The layover

I had never traveled alone. It was 2005, and I was on my way to study abroad for five months in Barcelona.  My stepmother Kathy had used her travel agent to book my trip, and by chance, the travel agent had set me up with a twelve-hour layover in London.

Perhaps the universe called then, faintly echoing across oceans, trying to save me from the madness.

Surprisingly, the layover was situated between 7:30PM and 7:30AM, which began to raise the tiny transparent hairs on my neck, as I began to make sense of the perfect time slot for an unknown adventure into the London night. It also happened to be on a Friday night, which also by chance, was the last Friday night of August, the last Friday night of the summer.  I found these facts fairly irrelevant the time I discovered my itinerary, but I would soon I would find the relevance to such a perfectly situated layover. The cry of the universe slipped away, engulfed in the thick London fog and night.

I had begun disappearing into the mystic rave fantasyland once a year, for the past six years in California.  An infatuation of atmospheric bass sounds brewed, as I listened to recorded England raves, and the multi-sensory obsession began to grow within. During my captivated search throughout record stores and websites, I discovered Fabric, one of London’s most infamous clubs, known internationally as one of the top clubs in the world. A heavyweight institution, taught in the lessons of bass, ravers, and pills.

I landed to Heathrow airport, and was whisked off the plane by my own adrenaline manufactured pre-rave excitement. It was Friday night, and I presumed Fabric must be open. I checked in my carry-on bags at bag storage in the Heathrow airport terminal and asked someone in the airport directions to downtown. I swiftly jumped on the tube and was on my way, not having any sense of direction of where I actually was in the city. On the train I noticed four guys in matching Nike sport suits.  Pants and jackets matching, hustle steaming from there pasty skin – but seeming near my age, I asked them if they knew where Fabric was. They spun towards me, eyes lighting as they scanned my foreign surfer-like appearance. “We’re going to Fabric mate! The last Friday of the summer, DJ Hype’s night, it’s going to be massive, come with us!” DJ Hype at the time was one of the most famous Drum and Bass DJ’s on the scene, and I was amazed by my luck. There was a world class Drum & Bass party in the works, probably the biggest on the planet on that night: I was ever more quickly getting sucked into its vortex.

When we arrived to Fabric, the dark buildings making up the club were wrapped with a vast line, where a passel of clubbers awaited. Their anticipating chatter and cigarette smoke raveled into the damp night. I needed to withdrawal cash from the ATM machine, so I ran across the street to pull out enough pounds to last me through my audacious party excursion.

When I returned to the line, I penetrated the queue in a different section, wherein I swiftly met a delightful, young and attractive couple. Their gentle mannerisms and warm tone of conversation were familiar and made me feel comfortably embraced whilst being lost in the nomadic night. “Who did you come here with?” they simultaneously asked in curious effulgence. “With those guys in the jump suits”, and I pointed to the front of the line where the four young men in sucked down cigarettes in a pompous fashion. “You don’t want to go with those guys, they’re not good people. Oh no, not good.  Come with us.”  The comely blond man said, as his lips just so slightly tugged at the corner of his mouth. The girl shadowed his movements and words, “come with us.”  Her words elegantly drifting upwards in the night.

As we slowly inched our way closer to the entrance, the girl’s icy blue eyes penetrated under my skin and a tingling pulse of frozen desire washed over me – crisp and fresh as Cairngorm winter frost. Her blond bangs gently rested across her eyelashes and smooth white face, as she continued to glance back with her sly smile; pulling me into her mystery. The relationship between the two of them became evermore ambiguous as the seconds passed by, the faint beat becoming clearer.

When we made it inside Fabric the bass rumbled and shook through the main room, leaking out in the bar area like an earthquake gaining strength as the intensity grows – creating a pandemonium we happily welcomed. We quickly and franticly began to disport; purging on all different sorts of poisons from the bar. Finally the blond man ordered a full bottle of champagne and swayed away out onto the dance floor, over-size bottle in hand lurching liquid on the shoulders of closed eyed clubbers. The three of us swirled the bottled round, with our task at hand, leading further and further down the rabbit hole.  The light became darker, the music kept pulsing stronger and time began to disappear into the Function One speakers.

The rumbling abysmal drums of the main room took hold of our bodies and mind, and we danced together as one. On cue with the driving music, my new friend reached out his hand, and in one motion brought the pill to my mouth. I didn’t ever see what color it was, nor did I hesitate. Maybe pink or blue, white or even green, it didn’t matter what the color was, I new the motion. I trusted the hand, and the beautiful girl with us, so I took the pill and swallowed. The slightly familiar bitter taste of MDMA slid across my tongue and down my throat where my stomach would turn it to fairy dust. There was no turning back after that.

The lights flashed madly against the dark room, and scattered images of the girl’s dreamy face moved closer. All the different people danced together, all as one.Rumbling bass moved through the speakers, awaking every cell in my body, tingling touches of pleasure. Sweat dripped down my face, all around the walls, soaking me to the bone with fleeting lust. The DJ played from within a metal cage, level with the pulsating dance floor, and my human existence was drifting away from me.  The DJ weaved track to track, blending the music to create a freight train that roared through the screaming crowd. “All aboard! Next stop: Rolling fucking balls.” The drum and bass MC added his own rush of acid infused reggae lyrics, and rallied the crowd further down, twisting riding – away. The movements came from a wild primal place, dancing without thought, a meditation full of indulgence. Time no longer existed. There music, the bass, her lazy blue eyes, and me.  All holding hands singing down a yellow brick road to nowhere.

It hit me like an angry ray of sun piercing through the window after a long night out, as if I had woke from a dream. Perhaps that was the pill just releasing faintly, and the release of serotonin reached a sudden halt. Time came back, mad visions of clocks spinning round and round, remembering what was happening, “where was I”? I desperately seized the nearest clubber by the arm, “what time is it?!” I screamed while trying to overcome the relentless sounds of the DJ Hype’s drum and bass. “5:30!” the person shrieked near ripping their lung. I suddenly turned and sped for the door. A sense of panic set in as I jumped down the stairs, ran around corners; the dark became lighter, and the music became fainter. I spun passed the bar and finally spilled out into the street like a wild animal sprawling from the forest into humanity. I somehow ended up on a busier side of the building then when I came in, and cars were flying by, like it was some kind of highway.  I hysterically waved my arms and successfully stopped a taxi within the first minute of my reality breach. There is no telling how much danger I may have encountered had I not found the taxi, screeching to a halt to collect a massive fair from a lost super tourist.

“Heathrow airport: as fast as possible.” The driver had an Indian accent, and a hard face, no sympathy for a panicked clubber who was about to miss his flight. “100 pounds” he delivered flatly. I agreed and we tore down the interstate, the merciful breeze from the outside air washing over my skin as the sky turned pale. The driver may have ripped me off, but he kept his promise as he drifted around cars, madly flying down the into the morning.  We were easily the fastest car in the dark dawn light. The rigid outlines of the London architecture presented itself against the cold sky, comfortless as the echoing empty sounds vibrating down my ear canal.

Time was fragmented in my mind and suddenly we lurched into the arrivals area of the Heathrow airport. The absence of serotonin in my brain was slowly uncovering itself like waking next to someone you never met after a bibulous night.  Praying for the time machine and Doc Scott to save you from the wreckage.  I handed him one hundred pounds and rambled through the automatic doors.

The chaos of the airport was overwhelming, and I stood paralyzed, gazing with a gormless expression up towards the flight board. Cities and times flashed and rotated in an organized pattern that was completely foreign to my mind. I understood nothing. I couldn’t make sense of any of it.  I slowly peered around at the rush of people blazing past me as if I was a ghost, or an alien more like, eyes wide looking left and right, the flight board looming over me. I was frozen; I didn’t know what to do, where to go, why I was there. The sadness snuck up like the first smoke from a forest fire. Tears began to sneak from my eyes, and my head dropped into my hands. I couldn’t tell you why I was sad, why I felt so lost and scared. But the sadness was real, as if I had lost someone or something very close to my heart.  The drifting smile of the girl floated away like dust in a desert storm, laughing into the wind.

There was one hope to save me from the darkness, one beacon of light that lie just a few feet in front of me. Without thought, I moved towards the phone booth that was magically sitting straight in my line of sight. I used my international phone card my Mom had set up, and dialed the memorized number. I clearly had no idea what time it was in California, but magically as always, my Mom answered right away. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I wept, telling her how lost I was amongst the new found world. Through the distant phone line, she caressed my hair, calming my mind, as she did when I was a child waking from a dark nightmare, wet with fear. My breath slowly regained its shape, easing soft to the gentle tones of her voice, the tears subsiding, and I began to realize what I had to do. My mom saved me from the despair and I knew everything would be okay.

Somehow, I made it to my 7:30AM flight in time, and as the soothing sound of the airplane’s engines lifted me away.  I became inured to the alteration of neurotransmitters in my brain, as another layer of excitement built inside me. I was away from Fabric, away from the mysterious couple, the dance floor, away from what could have been a beautiful tragedy or a dark dream come true. Safe again, clouds of dust swirled behind me, moving out into the distant clear blue sky. I slowly drifted off to sleep, Barcelona was on the horizon and I would never forget the far from lazy layover in London.