DCDanceBlog

it’s friday night, the fringe festival, and i’m out on the street with the wild miss L. we’ve left the rest of our gang at the warehouse theatre and bar and have skipped out, looking for a cigarette. no luck so far. the ladies in front of the bar are smoking but they got their cigarette from a “leather biker bar” somewhere in the vicinity, so we’re hunting it down. en route, we pass two black women doing a performance surely in tandem with the fringe fest. one is all in blue–i mean all in blue, including skin and hair–and is fixed like a statue, while the other one is moving slowly and sinuously, while singing simultaneously. “terrible,” dismisses miss L, but i disagree and want to watch. it seems interesting and different, but the act hasn’t yet attracted any passersby except a homeless guy. who doesn’t have another cigarette.

so it’s onward and upward. we turn the corner to a club where a line of black folks are waiting to get in. i start to cringe. i’ve seen miss L after she’s had a couple of beers chatting pretty freely–to say the least–with crowds like this, including crowds of black people, so i’m shying away to the side. it’s not always pretty, but tonight she’s not too bad. “can i pay you for a cigarette?” she asks some of the women in line, but no one’s smoking. finally the security guards shoo us away, to my relief.

we never find the biker bar, and eventually we give up and go back to the warehouse theater, sans cigarette. it’s about time for the show we’re there to see, wendell and nicholette in “our love is empty,” so we and our crew head on back and sit in the front row. nicholette is already onstage, singing karoake to an old wings song possibly called “i love you.” miss L enjoys it immediately. “brilliant,” she whispers loudly.

soon–too soon–it’s over and we’re out on the streets again, talking about how great the performance was, how fresh and full of energy and honest. we pass a frat boy sitting on a windowsill, smoking. “mister,” asks miss L, still jonesing for that nicotene, “do you have a cigarette?” he does, and we’re off.