Big Mike: Saturday Night Fever

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, my pals and I would spend every Friday and Saturday night swinging our shoes at one of the big dance clubs around town. There were, let’s see, Neo, La Mere Vipere, Exit, O’Bannion’s, Dugan’s Bistro and Medusa’s.

Despite being young and flamboyantly rebellious, we’d already found ourselves bound by convention and habit. For instance, we wore nothing but black. To wear any other color would betray our carefully cultivated images as outsiders. We were art students and musicians, book store clerks and, well, a few of us couldn’t be bothered by making a living.

Another of our habits was to go out as late as possible. We often began showering, preening and applying eye liner (yeah, the guys, too — it was part of the New Wave uniform) at eleven o’clock or even midnight. The clubs didn’t really start buzzing until twelve-thirty or one. We’d close down one or two places and then finish up at Medusa’s, which didn’t serve liquor and so could remain open indefinitely. We’d exit the place drenched in sweat, the sun already up.

That was so very, very, very long ago. Now, at eleven-thirty or twelve on a weekend night I’ll either be snoring, crying into my pillow over all the opportunities I’ve frittered away in my life, or jostling The Loved One awake to ask her to inspect some alarming lump that has developed somewhere on my body.

Even if I manage to keep my eyes open, my activities won’t be as glamorous and dashing as they once were. Take this past Saturday night. As the young and energetic citizenry of Bloomington, Indiana was just beginning to ponder which bars to hit, I was lugging several hampers of dirty laundry down to the hotel lobby. I approached the front desk and caught the young clerks discussing the exotic mixed drinks they were going to try after their shift. I asked where the 24-hour laundromats were and commented that I once was a late nighter but now, regrettably, am an old man.

“Oh,” scolded the pretty and pert young clerk, “you’re only as old as you feel!”

I nodded and hoisted up my hampers. My right hip ached, my back was stiff, several of my hernias made themselves known, and my feet were swollen. “Smart-assed little shit,” I muttered to myself as I left.

A rainstorm of biblical proportions was drenching south central Indiana as I loaded up the car. I drove to the only Chase Bank ATM location I’m sure of — some five miles away — with the wipers on high and still I could hardly see the white lines on the road. The rain was driving so hard that even under the drive-thru canopy, half of me got drenched punching in my PIN. Damn. The machine was out of cash.

So I phoned The Loved One and asked her to go online and look up other Chase ATM locations. A few minutes later she said, “Okay ready…,” and then launched into a recitation of a half dozen addresses that, to me, were no more familiar than so many locations in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Me: “Whoa! Where the heck are these places?”

She: “In Bloomington!”

Me (after a moment’s pause): “Yes, darling. But where?”

After remarking that after a week in town you’d think I’d know how to get around, The Loved One found an ATM that, surprise, was right near our hotel.

She: “It’s right here on Walnut Street!… I think. Let’s see, am I looking at this thing the right way? It’s a Google map. I’ll try to zoom out. Is that 17th Street? Oh yeah. Go north on Walnut from 17th. No… wait. Go south. No, north. That’s it.”

All the while the heavens were dumping a torrent on my car.

She: “You got that? Oooh! So much lightning! It’s really raining out!”

Me: “I know — I’m in it!”

She: “You don’t have to be so snippy, you know.”

Wisely, I paused again — this time for a few moments. Then she repeated the ATM’s address slowly — 2700 N. Walnut St. — apparently no more than a half mile from the hotel. I drove back toward the hotel and headed north on Walnut. I drove for long minutes, never once seeing a Chase branch sign. Walnut became a dark, two-lane road in farm country. Corn stood like a high wall on either side of me. I wasn’t able to turn back because there were no cross streets. And the rain kept coming. I phoned The Loved One again and told her where I was.

She: “Well, what are you doing that far out? I told you it was only a half mile from the hotel.”

I paused for many moments then explained my plight. She went online again and discovered that the ATM was actually in a Speedway gas station, which I recalled passing a scant quarter of a mile from our hotel. Grrr. I spun a U-turn, retraced my path a few miles, pulled in and dashed through the downpour, becoming soaked in the process.

I whipped out my card and swiped it. Nothing. The tips of my ears felt hot. I swiped it a second time. Again, nothing. Now my face was hot. I tried a third time to no avail. Now my entire head was steaming. I swiped the card almost violently. The Amish-looking clerk eyed me serenely. “Ennythang wrong, sir?”

Me: “NO!”

I thought, The goddamned Amish — can’t even keep their ATMs in working order. I looked at my card. Uh oh. It wasn’t my ATM card. It was my hotel room key card. I peeked out the corner of my eye to see if the Amish-looking clerk was still watching me. There he was, still gazing at me serenely. I quickly got my cash and slinked out of the place.

The laundromat was on another two-lane farm road in the opposite direction. It stood next to a liquor store that even in the deluge was doing a brisk business. The laundromat itself was populated by three lonely-looking men, all middle-aged or better and all looking out the front window as if dreaming of another place and time.

One of the men had a magnificent salt-and-pepper pompadour. He was dressed in all white with brilliantly shined black shoes, as though he’d felt compelled to dress up for Saturday night even though he was laundering his shorts. The other two men exchanged mumbled comments at long intervals. Their dryers buzzed. They gathered their clothes, folded them and carried them out to the car. Then they came back in and sat back in their same seats. After a long, long silence, one of them said to the other, “Yep,” long and drawn out, making it a two-syllable word.

Saturday night. Medusa’s was a very, very, very long time ago.