Lyres.

Lyres was (and still is) a mecca for the freaks and outsiders. Not just the punks, rockers and goths, but trannies, genuine outcasts and actual freaks of society have chosen it as a ’safe’ haven.
It was a place where The Girl with the Deformed Face could feel just as comfortable as The Cool Dancing Girl with the Flowery Docs.

It was where a ‘being’ called Z ruled the downstairs, never sitting, but was always stood tall and proud in trenchcoat and black contacts, his peroxide mane fixed and streaming over his otherwise shaven head.
Beyond where, outside, the most respect he could command would be a gob of spit on his back, here, one was honoured if he nodded in your direction.

It was where any manner of guy or girl could be like any manner of girl or guy – all made up to various extents of androgyny, masculinity, femininity, other, all in between and besides.

I wore make-up. I wasn’t a goth. I wasn’t a rocker. But I liked The Cure and I liked Metallica. And I would bound, mid conversation, from the beer garden upon hearing the bongo intro to Been Caught Stealing twelve inch by Jane’s Addiction. I would freak.

I would thump all over the dance floor – all limbs flying, far and wide. I’d twirl and leap on the beat. I’d throw the left leg and right arm out and if you were in my way, sorry man, but you should fuckin’ know better – that was my signature tune.

‘dolph’s was Tommy the Cat, and he’d do much the same but more subtle, more suave, even if it came on early from the jukebox when the dancefloor was clear.

Sí would snake sexy and seductively, sleeves held over her palms, to Lovecats. She’d share knwoing glances with me from the corners of her lovecat eyes.
The two of us fucked with Misirlou like a pair of shithot tango dancers.

Lyres was the place dreams were made, made true and broken. It was freakish like a nightmare and blissful as the end of the rainbow.
They used to sell t-shirts; “I lost my virginity at Lyres.“

I’d get too drunk. I’d sit alone in the beer garden and stare. I’d just stare and ignore anyone who said anything to me. Because I was torn up inside and misunderstood and fucked up – even more than these people. More than the freaks. More than the goths. I’d never fit in. Alien.
Then I’d hear those bongos and race off. I’d return four minutes later, gasping for breath and guzzling on water, smiling all over the place and sit and light a cigarette.
And I’d stare out at the freaks and the punks and the goths and the rockers and at my friends and thank fuck for Lyres.

(Two bottles of beer later, and the guy who’d been taking out his ‘rage’ as a ‘rat in a cage’ on the dancefloor, is now Jim Morrison, swaggering across the ‘floor to L.A. Woman blasting out cool as fuck over the heads. He’d morph into Satan himself as the Stones’ Sympathy… faded in.)