Cool Kids

            These people can go die. In all their being, waiting around with T’s of Oasis and Jarvis Cocker to the Strokes in order to signify this hierarchy of taste and experience in line—it all means nothing, not to me. They’ve all paid the same amount, drove the same distance (I’m pretty sure of it), and all have no exception to the head of the line—ahead of me.

            I’ve died and resurrected myself again, in every wandering thought I had in classes counting down to this moment and too weird that knowing now that this is the moment. It’s real, no longer an idle thought. It’s not even music anymore.

            This is going to be a night.

            Never could ask for a better birthday present, and I didn’t ask for Alyssa, Melissa, and Cat to be a part of this. But with three extra tickets in the package, had to put them to use. Had to make those girls’ lives worthwhile, too.

            I’m not so mad once the line’s moving. I’m elated, grinning, my mind all over the place—my eyes scanning the passing cheap luggage hole in the wall or that gritty-looking strip club for some reason called The Crazy Horse. I’m feeling crazy, but not for the sights of the voluptuous. I’m feeling crazy amongst my friends, that close-knit crowd around me of people who only relate to me in the same mania—I feel it in the cold air that’s telling me someone’s just lit up a joint.

            This isn’t just going to be a night anymore. I come to see this, just as I’m already in place to see one of the most significant bands in my life. At age sixteen, there’s not much room for definitive role models or icons—save those for the college conferences where they’ll be your guiding light. But you like to think you have role models, and cool ones at that. Arctic Monkeys were crazy. They were English. They must’ve been cool. The masses of shaggy heads and skinny jeans reaffirm this conclusion of mine.

            I was always told a live performance was worse than what the CD already fed me, and I couldn’t argue back due to my inexperience with any. It would ruin my hearing if anything. I realize I am fine though, only burdened with a plump pair of yellow ear plugs Mom bought for each of us. I don’t want any more burdens, and I’m only sixteen. I want to lose everything. Lose myself. And I am feeling it, as the lanky bodies tighten around us and I lose the other girls in seconds. I get Cat back. If I wanted to lose myself I sure didn’t want to be alone with strangers!

            The delightful smell of tequila floods the fresh air above, masking the dense sweat pouring from the masses as the lights dim. Is this a coincidence? All the senses turn upwards, to the air, the glowing electric stage, to the drum intro of “A Certain Romance,” the last song I played before the car took off from Concord hours before. I know it too well—it was a comforting sound to the new experience around me and my friend.

            I don’t want these people to die anymore. I want them to live, jump, sing horribly along to the tracks being performed by four considerably hot English rockers before my eyes. Who’s really cool here? Them? These people I wanted to do away with not that long ago? I smell the tequila again as I turn my nose up for fresh air. Something here is fresh tonight.

(image via Tumblr)