Facing the Dark Decade
By Jouko van der Kruijssen
Wednesday night was Eighties Night at Paradiso. Until that night I had managed to avoid Amsterdam’s most popular students’ night out on Wednesdays, but this time my presence was required. Not just for any reason, not just for any girl. She could very well be the love of my life if I could keep her from being the love of Lars’s life that night. I knew it was a bad idea, but I joined her, Lars, and the rest of the gang for a night of dancing to tunes that hadn’t been gone for long enough yet.
As soon as we stepped into the church-turned-club my guts froze with fear. As I had expected, the Eighties instantly reclaimed their grip on me. Twelve years ago I had successfully escaped them and found asylum in the Nineties. The evil decade had never truly left, I knew that. Its ghost used the corners of my mind as its haunted house of choice. Every now and then its restless spirit surfaced on an innocent memory, suddenly jumping out from behind a birthday cake and staring me down with its hollow black eyes, sucking me in and for a brief moment making everything dark again. Here I was, back at its mercy, in its lair, heroically facing the dragon to save a damsel. She wasn’t even in distress, I just wanted to save her for me.
No one else seemed to have their head haunted. The happy crowd celebrated the necromancy of my nemesis with drinking and dancing. It was as if they were celebrating the resurrection of an evil dictator; one they were once glad to be rid of, but now craved because his departure left a void in their identity. They were dancing at the excavation party of a corpse that reeked of heroin junkies, the squatting riots and Ronald Reagan, not to mention my parents’ divorce, getting tied to the drainpipe at school and having the acceptance of my own worthlessness beaten into me. How could they act like that stuff never happened?
My friends quickly disappeared into the crowd, dancing to their happy memories. Girls just wanna have fun.
I found an empty stool at the bar and in an attempt to fight the cold inside I ordered a whisky. No ice. Elbows and beers kept landing on my shoulder. The male bottom of a couple in their fifties rubbed against my stool as they quite realistically simulated the most canine of sexual positions to Run DMC’s “It’s Like That”. They must have read somewhere that this is how the cool kids dance these days, but they missed the instructional video. Next song: Smooth Criminal.
I remembered the poster of Bad-era Michael Jackson that was hanging from the wall in our 5th grade classroom. A freak with eyeliner and enough oil in his curls to dress a salad. What was he doing there hanging in between the Last Supper and the anatomy of the night crawler? My teachers told me everything they were instructed to know about the Last Supper and the multitude of hearts inside earthworms, information I obediently absorbed to be able to perfectly regurgitate it when I was asked to do so. Nobody ever taught me a thing about Michael Jackson, even though he was required schoolyard knowledge. I guess I was supposed to learn all about him myself, which was an impossible task with no friends to fill me in, no TV at home and with a father who only allowed classical music.
My lunch breaks were largely spent alone, apart from the occasional company of those who wanted to reconfirm their superiority by squirting my milk all over my Mickey Mouse sweater. I was an easy target. I was weak, scared, wearing worn out second hand clothes, some of which used to belong to my sister, and clueless about what was supposed to keep the mind of someone my age occupied. I was too unaware of the loop to find a way to get into the loop, I was completely in the dark. That’s what it was, that’s the reason why I was constantly terrified. It wasn’t because they might call me names or beat me up, it wasn’t because I wanted to fit in and didn’t know how, it wasn’t because I was scared of the future, death, or disease. It was because I was kept in the dark, I couldn’t see what the hell was going on out there. The hints of summer blockbusters, video games and pop songs I would accidentally pick up scared me like the sound of a child giggling: it’s fine when the lights are on but it’s horror when it’s coming out of a pitch black corner.
My father didn’t help much. I don’t know if it was my fault that I interpreted bad as “evil” when he would negatively talk about pop culture, when in fact he probably was making more of an artistic statement based on his perception of quality, but since the bad he was referring to was hiding in the dark it couldn’t be much else than pure evil. The freak on the poster in our classroom confirmed everything my father had taught me: this man was bad. A make up-wearing she-male with two piercing white eyes, one evil, one flirtatious, a pointy bat ear, a fist on his crotch and written next to his head, to take away all doubt, the word “BAD”. It was the only face darkness showed me back then. The monster under my bed had the face of Bad-era Michael Jackson.
I ordered another whisky, that was another thing wrong with the Eighties, I was too young to drink back then. Now I was surrounded by the sound of a thousand children giggling in the dark, but at least there was whisky.
The Nineties were like the cavalry. After my parents’ much awaited divorce my father moved into a tiny apartment in Bos en Lommer, the neighborhood for immigrants, the elderly and divorced dads. The kids would spend every other weekend with him. My mother, who apparently had suffered from my father’s cultural oppression as well, bought a Madonna record. She danced around the living room using moves she had learned in the Sixties and learned to forget after she met my father. Express yourself.
My father was lonely and bought a TV. After my sister helped him install it she filled me in on her first glimpse of the outside world. Apparently there was this magical TV station that only played music videos! From that moment on every other weekend I would sneak out of my bedroom in the middle of the night to turn on the TV and attend the schoolyard knowledge classes I had missed all my life, right in time for high school. The Nineties opened their blinds like the Eighties never did. I was still wearing my sister’s leftovers, so high school didn’t come with much of a change to my social status, but at least I knew what my bullies were talking about. The lights were on. I was completely out of the loop and I knew it. Hallelujah!
Two whiskeys was enough for this hero to be ready to face the dragon. I had 27 Euros left in my pocket and a solid plan was taking shape in my head. Six Euros would take care of the third whiskey, just in case. I got up, filled to the brim with warmth and the illusion of courage. I started working my way through the crowd. Elbows, beers and Karma Chameleon’s beats were pounding me where ever they could, but I had to keep going. Inside my head the hollow eyed decade was already breathing down the neck of Sir van der Krotch and his trusty horse Johnny Walker. I made it to the DJ without injury, but sweat and goose bumps were conquering ground and soon stutter would take over and ruin it all, I had to act quickly. Twenty Euros and a quick request later it was all out of my hands. Images of mullets, Pez dispensers and pitch black darkness were circling around my head and left me no choice but to faint or vomit. I was about to go for the latter when the dirty intro riff of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit turned the lights back on. Dumbstruck, the eighties shriveled up and died before my eyes, just like they had done in ‘91. Four minutes to think clearly, one to enjoy my victory, three to get the hell out of there.
I remembered my damsel when it was too late. Though she would later briefly be the love of my entire life, for that night I had lost her forever. At the other end of the bar Lars’ tongue was mining her face for his share of her eternal love. She didn’t seem to mind. I blamed it on the Eighties, grabbed my jacket, tipped the bouncer and stepped into the midnight drizzle. The moon smelled great, there were no heroin junkies, squatting riots or Ronald Reagans to be seen. Floating home on my drunken bicycle I smiled myself all the way to sleep, knowing I would wake up in the nameless decade that I loved so much.