walks the camera around the room, filming us. He stops filming, hits fast-forward. He hits record. He puts the camera in a guys face, asks the guy what his name is. He says Jim, or maybe John (I can't remember). He stops filming, hits fast-forward. He hits record. He once again swings the camera around his head. Once again I am afraid of the camera's breaking free, of it's possibly injuring someone. He rewinds the film, hooks the camera to a projector, and we watch this movie, which is us, interspersed with footage that had already been on the cassette, which consisted of a seagull and some other moving images I could not discern or cannot remember.

There is intermission. There is a band.

There is more, which I cannot remember now.