crab_traveler

When we lived in Chicago our neighbors at one apartment were a couple from Leeds. The lady was a philosophy grad student; the fellow was something of a professional socialist, insofar as his income came from odd jobs and his time was otherwise spent playing music and socializing

Only people I’ve known who I’d say threw “ragers.” Every couple of weeks a few dozen people would crowd into their small apartment. Drink was taken in copious quantities, cigarettes smoked by the carton. At dawn the revelry was still audible, hacking in delirious death throes

Walking through the house without shoes was very much unadvised on account of the glass; the floor would remain sticky for several days. No evening could end without at least one catastrophic common-law-marital spat. Guests were often two or three degrees removed from the hosts

I attended two of these gatherings. In the first I sat and listened to the fellow and a guitarist riff and jam for a couple of hours. Honestly, they were really pretty good. Before that night I don’t think they’d ever met.