Pete - Memoir essay

Speak, friend, and enter

Where the Nerds Are, after hours in Indy; three bars my friends and I visited down in Indianapolis give me three different perspectives, glimpses of the world as I experience it day to day.

The city street flooded with high lights bringing out the deep browns of the Midwest; older brick from a century ago lines the district preserved for modern merriment. Indianapolis echoed Chicago out there on the plains, and trains gathered here from all over the East and Midwest, loading grains and people outbound for 150 years. In the vicinity of the Union Station, cast in brown brick and gray asphalt, were three bars in particular.

…

"You should go to 'Ice,' she said. Her dark hands on her hips, arms contrasting with her bright yellow blouse. "I'll probably be there after I get off here, in about an hour." A wink. She leaned in towards me just a bit, and I’d already decided. For the group.

So on our first night in town we meandered down the streets to the foyer of Ice. Out of the humid night and stepping into the elevator, we pressed "up". Wallets came out, our IDs ready.

As we ascended, images of blue and black stumbled into my mind's eye, the cool motif splashed on the walls along with thrumming trance beats, girls very made up and poser guys not interested in us at all, visiting gamers descending on their city, their club, as they noted us through sunglasses at 10pm.

The elevator doors parted... darkness there, and nothing more. Not a soul in the place.

An almost confrontational quiet. The utter lack of sound in this clearly social space was eerie; the place abandoned but somehow meticulously maintained. My first impression was surreal, the cool air hanging all around us, the stillness really seeping in. Tentative, we stepped out of the elevator, Chris held back and kept the parted doors open, thinking tactically.

We might need a way out of this place, fast.

"They're closed," Hemp said after a pause into a silence that seemed to engulf his words. Rational ,grounded Hemp. We were not in a tomb. There had not been a war during our elevator ride up. This was not a dream. Well, probably not, anyway.

I took a few steps into the vacant opulence, our very own unexpected haunted mansion, an open mausoleum just stepped into. Too quick to ignore, my apprehension spun up into curiosity. I walked on the hardwood floor, further into the darkness of the club, pools of streetlamp light barely soaking in from long windows, nearby spaces a deep dark.

Off to our right through an ornate open archway, low couches of light blue with graceful lamps of white adorned a VIP room I'd likely never see in real life. I took a few steps towards it, and strained with my senses to -feel- the place, preternatural now in it's elemental state; no people. No clanking glassware, no petty buzzed hubbub, no hustling waitstaff. No scents of cigarettes or posturing. Just the pure essence of the place, except for any other living soul.

Ice of some dormant glacier, awake in the future, but not now.

The moments hung as I explored with my eyes, then I was aware of the twinge in my stomach, all of us raised in the suburbs to be good boys and not trespass, it was inevitable that someone would voice what we all felt, somewhere inside. We'd had our glimpse into this place, seeing it as very few ever have, now it was time.

"Let's go," Chris said from the open doors back to the real world. And we did.

We weren't mean to linger too long, to see Ice in that state for more than a few moments, I think. We rode down, and spilled back out into the humid Midwestern night. GenCon started tomorrow.

...

"Have a Nice Day! Bar" was the world we live in, most of the time.

When you walked in, you felt the music in your chest uninvited. I've never had a problem with popular dance music, but the beat was like a strange, smiling girl who comes right up against you, so that she can feel your heartbeat. Like her or not, want her or not.

Lip gloss, jeans and heels. Tramp stamps and circulating shotgirls. Gelled hair with sunglasses positioned just right, guys holding a forced casual stance. The decor was Hooters-esque, laminated light wood and cement flooring, style sacrificed for form and function. The dance floor was raised higher than almost anything in the club, and most eyes are there.

It's common to see one or just a few people moving to the beat up there. If no one watched, no one would be dancing, but everyone watched. The skill varied, but mostly it's those few who really know how to move, that craved your attention, showing off. Some peacocking and mating ritual analogs as well were seen, all to the backdrop of very loud music.

My friends come to the table I've scouted, and they all have identical drinks- plastic fishbowls with some kind of alcoholic Kool-Aid. One of these would be enough for all of us, and they each have their own.

We’d hidden our convention badges, and we're not immediately obvious as gaming nerds... but we are not with these people, here. The only real communication here is visual, the candy coating of all that's supposed to be fun and sexy in life. And just by looking at us, you see we’re not from around here.

The place oozes sex and expensive t-shirts and effort, a kind of desperation ground out with the bare hips to answer every beat. Looking good, being seen, and coming off hip are central. We're tolerated, but we're not like these people, not accepted. I suppose it would be possible to get lost here, to have fun and just let go, but there seems to be so much of a disconnect between who I am and what this place was trying to be, that there's no point; no real return on my investment.

A few more songs play, and we leave, four almost-full fishbowls on our crappy table, just off the dance floor. On the way out we passed some amazingly attractive people, and for a moment we rethought our exit. We're outside; "Did you see her?" "Why did we leave?" “Could we get back in?”

But in a moment we're detached, and fine, and heading elsewhere.

...

Union Station itself speaks in a pure, aged Midwestern voice, history in the lines and texture of its façade; brown and tan bricks in Romanesque Revival. Long ago, many, many people passed daily through the cavernous spaces on their way to Kansas City, Little Rock, and Pennsylvania. Compared to its past, the building was all but silent now; an empty cathedral from the time of cattle pulls, linesmen, and pocket watches.

Around the west side an innocuous stairway led down, a simple small sign marked the destination: "Universal Imports Unlimited".

Descending, we came to a darkened stairwell ending at a formidable door with an eye-slit. With a rap against thick timber, someone behind the door threw back a slide with a loud clack, opening a tiny eye-level aperture.

"Yea?"

" 'Are you my guardian angel?' " I asked. There's an unexplainable catch in my throat, for a heartbeat.

A pause, then another loud clack as the slide is closed again. A click as a deadbolt was turned, and the door swings inward. Light spilled into the stairwell for a moment as we're ushered in. Just as quickly, the solid door was closed and bolted behind us, and we're in the Safe House.

A former speakeasy and current hideout for would-be spies, the Safe House rests in the bowels of Union Station, tucked away from the history and bustle of Indianapolis, but still a part of it. Indirect and dim lighting created more shadows than light, throwing relief onto exposed brick, the look that seemed to be the DNA of downtown Indy.

Off to the side of the entryway, there's a blackjack table and roulette wheel set up, all seats are filled.

I recognized some players from missions I've run during the day, and as I looked around the darkened space with a low ceiling, I traded familiar nods with more. I made my way to the old style dark wooden bar. I note the music, something forgettable but appropriate to the people here.

We're all gamers, all graduates of Guardian 6 and their friends. No locals, no posturing, or $300 jeans. Just we nerds, in a place of our own, tucked away from the real world. A safe house, indeed. You needed a pass phrase to get in, someone's playing a game of some sort all the time, and you felt that ready camaraderie with strangers who are a bit different than everyone else, just like you. We’re all still wearing our convention badges, at 1030 pm.

We sit, and plan how tomorrow our agency will beat the others with wit and guile.

...

To me, these three places seemed to represent how I see the world.

Ice was the hint of the foundations of things; how you perceive the world when you dream about it, or when you're back-of-house at a theater. You’re privy to the place in a state most don’t see; its actual working level, as opposed to what almost everyone usually sees.

It's revealing there, but lonely. This view was the lens I see the world through when I am depressed, or at my most analytical. Ghosts of line and shape, the people who aren't really there, though they may be moving all around me. It's just form, feature and function without soul. My trips to this world are almost always short. Looking under the hood of a car is often interesting, but rarely helps you get from place to place.

At Have a Nice Day, I saw the world as it is on MTV, as the media and the malls show it to me. The packaged, gelled-slick version that screams, ”Look at me! Approve of me! Desire me!”

Here it's all about flavor, sugar, and salt; Sensuality and instant gratification are key. Class divisions are thrown into sharp relief here; the nerds of GenCon who were unable to blend in with the popular kids stand out, and form awkward gaggles here. Their clothes were different; body language and speech marked them apart from the gathered tribe.

The Safe House is exactly that, a secure haven for like-souls, strangers in a strange land. It’s a protected space where you needed a codephrase to enter, and a rite of passage to be accepted. Class means very little here, as it’s a gathering of friends, family, almost. This might not be how the world actually is, or how it is portrayed in the stories of our success, but it is the world we’re most comfortable in, the one where we belong. The vernacular is native, and easy. “Critical hits” and “LARPS” and the clear superiority of the d20 system are items for ready discussion and debate.

I am at home in all of these places, and comfortable, depending on my state of mind. Sometimes I get a glimpse of Ice, I move through Have a Nice Day to just operate in the world, and in my mind, my heart, I gather with friends in a Safe House.