DanielJoseph
New Member
September 2005
Things started to get good at Manchester Airport. I was with my friend, Elmer. We checked our bags in and had a beer in the departure lounge bar. We watched the people passing by. The holidaymakers. Everybody was smiling, there was no stress. We had another beer.
On the plane we spent the whole time laughing and joking, and we kept drinking. We had money in our pockets and everything was out there in front of us. We were very good friends at that point, there was no doubt about it. We bought two more drinks each just as the plane began its descent into Ibiza Airport. 'I don't think we've got enough time to finish these, mate..'
'That sounds like a challenge!'
I remember when they turned off the cabin lights that I felt very good indeed. There was Ibiza, I could see the lights! People actually burst out into applause.
It was a four day hell ride for me and Elmer. Just what I had wanted. We arrived on a Saturday night.
The first thing I can remember is a group of excitable young Spanish girls, laughing and chattering at the airport taxi rank. Four middle-aged English tourists were stood behind them, two men and two women. One of the two middle-aged women said disgustedly, 'Good God, have you heard[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] [/FONT]them?! Have you heard how they talk?!'
Then we were driving across the island in a taxi, and I remember thinking Ibiza looked a little shabby. I remember running up and down little streets, carrying our heavy suitcases, looking for our hotel. It was raining. Then we had found the hotel and dumped our things, and we were rushing through the crowded square in San Antonio, walking very quickly for some reason, through the rain.
A black African man put his arm around Elmer and said, 'Boys, boys, boys.. you want pills, you want charlie?' We walked away from him about twenty seconds later, loaded up with drugs.
Then we were walking along by the harbour wall at the edge of the square. The crowds had thinned out a little bit. I swallowed a pill, and gagged on it because I had no water. An Italian man looked in my face and said something which didn't seem to be too friendly. A black man sat in the shadows spoke to me, and he didn't seem to be too friendly either. We ducked into a bar and had one drink. It was an open-sided bar with a canopy over the top, overlooking the bay. A cool wind was blowing into us and it was still drizzling with rain. People were laughing and dancing. Elmer and I stood there with our drinks. We were the only ones who didn't seem to be having a good time.
We came out of the bar, still walking very quickly, still over excited, and found a crowded taxi rank near a gigantic egg structure. Then a friendly young Italian guy with dreadlocks approached us, a taxi tout. 'Come on,' Elmer said, and we followed him to a back street, where I became aware of another young Italian man walking along beside us. They were both smiling. The guy with the dreadlocks wore a long basketball top and shorts, and had a tattoo on his arm which said 'Napoli'. They lead us to a small blue hatchback. A large swarthy Italian man was sat in the driver's seat and he looked at Elmer and me, looked away, then started the engine.
Suddenly, I realised that I was badly off my head. I was rushing and shivering and I couldn't see straight. As we were getting into the car I whispered to Elmer, 'This is dodgy, you know,'
'No it's not, it's fine,'
'It's dodgy,'
'Shut up man!'
We set off driving very slowly through the traffic around the square in San Antonio. Elmer was in the middle of the back seat, I was on his left. One of the Italian guys was in the back with us. The one with the dreadlocks was in the front passenger seat. He reached forwards and tried to pick something up from underneath his seat, but fumbled it. By now it felt like waves were running through my mind, from the back to the front. I heard Elmer saying, 'I've changed my mind.. we want to go back..' I could hear the panic in his voice.
The dreadlocks guy smiled, and touched his ear to indicate that he couldn't understand. 'I don't, erm.. speak, erm.. I don't know..'
'We've forgotten our money,' I said, 'we need to go back to the hotel!' It even sounded ridiculous to me, and I was the one saying it.
'We've forgotten our money!' Elmer repeated.
'We want to go back!'
The guy in the back and the dreadlocks guy were both still smiling at us, but the driver seemed a little spooked. He started jabbering at the other two in Italian. We were coming to a junction where a car had stopped, so our car had to slow down to a crawl. After the junction we would be out of the centre of San Antonio, onto a long dark road. I opened the door and jumped out, with the car still moving. Elmer followed me. We ran a few steps, then quickly walked back to the taxi rank. 'He had a blade!' Elmer said. 'That ****er with the dreadlocks had a blade!' The Italians circled around and took another look at us, then they were gone.
We arrived at Pacha about half an hour after nearly being robbed by the Italians. I paid my fifty euros (six hours wages) and they let us inside.
Pacha was a drugs and house music club, but it was decorated luxuriously with cream leather sofas and candlelit tables. I bought a Jack Daniels and Coke (two hours wages) and Elmer and I sat in a bar area which was mostly occupied by what appeared to be Eurotrash millionaires. They seemed very comfortable, sat around gossiping and smoking, as though they went there every week. Like Elmer and I, they were dressed in designer clothing. But their clothes did not display brand names, and you just knew they were more expensive than anything we could ever afford. And you could see they wore that type of thing every single day, whereas Elmer and I were working men who had dressed up especially for the occasion. They were not worrying about how much the drinks had cost or how much they had paid to get in. It was strange, because I was spending more money than I had ever done before in my life, yet I had never felt so poor.
A group of them were sat just in front of us. The women were thin and cruel looking. A blonde and a brunette called a guy over from another table. He looked like some obscure Euro Royalty or the son of some billionaire industrialist. He was in his early thirties but already bald with glasses, and a little flabby. I wondered if that was what happened to people when they never worked a day in their life - they turned to mush. He sat down and the women fussed around him. The whole group fussed around him. Something told me he had even more money than the rest of them. Elmer and I stood up and walked away to a different part of the club, and as we did so we passed right by them. I took one last look at them in their little bubble of champagne and cocaine and money. They kind of made me sick, and I kind of wanted to join them.
In Pacha there was a huge dancefloor, surrounded on three sides by steps which lead up to balconies on different levels, all the way up to the roof of the club. Elmer and I sat on a sofa on one of the balconies and watched it all. We kept drinking and taking pills.
By midnight the club was rammed out with Ibiza tourists. Some of them dressed in designer clothing and some of them were in beachwear. And there were professional dancers on podiums. One of the dancers was a short muscular Spanish guy, wearing a red vest to show off his rippling physique. He had jet black shoulder length hair, greased back, and he wore a red headband to match the vest. He was throwing shapes, making fists and thrusting his arms around extravagantly. Euro dancing, I called it. He had no rhythm whatsoever.
A light skinned black woman was dancing on another podium. She was beautiful and tall and she wore a traditional African headscarf, the kind worn by Erykah Badu. She was doing the Euro moves also, posing, throwing her arms, etc, but the difference was that she made them look good. She looked good. The sweat glistened on her skin.
I tried to imagine what it would be like to have sex with her. But it just seemed too impossible, too far out of my reach.
Just below where Elmer and I were sitting there was a VIP area cordoned off for the Eurotrash millionaires. Security were stood at the cordons, preventing the rest of us from entering. The Eurotrash were sat at tables which were strewn with spent cigarette packets and champagne bottles. The bald guy with the glasses whom I had noticed earlier on in the bar was there. He was wearing a blue blazer over a white shirt, and blue jeans. He looked like Prince Albert of Monaco. He danced by moving his feet from side to side and holding his arms out horizontally in front of himself, with a smug smile on his face.
The music played, a good funky house tune, a voice saying -
'[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Everybody gathered together..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Black people..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'White people..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The young..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The old..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The rich..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The poor..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Everybody..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'For the love of house..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'For the love of house music..'[/FONT]
I looked at the Erykah Badu dancer again. Negative thoughts were taking over my mind. I thought, probably later on the Prince Albert of Monaco guy will take her back to his villa and they will drink champagne and snort coke and she will let him **** her. But he won't really be bothered about her. He'll probably be in love with some thin blonde Euro girl, and the thin blonde Euro girl will be in love with somebody else, and that person will be in love with another person, because that is just the way it is.
Pacha ended at six am and we stepped outside into what I hoped would be glorious sunshine. But in actual fact the sky was grey and it was pissing down torrential rain. There was a canopy just outside the doors and the whole population of the club were sheltering under there, like raver refugees. Then two huge Spanish bouncers came out, pushing everybody into the street and shouting, 'VAMOOSH!! VAMOOSH!!' Pacha took the canopy down and closed the doors, then there was nothing at all - we were just stood out on this desolate road, with no sign of any taxis.
I could see a covered gateway just along from us. 'Come on,' I said. And Elmer and I set off running through the water.
We sheltered under there for a while, shivering and watching the rain, along with some Germans and Swedes. An hour or so passed. The hundreds of people waiting outside Pacha dwindled down to dozens of people. The Spanish had been the first to leave - they had cars and scooters and they rode away, laughing. The rest of us had to wait. Every twenty minutes or so a single taxi would come along, and people would crowd around it and argue, then someone would jump in and take off. The taxis never stopped anywhere near Elmer and me. Some people gave up waiting and set off on foot, shielding their faces and running heroically into the sheet of water.
Two hours passed, and by now I was sneezing from the cold and rain. Eventually the only ones left were me and Elmer and these two young Spanish guys. We abandoned our position under the covered gateway and went and stood in a bus stop, trying to flag down any car which passed by. We must have looked fairly pathetic.
But a taxi did eventually come and then Elmer and I were running up and down the streets in San Antonio again, deluded from the ecstasy, looking for our hotel. By the time we finally found it we were soaked to the bone. It was a little place run by a middle-aged Spanish lady called Isabelle. Isabelle was there in the reception area with a young cleaning lady, and when they saw the state of Elmer and me they started laughing. Isabelle said something in Spanish and imitated our shivers. 'Could we have some tea, please?' I asked her.
She brought us a pot of tea and we sat there in the bar/reception area and drank it. It was a nice little place. But this terrible young English guy was there, a southerner, badly off his head. He sat down and started talking to us, 'Wow boys!' he said. 'You really got drenched, look at you!' His eyes were wide and he spoke with a kind of fake druggy awe in his voice. 'I got knocked out by a bouncer last night!' he said. 'Would you believe that?! Come to Ibiza and get knocked out! Who are you boys here to see? I want to see Fatboy Slim, I want to see Sasha.. I mean they're superstar DJ's, d'you know what I mean? Is it okay if I come up to your room with you for a bit? I can't sleep boys.. I don't know what's wrong with me, all my mates are asleep..'
'Maybe some other time,'
'Yeah boys! Definitely! Some other time!' He went over and he was talking to the young cleaning lady, saying to her, 'I want to marry you, I think I'm in love.. I want you to have my babies!'
The cleaning lady was laughing, wiping the bar down, and talking to Isabelle in Spanish.
I looked out at the cold street. The rain was lashing down and there was nobody around. So this is Ibiza, I thought.
We got back to the relative safety of our room and chilled out for a while, but didn't sleep. Then it was early on the Sunday afternoon and we were wandering around the square in San Antonio again. It had stopped raining and the sun was coming out. We went into a Burger King and tried to eat something, but I felt horribly ill, and each mouthful made me want to puke.
We walked out into the square again and saw a bar. 'Come on,' Elmer said, 'let's go in there.'
It was a little old-fashioned Spanish place. We sat at the counter and ordered two beers. The beers were served in tall glasses and by the time I got halfway down the glass, I was starting to feel better. They had tables and chairs out at the front of the bar where you could sit and look out over the square. But we were happy to sit in the shadows for a while. It was just good to be in Ibiza with my friend, the ground was still a little wet outside but the sun was starting to blaze by now, we were a little drunk, and the beer was bringing the ecstasy back up.
We drank another two beers and each took a pill. Then we were riding across the island in a taxi with two blonde Australian girls who were also on ecstasy. We were going to Space. The Australian girls were like characters from a soap, with fantastic bronzed bodies, and what with the sunshine and the beer and the ecstasy and everything else I felt absolutely fantastic, so I was showing off to them a little bit. I had never really showed off all that much in my life before. To be honest it felt great.
Space was a huge building of light coloured bricks and clear glass. As we pulled up in the taxi I could hear the heavy beat coming from inside. My excitement levels were rising. I wondered whether I might have finally found whatever it was that I was looking for. I could see cars and taxis, queues of people, and security staff.
As we approached the doors you hear the madness going on inside, but outside it was strangely quiet. I suppose it was due to all those paranoid minds being concentrated together in one spot, so close to heavy security.
Walking out onto the terrace was a very good feeling. It felt as though I had arrived somewhere worth arriving at. The terrace was covered, with sunlight shining in through gaps between the tops of the walls and the roof, creating a haze. On one side of the room there was a huge DJ booth on a raised platform, on the opposite side there was a bar which ran along the full length of the wall, and inbetween there was the dancefloor.
I walked out into the middle of the dancefloor with Elmer following behind me. We had lost the two Australian girls somewhere in the melee. I looked around at the Space people. They wore brightly coloured clothing, blacked out sunglasses, and they smiled and danced. The music was blasting loud -
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Keep on moving..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Grooving..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Music is the answer..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'To the question..'[/FONT]
I found a spot in front of the DJ booth and stood there. Elmer, who had gone somewhat into his shell, hung around near me. A pretty Indian girl tapped me on the arm and said, 'Excuse me, are you havin' a good time?' She had a northern accent. She was clapping her hands and dancing, with a beaming smile on her face.
'Yeah, are you?'
'Yeah! I never get out, me!'
She was there with another girl who I think was her sister, as they were both quite short and they looked alike. The sister had an Indian man with her, whom I presumed was her husband - he was fairly stocky, shirtless and wearing sunglasses. A young Italian drug dealer approached me and I bought ten pills off him for fifty euros. I took one myself, gave one to Elmer, one each to the two Indian girls, and another to a blonde Euro girl who just happened to be standing next to me. I couldn't really afford to give them out like that, of course, but I just felt like doing it.
The pills hit me and combined with the hazy beams of sunlight criss-crossing the room and the smoke in the air and everything else. I went into ridiculous thought processes. I decided that the Space party people were smiling sharks who had to be watched. They were sharp and never gave anything away. But that must have meant that I was sharp too, because I was amongst them.. sharp.. yeah, right. There were probably about three functioning brain cells in the whole room. But still, millions of people out there in the straight world would never know how good it felt to be in Space on a Sunday afternoon.
Paranoia, then a rush of ecstasy through my brain, then the music hitting me.
I had started to dance with the pretty Indian girl who had initially spoken to me. I was feeling very confident, doing well in Space. Elmer remained on the sidelines, dancing only slightly.
It was still afternoon, not long after we had first arrived. Then the sister started to dance with me. The one who had the man with her. She was really flying, winding her hips and holding one hand up in the air and shouting, 'COOOME OOON!! WOOOOHHH!!' - I got the impression she might have just taken her first pill. But I was conscious of the Indian man, who was hovering around next to us, so I moved away from her a little bit. I watched her from the corner of my eye. She was watching me, also. After a moment the Indian man moved away. I saw Elmer step forwards and dance up to her from behind, smiling. For one second she wound with him the same way she had done with me, but then he thrust his groin into her ass and tried to pull her towards himself, and at that she pushed him off and danced away. He kept dancing for a few seconds on the same spot, alone, still holding a smile on his face. Then he turned and went back to where he had been before on the sidelines, and remained there for the rest of the night.
The music was firing. Huge soulful vocals, mostly black women, lead up and up to a crescendo, then the whole tune would drop and an electro bassline would kick in, which made everybody twist their bodies down low together, sending them primeval.
The DJ was a killer. When I looked up I saw that he was a middle-aged white man with glasses. He looked like an accountant. He was staring at the decks, sweating, concentrating hard. A moderately attractive black woman was stood over to the side of the DJ booth, bowing towards him and holding up her hands, as if worshipping a God. I tried to get her attention, rather embarrassingly, but she didn't notice me.
Then the Indian girl came and got me again. She moved in close and faced up to me, and again she was shouting, 'COOOME OOON!!' The Indian man was a few feet over to our right, but there were so many people crammed in there that he couldn't see what was going on. She turned and pressed her ass into me and really shook it. She pulled my hands around her waist and turned and flashed her eyes at me. Then she pulled up her hair with her hands, showing the back of her neck. Jesus, I thought, this girl wants me to **** her! One moment later I became aware of the Indian man moving in closer towards us. I moved away from her. We didn't dance together again.
As we went through the evening and on towards midnight, the atmosphere on the terrace moved further towards what can only be described as hysteria, and the whole room vibrated with a collective excitement which felt like it might blow the roof off. The terrace was full to bursting point, every square centimetre of space was occupied by people balancing on ledges and squeezing in wherever they could. I had taken another five or six pills, my system was so full of ecstasy that there was no longer any paranoia or inhibition in me, just the music hitting my brain and sending shockwaves through the whole of my body. I was in the same spot on the dancefloor in front of the DJ booth, right in the middle of the madness. It was great.
I looked across and saw that the Indian girl I had been dancing with had calmed down quite a bit. She was sat on a raised stool, just to the side, gathering herself. She looked at me with an embarrassed expression. Then she was French kissing the husband.
But by that time I was dancing with another girl anyway - a fair haired English girl, quite natural looking. I didn't try and talk to her or make a move. But for the last hour on the terrace we wound each other up more and more, jumping around in the chaos. I guess back in England she would have been a shop worker or a trainee nurse or maybe she worked in a call centre, just like me. But out there we were superheroes. We threw shadow punches at each other and the music played -
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'We the love generation!'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'We the love generation!'[/FONT]
I felt so good that it was almost unbearable.
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Things started to get good at Manchester Airport. I was with my friend, Elmer. We checked our bags in and had a beer in the departure lounge bar. We watched the people passing by. The holidaymakers. Everybody was smiling, there was no stress. We had another beer.
On the plane we spent the whole time laughing and joking, and we kept drinking. We had money in our pockets and everything was out there in front of us. We were very good friends at that point, there was no doubt about it. We bought two more drinks each just as the plane began its descent into Ibiza Airport. 'I don't think we've got enough time to finish these, mate..'
'That sounds like a challenge!'
I remember when they turned off the cabin lights that I felt very good indeed. There was Ibiza, I could see the lights! People actually burst out into applause.
It was a four day hell ride for me and Elmer. Just what I had wanted. We arrived on a Saturday night.
The first thing I can remember is a group of excitable young Spanish girls, laughing and chattering at the airport taxi rank. Four middle-aged English tourists were stood behind them, two men and two women. One of the two middle-aged women said disgustedly, 'Good God, have you heard[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] [/FONT]them?! Have you heard how they talk?!'
Then we were driving across the island in a taxi, and I remember thinking Ibiza looked a little shabby. I remember running up and down little streets, carrying our heavy suitcases, looking for our hotel. It was raining. Then we had found the hotel and dumped our things, and we were rushing through the crowded square in San Antonio, walking very quickly for some reason, through the rain.
A black African man put his arm around Elmer and said, 'Boys, boys, boys.. you want pills, you want charlie?' We walked away from him about twenty seconds later, loaded up with drugs.
Then we were walking along by the harbour wall at the edge of the square. The crowds had thinned out a little bit. I swallowed a pill, and gagged on it because I had no water. An Italian man looked in my face and said something which didn't seem to be too friendly. A black man sat in the shadows spoke to me, and he didn't seem to be too friendly either. We ducked into a bar and had one drink. It was an open-sided bar with a canopy over the top, overlooking the bay. A cool wind was blowing into us and it was still drizzling with rain. People were laughing and dancing. Elmer and I stood there with our drinks. We were the only ones who didn't seem to be having a good time.
We came out of the bar, still walking very quickly, still over excited, and found a crowded taxi rank near a gigantic egg structure. Then a friendly young Italian guy with dreadlocks approached us, a taxi tout. 'Come on,' Elmer said, and we followed him to a back street, where I became aware of another young Italian man walking along beside us. They were both smiling. The guy with the dreadlocks wore a long basketball top and shorts, and had a tattoo on his arm which said 'Napoli'. They lead us to a small blue hatchback. A large swarthy Italian man was sat in the driver's seat and he looked at Elmer and me, looked away, then started the engine.
Suddenly, I realised that I was badly off my head. I was rushing and shivering and I couldn't see straight. As we were getting into the car I whispered to Elmer, 'This is dodgy, you know,'
'No it's not, it's fine,'
'It's dodgy,'
'Shut up man!'
We set off driving very slowly through the traffic around the square in San Antonio. Elmer was in the middle of the back seat, I was on his left. One of the Italian guys was in the back with us. The one with the dreadlocks was in the front passenger seat. He reached forwards and tried to pick something up from underneath his seat, but fumbled it. By now it felt like waves were running through my mind, from the back to the front. I heard Elmer saying, 'I've changed my mind.. we want to go back..' I could hear the panic in his voice.
The dreadlocks guy smiled, and touched his ear to indicate that he couldn't understand. 'I don't, erm.. speak, erm.. I don't know..'
'We've forgotten our money,' I said, 'we need to go back to the hotel!' It even sounded ridiculous to me, and I was the one saying it.
'We've forgotten our money!' Elmer repeated.
'We want to go back!'
The guy in the back and the dreadlocks guy were both still smiling at us, but the driver seemed a little spooked. He started jabbering at the other two in Italian. We were coming to a junction where a car had stopped, so our car had to slow down to a crawl. After the junction we would be out of the centre of San Antonio, onto a long dark road. I opened the door and jumped out, with the car still moving. Elmer followed me. We ran a few steps, then quickly walked back to the taxi rank. 'He had a blade!' Elmer said. 'That ****er with the dreadlocks had a blade!' The Italians circled around and took another look at us, then they were gone.
We arrived at Pacha about half an hour after nearly being robbed by the Italians. I paid my fifty euros (six hours wages) and they let us inside.
Pacha was a drugs and house music club, but it was decorated luxuriously with cream leather sofas and candlelit tables. I bought a Jack Daniels and Coke (two hours wages) and Elmer and I sat in a bar area which was mostly occupied by what appeared to be Eurotrash millionaires. They seemed very comfortable, sat around gossiping and smoking, as though they went there every week. Like Elmer and I, they were dressed in designer clothing. But their clothes did not display brand names, and you just knew they were more expensive than anything we could ever afford. And you could see they wore that type of thing every single day, whereas Elmer and I were working men who had dressed up especially for the occasion. They were not worrying about how much the drinks had cost or how much they had paid to get in. It was strange, because I was spending more money than I had ever done before in my life, yet I had never felt so poor.
A group of them were sat just in front of us. The women were thin and cruel looking. A blonde and a brunette called a guy over from another table. He looked like some obscure Euro Royalty or the son of some billionaire industrialist. He was in his early thirties but already bald with glasses, and a little flabby. I wondered if that was what happened to people when they never worked a day in their life - they turned to mush. He sat down and the women fussed around him. The whole group fussed around him. Something told me he had even more money than the rest of them. Elmer and I stood up and walked away to a different part of the club, and as we did so we passed right by them. I took one last look at them in their little bubble of champagne and cocaine and money. They kind of made me sick, and I kind of wanted to join them.
In Pacha there was a huge dancefloor, surrounded on three sides by steps which lead up to balconies on different levels, all the way up to the roof of the club. Elmer and I sat on a sofa on one of the balconies and watched it all. We kept drinking and taking pills.
By midnight the club was rammed out with Ibiza tourists. Some of them dressed in designer clothing and some of them were in beachwear. And there were professional dancers on podiums. One of the dancers was a short muscular Spanish guy, wearing a red vest to show off his rippling physique. He had jet black shoulder length hair, greased back, and he wore a red headband to match the vest. He was throwing shapes, making fists and thrusting his arms around extravagantly. Euro dancing, I called it. He had no rhythm whatsoever.
A light skinned black woman was dancing on another podium. She was beautiful and tall and she wore a traditional African headscarf, the kind worn by Erykah Badu. She was doing the Euro moves also, posing, throwing her arms, etc, but the difference was that she made them look good. She looked good. The sweat glistened on her skin.
I tried to imagine what it would be like to have sex with her. But it just seemed too impossible, too far out of my reach.
Just below where Elmer and I were sitting there was a VIP area cordoned off for the Eurotrash millionaires. Security were stood at the cordons, preventing the rest of us from entering. The Eurotrash were sat at tables which were strewn with spent cigarette packets and champagne bottles. The bald guy with the glasses whom I had noticed earlier on in the bar was there. He was wearing a blue blazer over a white shirt, and blue jeans. He looked like Prince Albert of Monaco. He danced by moving his feet from side to side and holding his arms out horizontally in front of himself, with a smug smile on his face.
The music played, a good funky house tune, a voice saying -
'[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Everybody gathered together..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Black people..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'White people..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The young..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The old..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The rich..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'The poor..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Everybody..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'For the love of house..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'For the love of house music..'[/FONT]
I looked at the Erykah Badu dancer again. Negative thoughts were taking over my mind. I thought, probably later on the Prince Albert of Monaco guy will take her back to his villa and they will drink champagne and snort coke and she will let him **** her. But he won't really be bothered about her. He'll probably be in love with some thin blonde Euro girl, and the thin blonde Euro girl will be in love with somebody else, and that person will be in love with another person, because that is just the way it is.
Pacha ended at six am and we stepped outside into what I hoped would be glorious sunshine. But in actual fact the sky was grey and it was pissing down torrential rain. There was a canopy just outside the doors and the whole population of the club were sheltering under there, like raver refugees. Then two huge Spanish bouncers came out, pushing everybody into the street and shouting, 'VAMOOSH!! VAMOOSH!!' Pacha took the canopy down and closed the doors, then there was nothing at all - we were just stood out on this desolate road, with no sign of any taxis.
I could see a covered gateway just along from us. 'Come on,' I said. And Elmer and I set off running through the water.
We sheltered under there for a while, shivering and watching the rain, along with some Germans and Swedes. An hour or so passed. The hundreds of people waiting outside Pacha dwindled down to dozens of people. The Spanish had been the first to leave - they had cars and scooters and they rode away, laughing. The rest of us had to wait. Every twenty minutes or so a single taxi would come along, and people would crowd around it and argue, then someone would jump in and take off. The taxis never stopped anywhere near Elmer and me. Some people gave up waiting and set off on foot, shielding their faces and running heroically into the sheet of water.
Two hours passed, and by now I was sneezing from the cold and rain. Eventually the only ones left were me and Elmer and these two young Spanish guys. We abandoned our position under the covered gateway and went and stood in a bus stop, trying to flag down any car which passed by. We must have looked fairly pathetic.
But a taxi did eventually come and then Elmer and I were running up and down the streets in San Antonio again, deluded from the ecstasy, looking for our hotel. By the time we finally found it we were soaked to the bone. It was a little place run by a middle-aged Spanish lady called Isabelle. Isabelle was there in the reception area with a young cleaning lady, and when they saw the state of Elmer and me they started laughing. Isabelle said something in Spanish and imitated our shivers. 'Could we have some tea, please?' I asked her.
She brought us a pot of tea and we sat there in the bar/reception area and drank it. It was a nice little place. But this terrible young English guy was there, a southerner, badly off his head. He sat down and started talking to us, 'Wow boys!' he said. 'You really got drenched, look at you!' His eyes were wide and he spoke with a kind of fake druggy awe in his voice. 'I got knocked out by a bouncer last night!' he said. 'Would you believe that?! Come to Ibiza and get knocked out! Who are you boys here to see? I want to see Fatboy Slim, I want to see Sasha.. I mean they're superstar DJ's, d'you know what I mean? Is it okay if I come up to your room with you for a bit? I can't sleep boys.. I don't know what's wrong with me, all my mates are asleep..'
'Maybe some other time,'
'Yeah boys! Definitely! Some other time!' He went over and he was talking to the young cleaning lady, saying to her, 'I want to marry you, I think I'm in love.. I want you to have my babies!'
The cleaning lady was laughing, wiping the bar down, and talking to Isabelle in Spanish.
I looked out at the cold street. The rain was lashing down and there was nobody around. So this is Ibiza, I thought.
We got back to the relative safety of our room and chilled out for a while, but didn't sleep. Then it was early on the Sunday afternoon and we were wandering around the square in San Antonio again. It had stopped raining and the sun was coming out. We went into a Burger King and tried to eat something, but I felt horribly ill, and each mouthful made me want to puke.
We walked out into the square again and saw a bar. 'Come on,' Elmer said, 'let's go in there.'
It was a little old-fashioned Spanish place. We sat at the counter and ordered two beers. The beers were served in tall glasses and by the time I got halfway down the glass, I was starting to feel better. They had tables and chairs out at the front of the bar where you could sit and look out over the square. But we were happy to sit in the shadows for a while. It was just good to be in Ibiza with my friend, the ground was still a little wet outside but the sun was starting to blaze by now, we were a little drunk, and the beer was bringing the ecstasy back up.
We drank another two beers and each took a pill. Then we were riding across the island in a taxi with two blonde Australian girls who were also on ecstasy. We were going to Space. The Australian girls were like characters from a soap, with fantastic bronzed bodies, and what with the sunshine and the beer and the ecstasy and everything else I felt absolutely fantastic, so I was showing off to them a little bit. I had never really showed off all that much in my life before. To be honest it felt great.
Space was a huge building of light coloured bricks and clear glass. As we pulled up in the taxi I could hear the heavy beat coming from inside. My excitement levels were rising. I wondered whether I might have finally found whatever it was that I was looking for. I could see cars and taxis, queues of people, and security staff.
As we approached the doors you hear the madness going on inside, but outside it was strangely quiet. I suppose it was due to all those paranoid minds being concentrated together in one spot, so close to heavy security.
Walking out onto the terrace was a very good feeling. It felt as though I had arrived somewhere worth arriving at. The terrace was covered, with sunlight shining in through gaps between the tops of the walls and the roof, creating a haze. On one side of the room there was a huge DJ booth on a raised platform, on the opposite side there was a bar which ran along the full length of the wall, and inbetween there was the dancefloor.
I walked out into the middle of the dancefloor with Elmer following behind me. We had lost the two Australian girls somewhere in the melee. I looked around at the Space people. They wore brightly coloured clothing, blacked out sunglasses, and they smiled and danced. The music was blasting loud -
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Keep on moving..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Grooving..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'Music is the answer..'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'To the question..'[/FONT]
I found a spot in front of the DJ booth and stood there. Elmer, who had gone somewhat into his shell, hung around near me. A pretty Indian girl tapped me on the arm and said, 'Excuse me, are you havin' a good time?' She had a northern accent. She was clapping her hands and dancing, with a beaming smile on her face.
'Yeah, are you?'
'Yeah! I never get out, me!'
She was there with another girl who I think was her sister, as they were both quite short and they looked alike. The sister had an Indian man with her, whom I presumed was her husband - he was fairly stocky, shirtless and wearing sunglasses. A young Italian drug dealer approached me and I bought ten pills off him for fifty euros. I took one myself, gave one to Elmer, one each to the two Indian girls, and another to a blonde Euro girl who just happened to be standing next to me. I couldn't really afford to give them out like that, of course, but I just felt like doing it.
The pills hit me and combined with the hazy beams of sunlight criss-crossing the room and the smoke in the air and everything else. I went into ridiculous thought processes. I decided that the Space party people were smiling sharks who had to be watched. They were sharp and never gave anything away. But that must have meant that I was sharp too, because I was amongst them.. sharp.. yeah, right. There were probably about three functioning brain cells in the whole room. But still, millions of people out there in the straight world would never know how good it felt to be in Space on a Sunday afternoon.
Paranoia, then a rush of ecstasy through my brain, then the music hitting me.
I had started to dance with the pretty Indian girl who had initially spoken to me. I was feeling very confident, doing well in Space. Elmer remained on the sidelines, dancing only slightly.
It was still afternoon, not long after we had first arrived. Then the sister started to dance with me. The one who had the man with her. She was really flying, winding her hips and holding one hand up in the air and shouting, 'COOOME OOON!! WOOOOHHH!!' - I got the impression she might have just taken her first pill. But I was conscious of the Indian man, who was hovering around next to us, so I moved away from her a little bit. I watched her from the corner of my eye. She was watching me, also. After a moment the Indian man moved away. I saw Elmer step forwards and dance up to her from behind, smiling. For one second she wound with him the same way she had done with me, but then he thrust his groin into her ass and tried to pull her towards himself, and at that she pushed him off and danced away. He kept dancing for a few seconds on the same spot, alone, still holding a smile on his face. Then he turned and went back to where he had been before on the sidelines, and remained there for the rest of the night.
The music was firing. Huge soulful vocals, mostly black women, lead up and up to a crescendo, then the whole tune would drop and an electro bassline would kick in, which made everybody twist their bodies down low together, sending them primeval.
The DJ was a killer. When I looked up I saw that he was a middle-aged white man with glasses. He looked like an accountant. He was staring at the decks, sweating, concentrating hard. A moderately attractive black woman was stood over to the side of the DJ booth, bowing towards him and holding up her hands, as if worshipping a God. I tried to get her attention, rather embarrassingly, but she didn't notice me.
Then the Indian girl came and got me again. She moved in close and faced up to me, and again she was shouting, 'COOOME OOON!!' The Indian man was a few feet over to our right, but there were so many people crammed in there that he couldn't see what was going on. She turned and pressed her ass into me and really shook it. She pulled my hands around her waist and turned and flashed her eyes at me. Then she pulled up her hair with her hands, showing the back of her neck. Jesus, I thought, this girl wants me to **** her! One moment later I became aware of the Indian man moving in closer towards us. I moved away from her. We didn't dance together again.
As we went through the evening and on towards midnight, the atmosphere on the terrace moved further towards what can only be described as hysteria, and the whole room vibrated with a collective excitement which felt like it might blow the roof off. The terrace was full to bursting point, every square centimetre of space was occupied by people balancing on ledges and squeezing in wherever they could. I had taken another five or six pills, my system was so full of ecstasy that there was no longer any paranoia or inhibition in me, just the music hitting my brain and sending shockwaves through the whole of my body. I was in the same spot on the dancefloor in front of the DJ booth, right in the middle of the madness. It was great.
I looked across and saw that the Indian girl I had been dancing with had calmed down quite a bit. She was sat on a raised stool, just to the side, gathering herself. She looked at me with an embarrassed expression. Then she was French kissing the husband.
But by that time I was dancing with another girl anyway - a fair haired English girl, quite natural looking. I didn't try and talk to her or make a move. But for the last hour on the terrace we wound each other up more and more, jumping around in the chaos. I guess back in England she would have been a shop worker or a trainee nurse or maybe she worked in a call centre, just like me. But out there we were superheroes. We threw shadow punches at each other and the music played -
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'We the love generation!'[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]'We the love generation!'[/FONT]
I felt so good that it was almost unbearable.
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