by Emperor Wu 

 (September 2000)

This isn't about whether drugs should be legal, this isn't about whether drugs are immoral, this isn't about whether going out and having a good time with my friends, whom I trust, is offensive. This isn't about the war, with us on one side and them on the other, us with a handful of chemicals and they with helicopters, gaols, truncheons, riot gear, guns and official sanction. I'm not taking you on some subterranean journey through a northern city's underbelly, with it's seediness and the violence of a drop-out culture. I'm showing you normal people who simply want to be left to themselves. I'm showing you how I live, and how I want to live, I'm showing you a world that's as real to me as yours is to you.

It's not surprising to me that hippies, travellers and undesirables can sell-out and end up as successful, together people in the eyes of the world, even when they, more often than not, hold on to their ethics from their wild and younger days. The people I meet, whom I call friends, are independent people, they create themselves and the culture around them, regardless of the hangers-on and fuck-ups and conformity that can be found masturbating over computer porn in offices as much as freaking out on a bad trip. The real core, within our culture as much as any other, are the people who can take responsibility for their own lives, can rely on their friends and be reliable. We have more of these people than we are credited with. They can be successful at anything they do, so why shouldn't they choose to have fun? We can work later, when we're too old for all this and wise enough to make the right choices. Teenagers in fancy cars given by their parents is a trait far more destructive than enjoying a smoke.

Be reasonable, be responsible, be rational, be realistic! Demand the impossible. We just want to see how far we can get, to see as many things as possible, to meet as many different people as we can. Perhaps we're better citizens because of it, except for breaking a few possession laws. We're hurting no-one.

The sky is a glow of deep blues and reds that change slower than we can register. The tape that was playing before has changed back to some reggae, Sasha and Cait sit curled up and silent, the wave of relief from scoring and getting back to the house safe is over. Me and Danny stand around wondering what to do next. Liam still hasn't arrived, there's been no word and it's gone nine. We can get out of our faces any time we want, but we've nowhere to go. The evening seems to be dissolving with the light and there's just a black unknown spot for the future. Even if we knew what we were going to do we still wouldn't be aware of what lies ahead, but this is worse because we know nothing.

-Have you got his number? asks Danny.

-No. Well, I have but it's at home and there's no-one else there this weekend.

I could ring my parents and get them to find it for me, then at least we can give him a call and find out if he's appeared at all.

-Shall I skin up first and then we can work it out?

-Yeah, all right.

We sit down. Everybody is really flaked, the heat of the weather, stresses of work, alcohol, dope, anyone of us could go to bed now and sleep until Monday, except that now we can't. Now we've just got to find something to do, anything except stay inside. I sit cross-legged on the floor by the low table and start to get a joint together. I look up at Sasha, she's still afraid, the fear is coming off her like a halo shines around an angel, but she wants to do it, she wants to carry on, she can't stop now anymore than we can. We're so close, she wasn't prepared for the boredom, for the wait, though she's been around things like this before it's never involved her, it's never been anything this big going wrong before. She knows that we're nervous ourselves, she wants a good time, to see what we do, she wants to know why. She sees me and tries to grin. She'll be OK in a couple of hours, but it means carrying her that far and none of us seems to want the responsibility, we're too busy trying to deal with our own preparation in our minds, going through our own mental exercises.

The smell of the grass spreads through the room, normally that would be calming but the rich herb smell is just a part of the wait now, it's a hint of anticipation floating through the air, touching our senses like a tempter, laughing and promising. Danny gets up and brings the telephone over to the table. He takes a few drags on the spliff and passes it over to Cait before lifting up the receiver. He pushes the buttons slowly, a familiar sequence for him, but played out, nothing is real in the haze, time stretches out because we want Liam to be here, he should be here.

-'Ello! Danny speaks down the phone. -I'm OK, we've got all the drugs, just nowhere to go---Yeah, but we want to go dancing---Right---Well, can you find Liam's telephone number for me because we're still waiting for him to show up. It should be upstairs on my desk---OK(Parent change)---Hello, and how are you?---Yeah, we're just waiting for Liam, he's not turned up yet---Well, everybody else is here---Ah, yes---(Father comes back)It should be just in my address book---OK

Bang at the door, everyone stops and looks as it swings open, we hadn't closed it properly. Relief, in walks Liam, eyes rolling, his big frame wrapped in a battered old coat, big brown beautiful dreads flowing down his back and a big grin on his face.

-Hullo!

-LIAM!

-Hi, yeah, he's just come through the door.

-How you doing?

-Sorry I'm late, I've had loads of hassle with lifts.

-Yeah, I'll see you Monday evening.

-Everything's sorted, but we need a place to go.

-Ta-ra.

-What's wrong with the Global?

-Hiya fella.

-It's too late and it's fifteen quid to get in.

-Do you want some of this?

-Cheers. Fifteen? Whew. I think there's a free open air one. If we go up to Jo's I should be able to find out where it is.

-Yeah, we heard something about that.

-Shall we go then?

-Right.

In one massive reflex action, movement after too long being stationary and without progress, things are finally looking fine. Everybody gathers their respective needs and piles out the door. Liam's here, all's well, one hundred and ten unthought fears melt away, now it's within our rules, now we can see everything in place, everything fits.

-We're cooking on grass now.

Jo's kitchen light is bright, the walls are white, the place is quiet. There's no music, it's like everybody's gone onto pause. On the drive over we ran into a couple of friends of Liam and crammed them into the car to help them up the steep hill to where they live. They told Liam who knows about this rave and now Liam has gone to check it out.

Jo has long, straight ginger hair, quiet when Liam's not around, wearing a stripy jumper with colours that contrast and reinforce each other. Clothing is such a delicate way of brightening life up, bringing out your identity. It's dark outside the window now, if you look out you can only see reflections from the inside. I take the drugs from my pocket and ask Jo for a knife to sort them out. The tablets need cutting up and dividing, and I wrap up each individual's packet with the amount they want.

We all know each other extremely well in many ways but we don't really know much about each others history, the physical, we just know each others souls. Words become part of the cloak of friendship, dancing between us in set patterns and tales and roles. With everything on hold, with no music and no action and nothing at all to do because we're all focused inwards there's little conversation, just short comments and brief communiqu?/2s. There's nothing to say now, except, see ya on the other side.

Liam comes in, -Right, I've got directions to this place. It's in Normington and on a traveller sight. So, are you up to driving, Dan?

-Yeah, I reckon.

I issue the packages of wrapped papers out and we sort out some plastic bottles to make sure we'll have plenty of water. I take half my E, I'm the first because everyone else decides to wait, Danny's driving, Liam is waiting to do the whizz with Jo and saves his half for then, Cait is waiting for Danny and Sasha is just waiting to see what happens, but what the hell. I'm a touch paranoid at the moment, I'm happier with that inside me and the other half in my pocket ready for when we arrive. At least I'm doing something now, I figure, I'm on the way. Nothing else matters, on the roll up.

We go outside to fill up the car, a few sleeping bags and other stuff, like the beginning of some epic journey. The engine starts and the music kicks back in, some trancy tunes in the dark as the car moves at Danny's control. We pull out into the main road and find ourselves looking straight at a police car parked up on the other side (illegally pointing the wrong way at night). The car is overloaded with people and we can be stopped just for that, but it's empty. Dan turns off the road anyway to get to the road to the motorway but as we go over the brow of a hill there's another police car turning around. Danny stops to let it finish and it heads off in front of us, but slowly. It speeds up and slows right down again a couple of times before stopping completely without any indication. Danny goes to overtake it but then it's reverse lights come on and he stops again. The police reverse into a little side road and stop, Dan pushes down the accelerator and commits himself to driving past it. Once clear the temptation to check behind us is overwhelming. We see the police car pull out again and head away from us. It was like he'd just been playing with us, daring us to give ourselves away somehow.

We're finally though the city, down onto the ring road, swinging around past the Merrion Centre, pushing under tunnels back towards where my house is, past the newspaper building with the night temperature in Fahrenheit and the law courts that looks like a toy-town brick house, even painted with bright greens and reds, under railway bridges with spiralling brick patterns on their undersides that I'd noticed the other day on my way top work, though its too dark to see them now. The road is quiet, Danny can relax and drive as he pleases, the boredom of driving all day for work is forgotten, but he's still tired, we're all still tired, but the knots in our stomachs twist and turn to keep us awake, pounding with every beat of music that no-one outside the car can really hear beyond a few bass leakage's at the seams, the music confined inside and rebounding through us.

As we move onto the M62 industrial estates become hidden behind large embankments seeded with trees and wild flowers under the pale light of the nearly full moon and car headlamps. We're looking for the junction we need but everybody's too wrapped up and we've gone too far or we're heading the wrong way.

-We'll have to turn around, I guess, says Liam, who's sitting in the front to give Danny the directions while us four are jammed in the back. We drive on for a bit looking for the next exit where we swing back to head the other way again. There's a definite sense of the outside world as something alien, something out there, a world that the edges of the car is hiding us from, taking us through. We eventually come off on the right exit.

-It's the first right past the second PROP garage, Liam tells us. We look out the windows to look, we don't want anymore mistakes. -It's supposed to be quite a way, he adds.

We pass the first petrol station quickly, just after some traffic lights regulating the crossroads of a little town centre. There are still people wandering about, it's only just passed the time pubs call last orders. Drunks are really our, not enemies, but incompatibles at the moment. Drunks are shut-downs, their senses are wasted, their brains confused violently with the poison they've chosen for the evening. We're looking for something completely different.

We drive past a closed garage without realising it's the one we want. Danny quickly slows the car down in order to turn back again, I catch his face and see he's too tired and hassled but his body is working on automatic, not much different from most drivers on the road. We drive back and turn down a little road that turns out to be a dead end.

-It can't be this one then.

We pull out and drive back down the main road.

-Hmm, says Liam, it's supposed to be on this side but what about that road there. He points to one just next to the garage and Danny indicates and turns, but it's a dead end too. All of us look about for some clue, some sign of the place we're looking for, somewhere to stop and feel safe. We pull back onto the road. The only choices now are a road twenty yards before the garage or one just after it that looks more like some kind of business entrance than a road. Danny chooses the latter, driving slowly, only the moon and car offer any light again and everything seems unreal.

-It's a brick factory, I say

-What is this place?

-It's a brick factory, I repeat, louder. I remember visiting places like this with my dad and granddad when I was a kid. We turn past some buildings and all there is are bricks, neatly stacked, as high as a single storey with avenues for access and another dead end. The bricks tower over us, low in the car, they seem almost tempted to trap us in. Danny reverses quickly, using one of the larger avenues of this miniature stone city to pull the car about and get us to the gate.

-That was Weird.

-Where now.

-Guess we try that one before the garage.

We head down the remaining road, it doesn't match the location we were told but it's all we have. Suddenly we're past the houses and the road changes to little more than a dirt track. A shallow valley opens up in front of us with the moon reassuringly spreading her cloak of silver over the fields and trees that stretch out around us. We're going gently up and around a hill curtained by hedges and trees every now and then.

-This seems like the right way.

-Yeah.

There's still nothing familiar, but we've gone so far and so many things could have gone so wrong but didn't that this must be right. We know it is. We see some cars parked up and there are a couple of people standing around. Dan slows and winds his window down.

-Is it all right to park here? he asks

-Yeah, be careful though, you don't want to get jammed in.

Danny moves on and parks up by a gate on grass and dirt by the roadside pointing directly away from it. The engine turns off and so, briefly, does the music. We've arrived, everything's going to be fine, I think I might be starting to come up, we're here, just a walk down the road and there'll be an enclave of light and joy and love. Nothing to it really.

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