by B C Woodruff
On the inside, where the hinges have been delicately attached, there’s a faded year on the door. 1793, it says. Now, I must address the fact that there’s an odd feeling that flows over me when I think of it, knowing that that solitary door has existed on this planet for a period far longer than most of us will count in our lifetime. And, if maintained properly, it will outlive generations more.
It shouldn’t be, but I find it awfully strange when I open an ancient door and find, hidden behind it, the present.
Not sure when it became appropriate to give so much credit to a thing but, there it is – and, behind the English door on Some Street, today’s most unfathomable minds meet and monologue.
I do stand-up there a few times a week. My show is pretty much an open forum, which isn’t uncommon, and rings true for many of my fellow modern philosophers. Interactive shows are real crowd-pleasers, and I love to hear what they have to say when they speak up.
‘I think therefore I speak’ is my mantra, and while I sometimes get lost along the way, landing far from where I started, that’s the beauty of having a job like this one.
But for all my talk of cognitive theory, imaginary businessmen, and the masses’ lives of quiet desperation, the place is warm and welcoming, if you can believe it. It’s a haven for groups of strangers that unite under an umbrella of intellectualism and healthy debate. It’s a speakeasy for a modern age where conformity is the norm, and it is here that the outcasts and the abnormals hold court, their words as sacrosanct as any pagan priest’s.
I stand on a small stage with creaking boards and a curtain stained with smoke from a bygone era when such things were tolerated, and I speak into a dusty mic that smells of alcohol, burps, and exotic compounds I couldn’t begin to name.
When I’m not on the stage, I recognize the gravity of the old saying: ‘Change can be a good thing’.
Like many of the regulars that come down to the club for fun, I welcome the escape it offers from the harsh smog of the city. There’s no shame in admitting that I enjoy the VIP status that I have here. I get to sit in the corner booth – the one they reserve for performers – and sip my water while I gather anecdotes from my life and consider what topics would entertain the crowd tonight.
So that’s the Alternative Comedy Club, or the ACC.
I’m sure you’ll realize that this isn’t its true name. I call it that because it sounds stupid. It sounds forgettable. It sounds ridiculous.
It means nothing.
It means something.
But only to those who have experienced it before.
How can that be? There are certain things that we are able to take on the mere word of others and accept them to be real. Then, there are other things that defy description – people, places, and experiences too unique to comprehend without shared context.
Without initiation.
The ACC is such a place.
Some call it the Ministry. Either could be right. Both might be wrong.
I’m confident enough in your deductive abilities to assume you’ve already figured out that the name of the street is likewise probably not Some Street, either.
Even if I were willing to provide you with directions, which I am not, I think you’ll appreciate and recognize (those of you who get it, I mean) what the place is really called.
Character Profile: The Neuronaut – Capital J.
I sit in my corner waiting for the end of this last bulwark of beatnik culture to complete his time in the limelight. He turns to me and gives a knowing nod, and laughs in a way that forces you either join him or scrunch up your face because of the way the decibels uniformly assault your eardrums. He wears clothes that have become trendy again, but that’s not intentional; the old saw about a broken clock comes to mind. It would be fair to believe that he hasn’t bought anything new in a decade or more.
I can’t tell you how many times people have called him a hipster and how he just smiles and nods back. He has no idea what that means.
Hipster is not a new word, to be sure, but even to him it’s something that’s out of reach for one reason or another. If one were to explain to him what it meant, he would claim that he’s so sequestered from modern trends that he could not possibly be a hipster.
Rejecting the title – the very concept – out of hand.
Ironically, that only deepens his hipster cred.
He thinks his tie-dye shirt and bowler cap that matches well with his book of Hemingway-inspired poetry means he has things worked out just fine. He smiles with a crooked grin that he earned in a war, but none that you would have heard of – many question its existence at all, but never in his presence.
Not after last time.
Jones is the name he goes by. Or, for whatever reason, Capital J.
Calamity and Confusion: An Orchestra – Regular Players
Now, Jones has been around since the ACC was still held in the off-hours at a mechanic’s garage over on Any Avenue. (No clues, as promised). Back before they found this place, built up the inside and stuck the English door on the front. He, like me, doesn’t drink. I guess we have that much in common.
He calls me Uncle Adam.
Well, for a while I thought he was saying that.
I didn’t look into it much because, I have to say, it freaked me out. I just couldn’t figure out how he’d discovered that nugget of who I was and wasn’t prepared to believe that he knew even more. Eventually, when I got my own slot at the ACC, I arrived and checked the evening’s schedule, and found that someone (Capital J, I presume) had scratched out my name and written Uncial Adam in its place.
Yeah. Had to look that one up.
I don’t get it.
I wonder if even he does.
He might not drink, but Capital J sure loves to get down with the psychoactives.
“They get my head on straight. They get me out of bed in the morn’ng. If I got cut off I’d probably just lie down right here and die.” He starts some of his sets with a few grams of mushrooms and a drop or two of acid. I’m always impressed how collected he manages to be by the end.
People like him because he’s willing to share and leaves a bag and an eyedropper on the chair at the front of the stage. Whenever someone comes up to partake he pulls them to the stage and asks them for a story. He doesn’t care about quality – he just wants to hear what other people say.
We also have that in common.
Capital J, Pimm told me when I got my regular spot, is apparently
a very rich man. Like, this guy can apparently afford to keep a small contingent of gold diggers following him around and praising his every word. Even if he’s never been known to share his wealth with anyone apart from, well, the obvious.
Persistence is a virtue, I suppose.
Maybe they’re just hoping that he’ll grow tired of his lonesome existence and accidentally let on about where his fortune is hidden – and it is hidden, that much is as certain as rumour can be.
‘We’re talking own-a-small-island-nation level of fortune here, pal,’ is the way Pimm likes to describe him. Personally, I’m a bit on the fence about the whole thing. Any piece of gutter-trash would tell you the same if they thought it might grab your attention or earn them a drink, and while Capital J is not one to brag about his personal finances, there is a je ne sais quoi element about the man that I quite admire.
The story Pimm goes on to tell is that Capital J doesn’t really use his fortune much anymore because of the fact that it was built on tragedy, and the way he chooses to live is a weird penance for contributing so negatively to the world.
He single-handedly pays for Pimm’s ACC. Some even suggest that they are actually a couple, and to that I say good for them if it’s true, and even if not, at least they seem to support one another. Together, the two have worked to open clubs like it across the country with varying levels of success. There are apparently a few overseas as well, but they have… geographical... managers, or something like them (your guess is as good as
mine – I can’t imagine any of them having board meetings or signing off on quarterly reports), so we don’t hear much about them. If I had to guess I’d say there are probably fifteen or twenty ACC affiliates across this strange, stupid world of ours.
At the end of a day, or the beginning of his act, Capital J remains a man difficult to quantify. I like that about him. On the other hand, there are characteristics and habits that are sometimes so overwhelmingly bad that they almost undo the elements that work in his favour.
For example:
Sometimes, after three or four days straight on the clock and on the stage, his clothes become soaked in so much sweat that they practically become building material. At which point Pimm will guide him back to the changing room and ask him to go home and the man will just sit there and cry for a while – or have a spell, as Pimm calls these occasions.
As in, “He’s having one of his spells again.”
You can’t really hide much in the ACC. The place isn’t very big and the sound carries. So whether you’re taking a particularly devastating shit in the single-stall unisex toilet or you’re heading into an emotionally crippling bad trip, people are probably going to hear you. Silly old man. He has to know.
After a good cry, he’ll head out to front and always – and I mean always – the same black car will pull up and help him into the back. This is why I say that I’m on the fence about who Capital J really is. The answers are probably easy enough to find, but I don’t really care enough to uncover them. He is who he is just as I am who I am.
Character Profile: The Owner – Pimm
He’s a raggedy man with enough charisma and lingering good looks that he must have been quite the popular guy back in the day. I’m not trying to suggest that people who come to the ACC don’t commonly possess these attributes, just – well, if you met Pimm you would understand.
I hope you get to meet him.
His voice is deep and welcoming. His eyes are exact and analytical, his humour precise and his wit dry as a desert. He’s the type of person you want to have at your parties – be they fancy, casual, or more difficult to categorize. Stories flow through him like they’ve just thawed off a glacier, with a timeless, bardic reverence that catches the attention and captures the mind. His office is at the back of the ACC’s nook. Technically speaking it’s not inside the ACC building at all, but a canopied alleyway where the top neighbouring buildings come close to touching, fail, and instead form a hidden area.
Some of the older ACC vanguards say that it is the result of an earthquake.
I’ve never heard of earthquakes here, though.
Overlapping rings left by neglected glasses decorate his fine old mahogany desk, with intricate symbols and Chinese pearl inlay.
People who were around in the beginning call him President Pimm, a title we hear less and less as more of them meet their makers. I can’t quite place his age. I doubt it would be uncharitable to place him in his late eighties, if not well older than that.
Despite the stories he shares, few seem to be personal, and so I’ve gotten to know him more through his daughter than I have the man himself. He’s kind, though, and I can tell that there are things on his mind even when he seems focused on the present.
Character Profile: The Violent Lady – Gae
One of the best parts about working at the local ACC, for me at least, is getting to know Pimm’s daughter: Megaera, or just Gae. Strictly off-limits, she is the hot commodity that brings in the thirsty crowd from late to very late.
(Also early morning, if you’re the sort that cares about fine distinctions like that.)
Now, it would be impolite to say that she’s anything less than a vision, but it’s her intellect that is her true gift.
But to be impolite: She’s devastatingly, mind-blowingly, incomparably Hot.
She has short red hair and dark brown skin that almost ignites the dark atmosphere that reigns in our humble hole-in-the-wall. We’ve known each other for five years and in that time, I’d like to say that I listened to the house rules on keeping away but that wouldn’t be true. We matched well enough in the beginning, as so many tragic relationships do. Then, over just a few weeks, we went from whirlwind romantics to catastrophically incompatible. I can’t really point to any one cause. On paper, as in thought, we match like two sides of a puzzle. In practice, we were as similar as water and oil. It just came to a point where I would close my eyes and wish she was gone. I did it so often that eventually, she was.
I don’t regret it.
We’re friends now, and that story arc is in the past, so I won’t trouble you with it.
I was more sensible back then, and after we desynchronized I fell into a great depression and fed myself on an even deeper anger. Arata and various other psychological constructs were put into place to help me cope. They’ve played as great a part in my creative evolution as they have on my character, and for that reason I can look back now, after the storm has passed, and see that all of it was good.
So yeah, maybe I do regret it a bit.
Gae, as her name suggests to the ear, is joyous, and one of a kind.
She’s with a young artist these days who does pretty well for himself, and she seems happy and we still talk and hang out when I’m doing sets at the ACC.
Her father brought her into the fold of the ACC when she was only fifteen and at thirty-three she’s seen a lot of what this side of the wall looks like. Her ability to carry on conversations about Marxist idealism or debate the ethical and moral implications of animal testing before human trials, all through a three AM haze of smoke, speaks volumes about the impression the place has had on her, and that she in turn has had on the ACC. What did she always say before I started a set? That’s it – raise the discourse. An admirable goal.
She’s a vegan, too, if that means anything to some of you.
Didn’t make much of a difference to me, but I can’t fight my upbringing and my cravings. This is a flaw that I expend as much energy fighting against as Goliath did against David. You think you should be able to win but alas, sometimes the unexpected occurs and you find yourself with late-night quinoa cravings and a comprehensive understanding of what constitutes a “superfood”. That’s Gae for you.
She volunteers at a local medical clinic and helps with vaccinations, piss tests, and other routine procedures. Pimm says she was studying medicine before her mother died and that the tragedy derailed her, leaving her driverless in her own life.
Leaving behind the old and reinventing herself, Gae was swept into a new stream of purpose by her desire to escape.
She didn’t have to go far.
Bartending at the ACC pays the bills, while her performances bring in enough people that she’s purchased a few apartments across the city to rent out to the riffraff. Or so she likes to claim.
To my knowledge, I’m the only riffraff.
Her father thinks she’s entrepreneurial, but doesn’t realize the apartments have been carefully converted into grow-ops for, no surprises here, her boyfriend.
I’d say that at least ninety percent are used for this purpose. I’m sorta her charity case, and she lets me pay late or, sometimes, when a month is hard, not at all. Can’t fault a person like that – especially if you’re the one benefiting from the situation. It would be unseemly. Even rude.
So about her boyfriend. Just because he’s one of the biggest dealers this side of the river doesn’t mean he can’t also be a real quality character. He pays his taxes. He supports non-profits. He pickets asinine new laws and publicly advocates for sensible policies. Mostly, he just tries to be visible. What better way to hide than in plain sight? But seriously. He’s a nice guy – sends regular alimony checks and child support payments to his ex-wife, and takes an active role in raising the kids (one that’s his, two that aren’t) whenever he can. So what if he’s sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars in thoroughly whitewashed cash collected from desperate psychonauts starving for their next glimpse of the divi
ne mechanism that binds reality together and keeps humans so far apart?
Doesn’t bother me in the least.
Oh, I’m not very good at lying, am I?
There’s a lot to be said about Gae – too much, really.
She likes strange things and gets excited about harrowing subjects like measles outbreaks or impending world-altering political decisions. There are no Barbies in her closet or visions of white dresses in her future. She’s stepped sideways from convention and shot at expectations with both barrels of her imaginary sidearm (sometimes literally; she’s an unusually talented mime with a flair for combat).
Her armpits are hairy and her legs well-insulated, and that’s all good because she’s a damn fine person. I like Gae because she’s one of the few who can wrest the course of a conversation away from me, even when I’m on a roll.
You came here for a different reason, though.
You want to hear the weird stories.
The ones that make your spine tingle and warp your sense of perspective, that strip you of the illusions and assumptions that let you sleep. Goodness knows why, but you want to peer over the abyss without the safety railing, to lock your ego in a shiny tin box while the universe shows you just how small you really are.
You want to walk the line and learn what made me forget the petty rules of civilization, how I replaced the flimsy fabric of social convention with my own, albeit jaded perspective. I’ll start with a story that I think will pierce the veil that clouds the eyes of our kinsmen.
This is one of my favourite performances. When I travel to a new city I go straight to the online boards and find the nearest ACC. Sometimes, when I know where I’m going before I set off on a journey, I’ll even call ahead and see if I can book an evening or two on their stage, offering my services and lend my arrogance to the ambience. So, here we go: