Saturday night would be a perfect routine only punctuated by the occasional mishap in preparation, which was meticulous.
Eating light and early, I would climb into bed setting the alarm for 4am. My stomach was all butterflies, my head always excited, now even more so.
However, sleep came.
Awaking to the alarm was never a problem. mostly I would wake before it rang. Jumping out of bed, my stereo was alive.
After showering, it was costume, quick check of everything and downtown in a speeding cab with the windows down.
The Arena was located at the Palladium Nightclub on 14th street. A cavernous theatre, now decked out in new millennium aspirations of monitors, lights, sculpture and shear noise. It was if the whole building was a machine, a music machine. the sound would be dropped, pumped and pushed out of every possible place. You felt disconnected from adult life and back in the playground.
Dealers were conspicuous by wearing a huge X medallion around there necks. girls from New Jersey accepted academy awards from homeless drag queens wearing stolen Gianni Versace clothing. Being in fashion as he was murdered that year.
`Don't have too much, remember Miami ` blurts Donald, my friend as we break the law in one of the many toilets of the club. Later that evening I would hold him up as we chatted to my new boyfriend Terry.
Ketamine is a drug that 20 minutes after snorting you become anesthetized slightly. Everyday things and technology becomes god like and imprinted with DNA feelings of great importance.
The Arena became a kind of Temple slash Universe. An image of a shark chasing L.L Cool J through an underwater city became prophetic.The lights were looking at you, and the music revealing hidden secrets that only you are receptive too. It was if reality and all its invisible dimensions were revealed.
The down side was a sense of weightlessness burdened by vertigo and being in constant slow motion.
One could be lost in the toilet for hours.
Especially if its mirrored.
