Part The Third And Final

I found myself being entertained by watching the door. Every so often, people would stick their heads in, look confused, clutch their Macy's bags closer to them, and wander off, looking for someplace lighted. The music kept getting louder, and sad to say, most of it sounded all the same. That's the thing I hate about any genre of music...how it all can sound like everything else in the genre. I don't think it would have hurt for them to mix it up a little, but what do I know. I'm a newbie. Still, some Cure, some Smiths, some Love Spit Love, anything that didn't sound like Nine Inch Nails remixes would have been nice. I struggle through another Beck's and try to pretend it's Guinness. I fail, of course, since the beer tastes watered down and bland.

I make a bet with the girl that if the Frat Boyz are still there at 10:30, I will buy her a drink. The guy who was going to buy her drinks for her that night hasn't shown up yet, and she's getting pretty mad at him, since he's the one who talked her into coming. Up until they leave at 10:15 (Once again, Cory's Magic Predictor comes true, saving me money. Heh, heh, heh) I observe the larger one ignore the girl next to him, build a house of coasters, wear a beer bucket on his head, and use the phrase Yee-Haw more than I even heard during my little three day trip to Texas. The girls leave when the music reaches the level where it's getting hard to hear the people next to me, and the Frat Boyz leave about five minutes later. Makes me wonder where the girls went without them.

It wasn't until around 10:30 that people started showing up. The first one I noticed was a girl dressed in a robe of some kind, with devastating red hair, glasses and a quizzical expression. The robe didn't really work on her, since it seemed too big, but she had a thick mane of red hair and huge, dark eyes. OK, robes don't work on anyone unless they are in a movie with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, but that's a personal opinion. I don't have the nerve to talk to her, of course, since I have the testicular fortitude of a hamster. I only have the nerve to talk to people who talk to me first. Such is life.

It will haunt me for the rest of the evening, since she went to sit in the back, making it even harder for me to think of some excuse to talk to her. I shake my head and go back to finishing my beer.

My new friend asks if it's the robe. I reply that it's the hair...gods...the red hair... He smiles and proceeds to tell me things about redheads that he's experienced that I wouldn't ever say out loud. I'm not a prude, I just don't talk about sex. Suffice it to say that I think I should only talk about things I'm an expert in and know a lot about, so I don't talk about sex. The last time I experienced it, safe sex meant making sure the parking brake was set.

That's me sharing. An ironic device that is to make the reader feel as uncomfortable as I did with my new friend's form of sharing. Got it? Let's move on.

As more people come in, I see that most of the guys are wearing T-shirts and black jeans. Some of the girls are dressed up, but not as many as I would have thought. One group that comes in looks more like the are going to a reunion concert for Quiet Riot than to listen to Goth Music, and I wonder where all the Hair Metal fans go to gather. The Eden Prairie Mall's Chinese food place?

Another group comes in and stands next to the girl I've been talking to, ignoring me as if I didn't exist. Which I'm pretty used to. The girl who comes in with them is all over her boyfriend. I don't much care for public displays of affection, especially when they involve the guy seeing how much of the girl's face he can take into his mouth. One of the other guys eventually acknowledges my presence enough to confess to me that she's not his type, but he'd love to break them up. I smile and nod, think that it is really getting late, and I shouldn't be hearing things like that from people who don't even know my name.

The dance floor begins to get a few people, and I am kind of shocked by this, since the music being played is not in any sort of danceable time signature. The time signatures keep changing through the songs, but it doesn't bother anyone out there. The music has also hit such a level that it's next to impossible to hear the people around me talk, which is something I hate about clubs anyway. I don't mind loud music, but when the person sitting next to you has to shout for you to hear them, it's time to turn it down a bit.

By 11 PM, the place is starting to get a little lively, but the Frat boyz have returned. I try to explain to some of the new people their antics earlier, and let fly with a Yee-Haw at the appropriate point in the story. The Frat Boyz hear and decide to answer with a Yee-Haw of their own, as if it were a mating call of some kind. Ladies and Gentlemen, that makes the evening odd enough for me, and I have my first good laugh of the night.

Seeing as how I have to be up at 5 AM, I order a last Cherry Coke, finally using my Free Drink coupon. I ask a few more questions to the folks around me, to see if this is an average night. They begin to tell me that the night is just beginning, and people are just now starting to show up, but I say that I have to be up at 5 AM, so that I can be at work by 7 AM the next day. As I tell my new friends this information, one of them feels so sorry for me that they grab me, gives me a hug and start petting my hair, telling me how sorry they feel for me.

BAD TOUCH!!! BAD BAD TOUCH!!!

I don't like being touched. I don't like it at all. I like being hugged even less. And I like having my hair touched least of all. I used to have a sign in my cubicle at a pervious job filled with touchy, feely people who would want to hug or touch me that read, "Do Not Touch The Bear." I don't like physical contact with human beings, and have had to suffer through friendships where the other person felt it necessary to hug me hello and kiss me on the cheek. Needless to say, I ended that friendship as soon as I could think of a decent reason to be torqued off at her.

These are Goth people, aren't they supposed to be moody and aloof? Sure, it's funny to comfort me due to my having to be up early, but there has to be a way to do the same joke without TOUCHING ME!! Too bad, because I was starting to like them. They were intelligent, not as scary as people think and kind of fun to be around. I was a bit disappointed that I was getting so tired, since it seemed that the soap opera aspect of the evening was just getting started, and I wanted to see how long the Frat Boyz would be holding out, and I was kind of sad that they outlasted me. I got in my little red Geo and went home to sleep for a few hours before going back to the corporate world, filled with its own dark terrors and hidden hauntings.

So, what did Cory learn from his little field trip? First, that the one thing about the Goth people I met is that they are a lot more open to talking to people who are new than any other bar I've been in, including my beloved Irish Pub and the coffee house I used to spend a lot of time with. Second, I learned that, much as the Dead Milkmen said, people will dance to anything. OK, maybe they won't dance to RUSH, but other than that, they'll dance to anything. Third, I learned that no matter where you go, if there is beer, there will be people who yell Yee-Haw. Finally, I learned that while the Mall of America is about the blandest, most white-bread, home for blatant over-marketing and consumerism, they do turn the lights off once in a while and let you do the Time Warp.

Again.

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