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Just as I confirmed that I’d be writing a monthly column for
Toronto Goth, I had material bestowed upon me instantly. Beelzebub was clearly
at work that weekend, granting me a night of music, fun, and crime, that I was
destined to write about. So buckle up and enjoy the ride….
It
took me almost 10 years to figure out that when you go to a bar, you just
can’t trust anybody. This became painfully obvious to me recently at a
club on Queen West.
Now I will say right now that I am a smart girl. I
tend to keep an eye (although a slightly inebriated one) on my belongings at
all times when I hit the bars. I balance it with an incredible trust in the
gothic community that they won’t take my things. And I think most people
in the community feel the same way. Just go to any club and you will see the
trust- Savage, Vatikan, Velvet- jackets heaped on couches with purses and other
belongings tucked underneath. And when we return from dancing to our favorite
Nine Inch Nails song, we trust our coat and other belongings will still be
there.
Many people forego the coat check for two reasons: First, the
flexibility to get at your coat and come and go from the club as you please.
Secondly, why not save that $2.00 for a beer?
Generally I do check my
coat and keep my money with me at all times. But at times a purse, as tiny as
it is, becomes cumbersome when you’re trying to dance with that hot guy or
gal on the dance floor. So I sometimes leave it under a friend’s coat. I
have even been so brazen as to leave my purse out in the open, on a table,
while I danced. Call me stupid, but I prefer to think of it as having faith in
human nature.
But that faith vaporized on a chilly winter’s
night. After an evening of drinking and dancing at a Queen West club, my
friend’s coat disappeared from the bench she left it on. So began the
frantic search of the bar. Like a trio of drunken detectives, we scoured every
inch of the place. The good news is we found the coat. The bad news is that it
was lying in the griminess of the boy’s bathroom floor, minus her mittens
and some pictures we gave her earlier that night.
We left the club,
and as we walked down Queen, bitching about how unbelievable it was that she
had her stuff stolen, we found the crumpled envelope her pictures used to be
in. Like Velma, Daphne and Freddy, we were hot on the trail! And we kept a
sharp eye out for the pictures and gloves. Just as we reached the
McDonald’s at Spadina, we saw a couple frantically yelling and waving at
us. Great, I thought, some crazies to finish off the night perfectly. But it
turns out they weren’t crazies at all. In fact, they were saviours in
black, waving a stack of snowy photos-- the very photos stolen from my
friend’s coat. Apparently the good-natured twosome said they found them on
the sidewalk and picked them up to look at them. Their intriguingly voyeuristic
nature came in handy that night. They recognized us from the pictures and were
yelling at us, trying to get our attention for half a block.
So my
friend went home in a dirty coat, clutching wet pictures in her gloveless
hands. And we all vowed not to leave any of our belongings alone again.
But that didn’t last too long for me. Exactly one month to the
day my friend lost her coat, I stupidly left my bag under a jacket at the same
club. At 4:30am I got up to dance to two songs. When I returned to my seat and
reached for my bag, it was gone. I freaked out. I mean completely freaked out.
I released a torrent of expletives and started tossing all the jackets into the
air and got down on my hands and knees to look for my glossy bat bag. I was a
mess.
After searching for half an hour I found some of my things. The
darling thief was kind enough to deposit my purse and it’s contents
throughout the club- minus ten bucks and my Urban Decay Face Case. I found my
bag, and my change purse with ID. Although initially I reacted violently, I
quickly got over it. I found the essentials, and the proprietors of the club
were more than helpful while I scoured the property. But my grimy search
yielded more than just dirty hands and knees. I found a few empty change purses
that night. Obviously I wasn’t the only victim.
Now if you are
debating my stupidity at leaving my purse alone, let’s examine the thief
for a moment. If he were a smart individual, he would have taken my ID to sell
for a tidy sum to a teenager desperate to pay for a faker to get into clubs or
pick up hooch at the LCBO. But lucky for me that never passed through his
brilliant mind.
And as I munched on a greasy diner breakfast that
morning, watching the sunrise, I had to chuckle. I learned my lesson and the
most valuable thing I lost in all of this was my makeup. It was designed to
look like a sleek metal cigarette case. The thief made off with what he thought
was a pretty cool trinket for his smokes. Instead he unwittingly went home with
a fabulous array of lip-gloss and eye shadow. Enjoy the makeover.
posted March 10th 2004
index of all the "Adventures in Gothic Clubland" columns
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Darq Angel has been living in
Toronto for 15 years. An avid reader, writer, club-goer, and music lover, she
has been a lurker in Toronto's gothic scene, floating around quietly, casting
her dark shadow over various clubs and events in the city. 