Storylog

Experience in Miami is as fluid as its geography. Rolling, glassy turquoise waves melt into the fine sands of the beach, which kisses the city. South Beach, at any time of the day, is a fantasy. Art Deco buildings are illuminated by pastel-colored lights and it feels as though Mickey Mouse should be dancing in the streets or posing for our photographs. In the early morning, a street sweeper comes and cleanses the roads of any dirt we may have created.

The Pig Pink Restaurant, known for unfinishable portion sizes, sells dinner plate-sized chocolate chip cookies. Big, tasty, and lacking sustenance. People are giddy and awake with the crumbs of these cookies.

On one extreme, South Beach is nothing more than a pretty backdrop to the filthy rich. People whose ultimate catastrophe is a Botox malfunction. And people like us – spring breaking college kids – are simply here to bear witness to a world that we will never really understand. Middle aged men in multi-thousand-dollar suits, their long hair pulled into tight ponytails, wear Armani-clad younger women on their arms like Rolexes. People like this enter the world out of red Ferraris and do not, under any circumstances, glance at us. They drink themselves to sleep at night. He probably has a secret male partner and an alternate existence. Drenched in everything they ever wished for, these two are the saddest happy people in the world.

On the other extreme, an old man wearing sneakers, high white socks, an ugly tan baseball cap and a fanny pack combs the sand with a metal detector and sifter. When the beeping gets loud, he digs the sifter into the sand and discovers, usually, a discarded battery or maybe a penny. He takes it between two fingers and stares at it intently. Smiling, he glances around him to see who’s watching. If anybody is, he holds up the pied of whatever and smiles until, unimpressed, his audience looks away. Both these people bask in the attention of others. They share Miami. They share Miami with us.

Experience in Miami is as fluid as the geography and deeper than all of our wallets combined. Tonight we make our way to a small place with one long bar and a just big enough dance floor near the front, which is sandwiched between two (for now) vacant stripper polls. Most people stand awkwardly around the bar, crowded enough to start up a conversation with neighbors, but too shy to give it a go. Our group of nine does not think. We make it to the dance floor right from the start.

The DJ is good, playing old school hip hop. It’s a welcome departure from the new dance techno of the flashy club the night before. The Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash are made new again.

“Let’s get those people to dance,” Andrew has set his sights on including any onlooker watching us with intent. Anyone projecting that look of eagerness to join in the freeness of uninhibited movement. He tells me this because he knows I will not think. He knows I will approach the strangers with a smile, take their hands in mine and ask them to dance. This happens many times during the night. There’s a flow to it like an ocean current. We pull them in, they dance. They dance. Then when they sense their time is finished, they quietly flow back out the other side and others join. We do our best to get people to feel as good as we do, but we can never get to enough of them.

To say my generation lacks substance is both insulting to my peers and self deprecating.

Half my time at the club (the night before the hip hop bar), we feel perfect. While drinking earlier in the evening, we decided to abandon all rules. Do what feels right and good. This could mean a great many things. The club is a sprawling space packed with bodies, where the minimum drink charge is $30. Go-go dancers in metallic miniskirts and bikinis shake around the V.I.P section. When I dance, I do not hold back. I require a little bit of space, something hydrating, and people around who I can teach to also not hold back (if they haven’t already learned to do this). In the constant strobe lights, every movement is suspended. We move like the wind from person to person, dancing with anyone in the area who wants a part. I have a thought: the origin of life must have been something comparable to the energy created by dance and music.

But these kinds of feelings cannot last forever. Not for me. I think too much. It’s problematic. I grow frustrated with a certain kind of guy: Mr. Latino with the sunglasses indoors, Ukrainian with the fedora who whispers, “You’re so dirty” and “this is hot,” Austin Power’s style into my ear because he doesn’t know English and thinks these phrases are turn-ons. They dance too close. I need my space. They lead and I have to follow even if they dance like mechanical yuppies. I do not want them to be in charge; if there’s one place I have to be in charge (of myself if nothing else) it’s on the dance floor. When I feel a shift in power, I grow restless to leave.

We have made friends with two future navy officers studying in Annapolis. I sit on the beach with one. I use my limited knowledge of the U.S. military (acquired through nearly five years with a sister on active duty in the U.S. Marines). I know he’s trying to hit on me. This was evident from the way he was dancing in the club. I am simply interested in what he has to say. He responds favorably to this, and is ultimately happy to talk. After he graduates, he trains to command aboard military submarines. Months and months spent under the surface of the water performing secret spying mission. He explains that most of the submarine action is happening of the west coast, so he really wants to go there.

“We’re trying, to deter Korea and China,” he tells me.

“Really? I had no idea those places were even a threat to us,” I say.

“They are,” he says. “But if they know the water is full of subs ready to attack, they won’t make moves.”

“Unless they’re building up some kind of massive silent attack.”

“That’s true. I guess you never know.”

I ask him about all the lights on the sea’s horizon. They are blinking red, some green, some white. And he explains, a little bit unsure, that all the lights are ships and you can tell what direction the boats are moving based on the color of the lights. Red for starboard. Green for port. I close my eyes and imagine the feeling of the rolling waves under my feet as my ship. I imagine the darkness of the middle of the water and the vastness of the stars. I feel the wind.

To say my generation lacks substance is both insulting to my peers and self deprecating. We, however, can certainly be catty, superficial, self-indulgent and self-absorbed.
I am going to write a novel about my childhood friend, Danielle. Her story is perfect for showing how the isolation that defines our time fucked us all up.

On one night, I decide not to go out and J calls me something to the effect of an old lady. Of course, I am completely not offended. But later I hear that another person in our group told him he should not have said it to me because it was mean. All these people have known each other much longer than they’ve known me. When I’m not there, someone else asks the group, “How long until we treat her like one of us?” Meaning, how long until we feel she is close enough so we can joke around with her like we joke around with each other? I teeter back and forth from feeling inside and outside of these people, which is where I typically find myself – at the cusp of intimate relationships. Sometimes, I badly would like to tip onto their side. But I won’t. The over-awareness of this boundary prevents it. I won’t ever have what they do.

“Come to Sean Paul’s birthday party at Club 22″ speaks a cute local handing out “V.I.P.” wristbands. “It’s 15 bucks admission and an open bar. Dress nice, no jeans.” None of us, of course, are silly enough to believe it is actually Sean Paul’s birthday, but we all agree it may be a fun club and we should check it out. But we have to “dress nice,” which means the majority of our nine-person group feels obligated to go shopping for clothes that will help us fit in. We are, after all, casual college kids who aren’t bred for this type of glamorous thing. We are lucky. There are overpriced designer stores hugging every street in walking distance – such a symbiotic relationship there is between the clubs and the shops.

At the club this night, Holden buys us a table and a bottle of excellent champagne because he can and it’s fun. He tells us, “I’m riding a wave right now.” I think of Hunter S. Thompson and wonder if this is the crest of our strange and beautiful wave. Not nearly as meaningful or glamorous as his. We feel great. The music is a good mix of old school pop and new dance. I can’t sit down. I get too close to someone a friend is close with. I suppose it’s my fault. It’s the alcohol’s fault. It’s the fact that she never told me she was that close with him. It’s really really stupid. What do I care about all this? Are we making too much of insignificant events, or are the events like this the only ones that actually matter?

While all my friends are anxious about jobs and foreseeing a near future of entry-level jobs and one room apartments in big cities, I copped out. I am going to Europe. I am breaking some unspoken rule of what we’re supposed to do. I’m not afraid to go alone or leave people. I’m used to being alone.

It’s not early in the morning. The sun is really beginning to warm Miami now. But all my friends are still asleep. I am listening to an audio collage of voices in all different languages. I cannot make out a word, but if you listen to them together, like one solid mass of sound, it doesn’t matter. You let yourself melt in to that mass of sound. It more than surrounds you. Something inside me aches. I’m a little hung over. Should I go back to sleep, I wonder. Another hour might do me good.

But I’m already awake. The beach is close and I should make the most of my location. I should not think about the work I must do when I return or even the people I will leave when I leave Miami. Today it will all be OK. Not because I, or anyone else will make it so, but because it has to be. You know as well as I that in the end, it has to be OK.

Credit: The Disquieting Muses @ Chimpanzees Everywhere