valery

i waltzed into a night club around 5 am on friday night, one of those alleyway bars you could pass by a hundred times and never notice that it was there. a man with half a face let us in, he told the bouncer he knew us, even though he didn’t. i crawled into the club, and it was playing some fantastic noise, pulsates, thrusts, but oh so quiet ones, very minimal sounds, each a gut punch. i danced with a girl i didn’t know, her back against a mirror, and i could see the whole crowd behind me twitching. all around i could hear whispers in french, and i started to wonder if i would see anyone i knew from when i was a kid. i made my way through the cloud, and i scanned each face. i was looking for one friend in particular: valery, my best friend the summer we were seven. when school started again in the fall, our teacher asked us to draw on a piece of paper the best moment of summer. valery drew us playing cowboys in my apartment. i drew myself watching back to the future part two. i still feel bad. i wanted to find him and tell him i was sorry. but, of course, he wasn’t there. no one was there.