That’s The Way We Got By

Monday nights and Thursday nights, we’d go out. For pretty much the entirety of my student life, Mondays and Thursdays were the nights where we’d meet up, maybe at the Wild Boar or some other pub, or at Hannah’s flat (Sometimes, it was Andy’s flat, sometimes Gabi’s, but if we were meeting where someone lived, more often than not, it was Hannah’s), and then go to the same club whose name I, appallingly, don’t remember anymore (The names of the nights I remember: The Mudd Club on Mondays, and Disco 2000 on Thursdays. I used to wonder what they’d call it when they reached the year 2000, and nowadays, that feels like such nostalgia that I feel like an old man). The music was a mix of indie and an odd selection of old stuff: A lot of punk, (very) little dance, and the theme music from Star Wars and Starksy and Hutch. We’d make requests and get shot down; we’d bring in CDs and ask for track 2, and the DJ would listen to it on headphones and pass judgment.

When we weren’t dancing, we’d sit around, try to talk and not get distracted by the other people, whether it was people-watching or new crushes (or old flames) or whatever was happening that night. We’d shout in each others’ ears to be heard over the music, and stand so close together you would think we were intimate. When we were dancing, we were shameless, taking the phrase “throwing shapes” to an absurd level. It was dancing as accidental performance art, throwing our arms throughout the air, prancing around. We were probably a sight to see, if one that I smile at now, completely embarrassed to imagine; an ex-girlfriend, when we first met, told me that her friends called me “dancey hands man” and not in a good way (if there even was a good way).

We’d dance all night, until 2am when the club closed, and then we’d walk home. For a couple of years of this period, I lived on the other side of town, and it’d take me an hour to walk back; I’d do it nonetheless, even in the middle of winter. There was something about walking through the empty streets at that time that felt like the proper ending to the night, a way to silence all the ringing in my ears and thoughts in my head. I’d get home and collapse on the bed, fall asleep and wake up the next morning, aching in a good way.

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