The Crew

Untitled Part 12

Chapter Twelve

We marched toward the pit of chaos. The wailing, flailing festival of death, and somehow life as well, catapulting us into the unknown. We wriggled our way—like a punk rock gang—through the crowd, leather jackets and dirty, ripped jeans mixing in with the smell of boots, body odor and beer. Pot and leather were pungent. Gel and glue dripped down from spiked, fanned Mohawks, a style which brought to mind Native American Indians. I smiled at the impulse to cup my hand over my mouth and squawk like an Apache. After brutalizing our way to the front of the stage, bumping into myriad sweaty, stinky bodies, a harsh chore in itself, we joined Bone, Bear and D.D.

Me and Cannon and D.D. stood in the middle of our group with Bone and Bear on either side, watching out for bouncers and anyone clueless enough to attempt a coup on our spot at the stage, the helm of the rock n' roll ship. There we stood, watching the stage, seething with supremacy, protected, positioned, prepared for anything, our soldiers wrapped around us.

The members of Unknown Society arrived, the front man on vocals coming out like a tiger released from his cage, head down, stern, holding the mic with its long black cable trailing behind, amps in the background ready to blast away the crowd, ready to release the rock n' roll semen we all passionately desired and needed, each in our own way. The leader of the group spoke frantically:

"Hey, thanks for coming out, supporting the scene; we need you guys; keep coming out to the shows and we'll keep playing 'em. For those of you who don't know us yet, we're called Unknown Society!"

The crowd went mad, arms waving, fists pumping, cries and curses of joy. An electric buzz from the guitar hung in the air. Punks packed in like freaking sardines, The Crew slammed in by the masses.

They ripped into their first number, blasting the room with sound, the vocalist jumping with menacing leaps and twists in the air, holding onto that microphone as hard as he could, screaming out the lyrics. The whole crowd, which had been standing motionless, pinned against each other, galvanized into action, people shoving and clawing and kicking out their repressed emotions. Everything unholy emerged in one huge, moving body of expression. The school system, the church, our parents, the cops, the rigid rules and applied distinctions of class in society, capitalism, greed; the list went on and on. Some of this I related to experientially, other stuff I just knew...intrinsically.

A circle-pit had assembled itself in the center of the crowd, and if you made it into the damn thing, be careful, because you might not be able to get out until the current song ended. Sometimes there was no break between songs; one lead directly into the next without pause, in which case the human blender of the pit kept pulsating, thrashing any soul foolish and brave enough to enter.

The Crew stayed at the front of the stage, watching, waiting. We remained undeterred, not allowing the anarchy of the pit to distract us from our pursuit of the ultimate climax. Being here equaled our great reward, being alive, in the present, right up at the front of the stage. Like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's On the Road, talking about late 40s bebop jazz, we too searched for that elusive, musical, magical, existential "it."

I'd been listening to U.S. and knew their lyrics; I sang most of the songs, hearing my own voice along with the din. I found my fist pumping along with The Crew's and along with the hundreds. As the band launched into one of my favorites, I realized what I needed to do. I had to get on that stage. It would be like entering the core of chaos. D.D. would be proud; Cannon rocked. But would this be stepping over some leader-boundary with Cannon? Blanketed within the electric buzz of the sound, the fury, and the liquor from earlier, it didn't matter. I had to move. It came from within my soul.