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Drum Beats

Yasmin Ramirez

     The walls from the venue reverberated from the music inside. I felt my leg, shaking from impatience begin to match the beat of the muffled song. The people in front of me smoked and chatted as they waited their turn to go in. I looked up at the mist haloed lights and took a deep breath of the damp air. A stream of cars drove up and down the street in front of the parking lot, their tires making wet little splashes adding to the song of sounds around us. Everyone seemed to be gesturing and nodding to the same rhythm. As I waited, looked around at Converse clad feet, replicated vintage rock shirts, and shaggy hair, I noticed the beat in everything; the shuffle of our feet, the intake of our breath, the pulse of our heart. We carry it without noticing, the flutter of fingers as they gesture to make a point, a leg swaying beneath the table, all part of the music that makes our individual beats.
     I was lost in these thoughts as I witnessed everyone making their own music, when I saw a tall, slender guy, with closely cropped hair walk out of the door I was eagerly awaiting to get in. He bounced slightly when he walked; heels seeming to barely touch the ground. He emanated a nervous energy, a little faster, more animated then the rest of us, who now mirrored the beats from inside. As he talked to the door guy, he gestured broadly with his hands patted the guy on his meaty arm with one hand while he pointed inside and laughed. The laughter moved his whole body. His shoulders scrunching up toward his neck, in a childlike motion, back moving in unison to the laughter I couldn’t hear, and when he did this I couldn’t help but resent his exit while I was still waiting to get in. I watched as he walked past me, grin quickly fading, shoulders suddenly braced, head up as if daring the misty night air. I cocked my head for a moment as I stared after him then turned to see the line had not moved.
    Twenty minutes later I was in the dimly lit insides of the seemingly alive venue. Manson’s the “The Beautiful People” was vibrating through my chest. It reminded me of high school and I couldn’t help but smile. The song felt as if it were throbbing though my body as I scanned the crowd in search of my friend Sage. My gaze swept across groups of people roaming to and from the bar, their seats, the bathroom, the stage, and I started to feel lost. I finally saw an arm stick straight up in the air, a beacon leading me to the bar. I maneuvered through the people getting stuck once behind a tree of man who seemed unconcerned to block the makeshift path.
    “Oh my god that took forever. I’m so sorry!” I yelled, gesturing to the bartender, “Heineken, please.”
    “It’s okay. You really did take forever though,” she yelled back, “I almost thought you had flaked!”
    “What?!” I yelled just as the song ended and people turned to look at me.
    I shook my head and shrugged as she laughed. Never failed. We hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks and this was supposed to be our catch up. We couldn’t talk through the loudness, so I sipped my beer optimistically and looked around. We resorted to eye conversation and texting when one of us missed the message. We looked at each other as one guy with a tall platinum Mohawk took long large steps for his short combat booted legs. I grinned as it made the ‘hawk sway side to side. A shark fin dancing in the crowd. Another guy, with a portly body seemed to drag himself to a slow heavy pace; his hunched shoulders exaggerated the sluggishness of his demeanor. We looked at each other wide-eyed as we noticed his facial hair was gelled out in points. “He looks like a catfish!” I yelled into her ear, and she laughed. She grabbed at her long dark hair and made a mock mustache with puckered lips and I laughed even harder.
    We moved to a table close to the stage and fell into a forced silence. I looked at the people trickling in and floating around the large circular space. I gestured to an older waitress in short shorts to bring me another. From a distance you could almost make out what she had looked like ten years ago, but the smoke and life perhaps had softened the edges and added some lines across the canvas. The longer we sat the more filled the place became. One of the bands was doing a sound check and I tried to stifle a laugh as the lead singer said “Check check check,” over and over into the mic, so many times the word morphed into only a sound.
    They finished and went straight into playing. They were loud and I had a hard time appreciating the sound. Even in the large place it seemed to be fighting against the walls, the tables, itself, almost. I took another gulp. At this rate, I would have a fine buzz so when the next band went on; I would be appreciative regardless of the sound. They played about eight songs and said their thanks. I said my own.
     I pulled at the strap on my heel and rested my feet on the bottom of the chair near me. I saw the next band go up with only a second glance. Sage poked me in the arm and gave a thumbs up sign. I smiled and nodded. They began to play, but I continued to people watch, taking in appearances and sometimes bemusedly laughing, when something caught my attention. I heard it, it started out faint and it grew, but I felt it in my chest. I looked up at the band. I saw the top of the drummers head as he slouched over the drums. The beat did something, what I wasn’t sure, but I felt as if he was playing something familiar, intimate, something only I knew. How did he know my beat? I wanted to see his face to see how this stranger with two wooden sticks in his hands had found this moment, in this song. As it ended he finally raised his head and I saw the same face I had seen earlier, the slender guy with the little boys’ laugh. This time, the smile was real and didn’t immediately disappear. It lit up his face and he laughed as he nodded to the lead singer and they went straight into another song.
    Sage poked me again, this time the thumbs up was a question. I nodded, distracted as I turned back to the stage, and she smiled her bright smile. I was transfixed. There was something about how they played, he played, that made me lean a little further, stand, and forget about the people in front of me. It was wonderful and freeing mingled together. The lead singer eccentric, not wearing shoes just black socks, had Converse kicked to the side. He sang into the mic from a profile angle never directly looking into the crowd. Similar to the way the drummer played head down sinuously swaying side to side. His arms reached out to create the beat that was encompassing me, everyone it seemed as they all swayed and moved. The beats slowly seducing us all into whatever it was he was feeling at the moment. A trace of it could be seen on his face from the brief glimpses he allowed when he looked up. Glimpses where I think he lost himself in what he was doing.
     Everything became a reflex, automatic, and the grace in which he did this made me want to know him, talk to him, make love to him as he continued to draw me into his world. With each song we were drawn in a little more, wanted to hear a little more, wanted to feel that same uninhibited audaciousness that seemed to emanate from him. Their last song took me back to my childhood, a small yellow kitchen, with cumbias playing in the background as I chopped onions, and my grandma danced, the cooking pan her partner. I closed my eyes and swayed losing myself to a beat my heart had forgotten. The beat of childhood, my life, love and loss, passion and stolen kisses in the dark. The song like a train, building momentum, grew louder and faster and I smiled and danced with a wild abandonment, a mirror to his face as his arms moved more quickly than I could imagine, the momentum of his body making him look like he was dancing in his seat. I continued to move and dance as I felt the slickening of my skin as if he were my partner. The song sped up and slowed down simply to speed up again without a hope of catching my breath, but I was lost, we all were, and when it was over we stopped winded but sated, for the moment.
    I looked up and pushed my hair from face. Sage was laughing and clapping. The band was beginning to move off stage, but still I waited, looking. He stood his face glistening, white shirt clinging to his lean frame. As he walked from the stage there was a hint of a swagger that hadn’t been there earlier and I smiled.
    “I need a beer, and a cigarette!” I yelled at Sage as they turned on the house music again.
    She nodded, grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the bar. I looked back one more time to see a now empty stage. We waited in the long line at the bar for something to drink. I looked around trying to find him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
    “Awesome, right?” Sage asked.
    “A-mazing!” pushing back at my disheveled hair, “It’s hot!”
    “Let’s grab our drinks and go outside.”
    I nodded and continued to look around. Everyone was a little more buzzed, a little less self-conscious, and a lot more loud. Humid people brushed past me and bumped against us. We got our drinks and bee-lined for the patio. Outside, the cool misty air was a relief and our cold beers, the best we’d ever tasted. I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up into the air.
    I leaned against the wall, held beer in one hand, and my cigarette in the other. The patio was crowded but not as bad as inside. My ears had that after concert feeling as if I’d been swimming and couldn’t shake the last drops out. I took a drag and exhaled another breath in relief, eyes closed.
    “Hey, do you have a light?”

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