Katie hasn’t been there since that awful night. Usually, she spends a long time getting ready. There is always so much for her to think about. Songs. Vibes. Moves. Everything is always so well thought out. Structured. Planned. Katie needs to have that control. She needs it so the stage fright doesn’t win. She usually has to mentally prepare every single moment in order to make herself go on. There is no time for any of that tonight, though, and she feels a strange sense of relief in knowing that. Tonight feels different.
* * * *
It has been raining hard for days, maybe months, as itoften does in the Pacific Northwest. Katie tries to remember more about the walk to work and realizes she has very little recollection of how she got there. She feels like she’s been sleepwalking for two weeks. She keeps trying to wake herself up, but it isn’t working. She notices that her shirt is surprisingly dry in spite of the weather. Her black leather motorcycle jacket protected everything it covered on the way there, which wasn’t much.
Katie is standing in the dressing area staring at her reflection in the giant wall mirror. Her hair is curling from being wet and mascara is running down both sides of her face. She roughly wipes the mascara into slight smears on her cheeks and then away with her hands before sliding the jacket off. She is wearing a black shredded T-shirt she’d crafted with a razor blade. Her black bra straps are showing through the shirt like something done on purpose, like it’s part of the outfit. And it is. One sleeve of the shirt hangs off Katie’s shoulder and the other clings to her, saturated from her wet hair. Katie’s tight black mini skirt is almost too short to concern itself with things like splashes and puddles. Her thigh-high black stockings and zip-up knee-high black motorcycle boots feel like part of a superhero costume. They are. They keep her safe.
Katie is staring off into the mirror when the DJ announces her set. Her legs start moving by themselves and, unable to stop them, she moves in the direction of the stage. Katie’s legs are used to running. It is all they have ever done. They are running on muscle memory and restlessness. Her body is possessed by a sadness so big, it hurts to be close to it. Her legs haven’t figured out that they can’t outrun the rest of her yet.
* * * *
Riley watches as Katie comes out onto the stage. Shescans the room with a worried look and moves across the bar toward her wife, Vivienne, who is sitting at the other side of the bar. Vivienne knows that look on Riley’s face, and she’s pretty sure she already knows the words that are about to follow.
“She didn’t change her clothes. She didn’t even dry her hair…and she walked here in the rain,” Riley says to Vivienne, with panic in her eyes.
Vivienne drums her fingers on her glass and, searching for words, looks at Riley, gently places her hand on Riley’s cheek, and says, “Do you want to tell her she can’t go on?” Riley genuinely considers this question. Vivienne takes a hit of her cigarette and exhales smoke into the air above her.
“No,” Riley says. “I don’t know.”
Vivienne looks at Riley, nods, and shrugs.
No one expected Katie to be here tonight. Not after what happened.
It’s too late to pull her. Everything goes dark and quiet, and a single white spotlight clicks on. The heat from the light is hot on Katie’s skin. It itches and burns and the discomfort is almost unbearable. Katie raises her arms, which are covered with black tattoos of suns and moons and spirals, like she is preparing for battle. She realizes that she is trembling, and that’s when she feels it.
“Monolith” by Twin Tribes starts pulsing through the speakers. The song is heavy and hard to move through, like it’s thick and syrupy; like it’s something stuck in Katie’s throat. The last time she danced to this song was just over two weeks ago, before she knew what it felt like to be crushed from the inside out, before she knew what it felt like to lose all of the air in her lungs to devastation. Katie fucking loves this song. She loves how she can push against it, knowing that it will push back. Pushing stops the falling, and she can’t allow herself to fall. Especially not now. She will never get back up.
The notes drop together, creating something too huge to hold. It crashes into anything in its path, tosses it up in the air, opens its mouth, and swallows it whole. It feels like time is suspended in this space, but all Katie wants to do is go back.
Katie moves across the stage and grips the pole with her hands, one above the other. The knuckles on her right hand are rough and scabbing over from an argument she got into with a cement wall on the way there. Her curly, long, black-and-pink streaked hair is sticking to one side of her face, still soaked from the walk in the rain. The dim red lights above her reflect on the pole and her septum ring as she falls into a rhythm without even realizing what she is doing. Her movements are in sync with every layer of sound, like she’s trying to break the sound barrier, like she just might.
* * * *
Quinn’s stilettos had been firmly planted in the middle of the butch/femme social scene. Everyone knew her. Quinn, the fiercest person Katie had ever known. They were wild together. They were inseparable and everyone knew. Never lovers, but always so much more than that.
* * * *
On a normal night, patrons of the club made their way up to sit against the stage or move closer to Katie, some holding money in their hands.
But this is a dyke bar, and everyone knows.
Everyone knows there is an emptiness tonight. They know that a huge part of that emptiness is standing in front of them, half naked. They have no choice but to feel it.
* * * *
People fill the tables and couches around the room, leaving the space against the stage empty, like an unspoken token of respect.
Katie, usually slow and deliberate and controlled in her movements, falls into a sort of trance. She climbs the pole using her arms and legs, lifts herself up to the top and spins herself around, arching her back and letting her wet hair snap back before it sticks to the other side of her face. Every single beat, every movement, every second of this dance screams with a grief too large for anyone to hold. The beat creates an echo in her ears and she tries to keep up.
The floor growls when the bass hits like something is about to collapse, and Riley worries that it’s Katie.
* * * *
Riley and Vivienne watch from the bar and a feeling of helplessness rushes over both of them.
Riley thinks back to the last time Katie was there. It was two weeks ago. It was Katie’s night off. Riley was surprised to see Katie come in through the front door right before closing time. She could tell something was wrong the moment she saw her. They were exes, but the kind that just grew up and no longer fit together the same way. They were still family.
“Katie?”
