Escape

Hidden off a side street by Karsplatz Stacchus, the surgery light alleyway cuts through a hole in the buildings. Pull a double take again. Could it be? Maybe we imagined it last time round. A solitary steel bar stool stands empty outside a meat freezer door, across from the Turkish hairdresser’s, which is shut after hours. Gaudy bouffant Europop hairstyles like shiny 90’s football stickers are splashed on its muggy windows. The walls and ceilings are bare in the alley, grey smudges showing up under the brightness of the artificial pale yellow gleam. You can never decide if it's more indoors or outdoors and though that’s mildly curious now, by early morning the duality of open, nude sunlight and waxy kitchen flooring will fuck with your fragile mind. Tug on the heavy door handle as if it’s that book in Bruce Wayne’s library and you hear the sucker pad smacking as it pops open, infiltrating the space inside. Step in and we're early, though the midnight hour's already been devoured. Three Middle-Eastern heavies man the bar- diamond ear studs, black v-necks and swelling forearms, folded over oil drum chests. Standing on a dormant dance floor that’s waiting to erupt, we reacquaint with the surroundings. The catacomb ceiling hangs like a giant spider belly above us, lifting your eyes to the metallic stairwell, hugging the near side of the room, climbing upward. On opposite side, a wall like a beehive melting in fire blaze curves along. Scarred with black flecks- marker-tip scrawls attempting and inevitably failing to convey in words the charming degradation of this place. Each  a leap for permanence from another hand, another fleeting someone striving to pitch their flag of conquer upon this nowhere.

Round of halbe helles for the lads. Deceitfully light liquid is gulped gratefully and we all eye each other with scheming smiles, as if we all scored an invite to the secret banquet. One or two eccenteric heads are milling in every couple of minutes now. Get a scuzzy rollie in while the tin fills up. Sit outside in the alley on the shiny floor and compare tobacco brands, sniffing and sampling like learned connoisseurs of the finest vino. Conversation turns to argument turns to counter argument turns to sparring turns to distraction turns to toilet humour. Then we're all cleansed by the filth again and back inside we go. Suddenly it's packed and we all act surprised, elevating the illusion of unpredictably. The DJ's in his cave banging out an inimitable setlist of everything from metal to girl pop to classic house. Here the lads begin to split, spreading out in every direction into the labyrinth. Up the stairs with banging giddy footsteps. A tiny second floor plaza for a minor breather. The couch, flesh sunk into it from a thousand drunken flings enmeshed, is so littered with sex and sleaze it's as if its core structural parts were stiff cocks, sticky fingers and bare buttocks. Further on two battered jacks- Herr and Damen indeed. Interiors like Fourth Division football stadiums; all torn-off logo stickers, tacky bold panelling and shattered cheap frames. Mirror like a river of lost souls. Toilet's splattered with hurried piss as custodians rush their flow so not to miss a second of the triumphant seediness and freakazoid bonhomie of the sweltering club below.