I’ll be heading to my mother’s house today for our annual Christmas party, though I’m currently still recovering from a
loopy weekend. A few old friends of mine I have not seen in almost a year planned on going to a
club Saturday night and they asked me to go. So Saturday evening I traveled over to Atlanta and met up with them, and we headed to
Backstreet.
I’ve only been to Backstreet a few times, and it’s hardly a place anyone could withstand for very long sober- it’s a huge 24-hour dance club loaded with drunk and drugged up people. It can be a lot of fun, if you’re on the same level as everyone else. My friend Jenna, whom I’ve known since high school, had only recently been experimenting with E, and she and Sherry had each taken a roll so by the time we arrived they were squirming all about the car. I took an alternate illegal substance to keep me going. The moment we’d parked, a homeless man ran up to my window, began knocking on it, speaking incomprehensible words with wild eyes as we tried to avoid looking at him. Eventually a parking attendant drove him away and Jenna and Sherry ran inside while I tried to gather what I needed together. Once I got inside and caught up with the two, we ran upstairs for the drag show.
All throughout the show, Jenna kept leaning over and asking me questions in awe. (“What is that he’s wearing? Is that really a guy? How do they do that? Those boobs are real! Aren’t they?”) The two were rather amusing- I was laughing my head off. Several of the performances were really good. One performer danced extraordinarily well to numbers by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, (I highly doubt I’d have enjoyed it as much if I were sober) and I went up and handed her $5 dollars. After this, one of the performers pulled a guy out of the crowd and began undressing him on stage. His embarrasment was obvious and he futily tried to keep his boxers on. The drag queen was grabbing him- I suppose it was meant to be funny but we felt bad for the guy and yelled at her to let him go. He eventually escaped.
We began to move around the club, avoiding many of the guys attempting to chat with us and dancing for a while. Two guys came up to us at one point and began talking to us. We felt like sitting down and did so next to them. Normally I’d never be speaking to these guys, but I was in my unsober talkative mood and chatted away- primarily about my boyfriend, who was out of town and who I was missing terribly. The guys still remained, I guess determined to get at least one of us interested in them. They were amusing for a little while. When we were about to move on, one of the guys quickly spit out “We’re about to get a bag of coke and go back to the Hilton. You guys want to come with us?”
The three of us laughed and declined, but they didn’t want to end it there. One of the guys kept talking to me, trying to get me to go dance with him. It’s hard for me to be mean, so I was kind in my declination. Sherry gave him the evil eye so well I think he may have been truly concerned. The two eventually headed out for their coke binge, and we finally met up with a few of Sherry’s club friends. A good friend of mine from Athens showed up at about 3:30, and I was so happy to see him. We talked for a while, and Jenna and Sherry and I had a good time reliving college memories and watching the odd assortment of people saunter by. Jenna and Sherry were ready to leave by 5 a.m.; they were coming down and wanted to get out of there before getting totally sober, for that’s when the place feels rather depressing and scary at times. We headed out and I was still awake enough to drive home. I crashed into my bed at about a quarter to seven, glad to be able to have the night out with old friends, and looking forward to Christmas with my family after I slept for 20 hours or so.