Light Street #3

Full moon over Raintown / 2018 / Collage by RCS

It’s just off Light Street. Where side-stepping the why-nots and rolling the dice is a way of life. A friend once took me to the most hidden-away speakeasy in town. One of those places feels like a mirage as you enter. Possibly to be found again on some future night? Hardly likely. Miracles were on the menu. Impossibly good wine with the perfection one only dreams of. Martinis made with such care they’d bring tears to your eyes. She grabbed my hand, led me downstairs. Feeling for a secret passageway inside an abandoned wooden telephone booth, we heard a click. Then we were in. The basement had been turned into a sensation parlor for the mind, all around us wood and golden frames shone around hundreds of paintings hung salon-style on the walls, presenting interior imaginings of artists who lived on far away islands, or studio apartments around the corner. Cracked paint on the walls spoke of shabby elegance. The ceiling was made of lights, stars, living breathing paintings. We found a spot at the never-ending bar, next to other dreamers and strangers. Every body and spirit within the place was exactly who they were, or precisely who they were pretending to be. Channels inside our minds were switched on. The music was tuned into what each one of us wanted to hear, as if we’d all drank a magic potion. A light in everyone’s eyes was turned up and as bright as it would ever be, for a long drawn-out moment. Time stopped. The needle dropped. The next tune livened the joint up. Glad to have found a rumor of a place, a delicious dive under the darkest alleyway in Raintown. A subterranean gathering place to remember for decades and lifetimes. Near Light Street.