If the music was not the great equalizer, it produced great equity. It didn’t matter this wasn’t their favorite style, or that the musicians flubbed audibly on occasion, or struggled and restarted. Equally danced to was the DJ who essentially played radio tracks to give the band a break, and the band member who led an impromptu solo sing-along with his bass the only instrument. The reluctant concession to try, at least, to play Master of Puppets and then a full round turn to something smooth and danceable.
This was less a show than a kind of living room party – but thus it often was. A hardcore scene didn’t always take to a vast audience of varied and variable accommodations, an artist was apt to get offended by a mob of noise-cancelling headphones dispersed through the crowd. A two-step and skanking could coexist at opposite ends of the room, something like a murderball track running up the middle keeping them apart, but it wasn’t like anyone could plan for it to happen that way.
The only thing they planned for, and planned for most ferociously, was that they would be left alone, to enjoy as they saw fit.
This was their pass: Seth slowly raising her arms, no matter what was playing, eyes closed, sweat starting to run down the sides of her face, twisting and turning like each irregular pass from one song to the next was natural as breathing; Decon easing – not a dancer, not really – but letting that magic way he had of looking like every look landed on a friend, bobbing and swaying, clapping for others and pointing to cheer, happy to be in the middle, happy to be on the sidelines, happy to be.
It was fun, like Seth promised.
Fun was thirsty work, though, and for all she could move carelessly to the beat, she couldn’t let her temperature get away from her for one second. She grabbed Decon’s arm – notifying, not requesting his presence – and went off in search of water.
Decon liked this; he wasn’t a party person, but he wasn’t NOT a party person, either. There were parties and there were parties. He was hella into a birthday – one had to watch for when groups started going off to take drugs. Alcohol wasn’t great, either – the first run for restocking of the night was a good sign. He usually left then.
He was getting circled by someone softly glowing pink in a motorized wheelchair – nice enough, with a good headrest they seemed to only need occasionally, but no racecar-bed special. Trying to be polite (he was really good at being polite) he acknowledged the circling but moved a little out of its center, the next little crowd just as happy (or uncaring) to have him join.
He lost track of the circler until something with the distinct hard-rubber-bumper-feel hit the back of ankle. He turned – the pink glow was actually just luminous body paint, so no telling what the actual associated ability might be, except it had come with thin and twisted legs. The girl in the chair signaled, flipping a small screen by her left hand around to face him. She plugged something in, and bright images started to flash across the screen, like a hungover Hello Kitty sitting up to unleash Sanrio vomit in sweet relief. The images matched the stickers and charms hanging from the screen, and were surprisingly easy for Decon to interpret (Thank God it wasn’t text – he wasn’t excited to try to shout over the music that he couldn’t exactly read that well).
It was hard to separate the cutesy-ness of the images from the playfulness meant by them, but he was pretty sure when she flashed a certain adorable frog face more than twice it was to be playfully emphatic.
He leaned down to be better heard over the music, since they were actually quite close to the stage. “Hey, no, I’m not avoiding you!”
Unicorns emphatically passing rainbows implied that he was full of shit (friendly), but also she raised a single finger for him to wait while she dug in one of the many pockets hanging off the arm of her chair. She took a little plastic packet with two little colorful objects in it out and threw it at his chest.
“Oh, no, I don’t do...” but they were earplugs. “Oh, cool!”
A different unicorn implied he was an idiot (attractive).
Shoving the little foam bits in his ear he tried to keep an eye on the screen. She was saying something quite complex, and he grimaced a bit to show his lack of understanding. Checking her peripherals, she backed the chair up, and did a little back and forth in one direction, then another, then held a hand up and spun in an appreciative circle, before returning to face him and doing the little forward-and-back move again, eyebrows raised.
“Oh, uh,” Decon leaned closer, but very pointedly didn’t put his hands on the chair to brace himself, “I’m no good with technology – I mean...”
Insistent squirrels of inquiry.
This was supremely weird – he wasn’t exactly used to being crazy open about what he could do, but also, felt a dramatic pull to be as open as possible, like an addict confessing a relapse under the power of an Anonymous meeting. He held out his hands, the plastic packet still clutched in one, and the girl sighed heavily, grabbing the trash out of his hand to shove into another pocket on her chair but using her other hand to keep hold of his. With a combination of guidance and a slow turn to her chair, she brought Decon around herself in a dancer’s turn, encouraging him to find the beat.
“Oh, man,” Decon said, laughing, “look, I’m just – I’m worried if I touch anything I’m going to ruin it – I mean, like,” he mimed something falling apart in his hands, “I’m bad with technology. It’s what I do.”
She flashed a far-too-adorable image of a triangular-mountained tropical island, cartoonishly huge palm tree sprouting from its shore a couple times on her screen, head cocked.
“Yeah,” he nodded, “I take things apart – like objects!” he clarified, seeing how her head turned just slightly more, “not, like, people – just things. Technology.”
He pointed carefully at her chair, and she nodded, then, smiling, slyly, seductively, turned it slightly away from him, shaking her finger in a ‘no-no’ gesture. Her other hand hadn’t let go of his. He could feel himself blush.
But he definitely saw when her eyes fixed on Seth, who had appeared at his elbow, water bottle in hand.
“It’s donations,” she said, offering him the other one.
The girl in the wheelchair – well, what was that expression? Decon knew what it was, but had so rarely been in its crossfire. Seth, too, was being carefully neutral. They observed each other. Slowly, once Decon had taken a deep swig from the bottle she handed him (she had taken the lid off, the girl in the chair hadn’t let go of his other hand), she put the cap back on, and shoved it in her jacket pocket.
Seth’s eyebrows went up, body half-turned away from the girl. The girl observed, chin up.
“Have fun dancing,” Seth said. “I’m going to try talking to some folks, don’t worry about looking after me, we can meet up after – just don’t, you know, leave.”
And with that, she left. Several images manically flashed across the little screen once Seth disappeared – Decon reckoned it was partially because she was laughing so hard, partly to convey that laughing.
The island appeared and frantically flashed, as did a picture of a girl.
“Uh, yeah,” Decon said, not sure exactly which question he was answering, “we’re, uh, we’re both Islanders. She’s just a friend.”
More giggling images. Girl, girl, girl, fire, fire, heart. He was pretty sure the fire wasn’t like, Seth’s fire, but implied fire.
“No, like, we’re friends!”
More laughter, some satisfying or satisfied-looking purple images – was that sunset? Could she change the colors of the images, too?
“Look, uh, I’m just nervous about accidentally messing up your chair.”
The girl – who had been using her headrest – now leaned forward enough to give him a delightfully clear careless toss of her head as if to clear the hair out of her eyes (and like in a movie, of course it didn’t, but brought it fetchingly into frame). Flashes of musical notes and dancing figures filled the screen. She took his hand again, and started to bring him around in another turn, bouncing to the beat.
Glasses meeting, glasses smashing – who even made a glasses smashing image? She just wanted to dance.
Decon laughed. “Okay, but, uh, I’m not much of a dancer.”
That was a peach, a heart, and eyes – she had a very wicked smile, and Decon felt another blush heat his cheeks.
“As long as it’s just dancing, okay?”
She waggled her eyebrows at him, images playfully flashing – prominent among them a clock – then pointed to her chin. He had noticed before, something like a scar from cleft palate surgery, traveling from the base of her nose all the way down to her chest, disappearing into her clothes in long line. She opened her mouth, to show him, and he realized now that this must be what made her an Islander, and also meant she couldn’t speak – she didn’t have the usual features in her mouth, except for something like a tongue, only split. No teeth, and he could see there was also some associated flexibility in the lines of her jaw, the way her mouth and throat met.
She shut her mouth, some quick series of images out of which he only really spotted someone drinking out of a glass before she indicated she was done talking by pulling him into dancing.