Polis The Moments

PolisThe Moments

© 2009 Samantha Ownby

Polis is a place where people go to get fucked or fucked up whether that is by a person, a drug, or the music. Junkies and couples fill the restroom stalls. Potheads, cigarette kids, and drink-cradlers huddle together on the main floor. All of them take comfort in the things in their hands, the thud of the bass, and the possibility of physical human contact whether that is the permission to stand so close to someone that clothes graze or to meet someone to take home or just by the dumpsters.

For Maureen Fischer, it is the atmosphere that gets her off. The pounding against her eardrums in the dimness numbs and sensitizes. Music makes her move, but she cannot understand it. The low lights and forestal-crowd that hide her create an apathetic anonymity.

It dulls her senses like a knife cutting glass.

But what Maureen is

Wisps serpentine around her, tangling in her dark hair. Breathing its thickness makes her chest heavy, but the scent warms her more than the pulsing body of people enveloping her own. This is why she came here—to get wasted from this peculiar state of anesthesia and awakening. It is out-of-body, but grounding all at once.

most aware of is the smoke.

Maureen

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The back wall of Polis is covered in a vomitcollage of old show posters, staples, underage smokerbums crowding around their pathetic twentysomething anti-heroes.

One of the teenage apostles is fifteen-year-old Jeremy Moynahan. He dressed tonight in ripped, denim shorts, his dad’s old, brown, polyester blazer, but only because Scott said he liked it last week.

Scott is a beatnik. He talks about Taoism, Kerouacism, and capitalism. He works at the Retro Attics, a local consignment store—at least this week. He is writing a novel, has his own studio apartment downtown, and drives a 1970s Chevrolet Chevelle SS-454—albeit, it is halfway rusted and missing the front bumper—it is vintage.

Scott is different, grown up, and he thinks Jeremy’s opinions are important.

Jeremy

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Jeremy isn’t gayoranything.

He just knows that when he is around this man he has this peculiar desire

For Jeremy, Scott is a god and a beautiful one at that.

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to kisshimlickhimtastehimfeelhim love him.

very, very, very good.

But that is okay with Francine. She did not need to know what she does after that

too many,

toomany,

t mny drinks.

Vodka, gin, whiskey, tequila, rum––just a few of Francine’s favorite things. Sometimes mixed, sometimes straight, sometimes concocted in combinations that would make the most brawny sailor hurl.

Francine Schechter is a twenty-two-year-old, upper-middleclass, living off her parents’ money, aspiring alcoholic. Not too many of the patrons knew of Francine’s lawyer parents or private school background, but then most of her interactions involve ordering another drink and god-whoshedoesn’treallybelievein––anymore knows what else after one

as long as she feels good at this moment, and at this very moment she feels so

Francine

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Dancing in the center of the floor is maleness and femaleness, hard and soft, handsome and beautiful. Ze dances alone not because people are not sure of which sex ze is, but because they are too intimidated by their blind attraction for this genderqueer.

One of the enthralled is Conrad Mendoza. Conrad sits at a table alone and gazes at the genderless being as he sips on his bourbon like a child mindlessly sipping punch as he watches his favorite cartoon.

Conrad is twenty-one, legal, but young enough to be dumb enough to approach the one person in the room that no one else will. He downed the rest of his bourbon and swiftly made his way to the center of the thumpa-thumpa heart of the dance floor.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ ze responded in an ever so slightly husky, midtone drawl.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Alex.’

‘baby, don’t worry,

The confusion Conrad is wearing on his face must have intensified because ze leans in until hir lips are touching Conrad’s ear,

Conrad

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i’m a good disease.’ 1

Alcohol, weed, and poppers fill Polis, not babyblue cardigans, ivory hairclips, and golden cross necklaces. Eliza Jameson hated her friends who are currently standing outside waiting for her to finish the forty minutes they forced her to stay in the club, and now she hesitantly wanders into Polis with her Coach purse clutched tightly to her chest.

Heart thudding and palms sweating, she observes the mass of people around her swaying, smoking, and a couple to the side doing something she couldn’t stare directly act. It is claustrophobic, petrifying, but exciting all at once. She wants to run out, but she still has thirty more minutes before she can leave.

Eliza

6

Part of her did not want to leave just yet anyway.

This Polis place was unlike anything she has ever seen or known. The colors of the lights, the silhouettes of =the crowd, the scents of the cigarettes, alcohol, and bodies are exhilaratingly and deliciously beautiful.

Eliza orders a drink and wonders how this rabbit hole world is just becoming ‘curiouser and curiouser’. 2

First the drink,

then only the cake is left before she realizes that she will never be the same again.

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Some of the people, events, and situations are loosely based on real life people, events, and situations. Other than the loose representations, it is a work of fiction.

Story

Quotes

TitleMrsEavesPetiteCaps

BodyMrsEavesSmartLigRoman

Type

1. Aim "Good Disease" song2. Lewis Carroll "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" novel

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