I drove across town and picked her up. Then we went to Blockbuster. She wanted to rent “Run Lola Run” but she also needed to sign up for a rental card. She signed up for a card but then there was dispute among the crack staff as to whether or not she could actually rent the movie since it was rated R. It seems some of the staff thought that you had to be over 21 and others couldn’t add at all and thought my friend was under 18. They finally figured it out and let us go.

She told me to turn on to Seven Mile Road and drive for a while. She had me turn down some side street in Detroit and park in front of a house. If I had known I was going to be watching a movie in Detroit I would have stayed home. She told me to follow her around the house and as we passed through the gate she said “they live in the garage”. Hmm, great. In the driveway was an old Ford truck with some uneven vinyl lettering that said “Candlery Detroit”. Parked in front of the one car garage is a vehicle covered by a tarp, easily distinguishable as an older Volkswagen Beetle by its shape. Next to the large garage door is a standard door like you’d see on any house. She knocked on the door and a girl answers, she’s in her twenties, stocky and wearing a plaid shirt, cargo pants and glasses. “Doug, meet Morning Glory”. I said hello and stepped in to the twilight zone.

Inside the doorway was a garage that has been converted to a sort of studio apartment. I was suddenly hugged by a man with long greasy hair and a beer belly. “Hi, I’m Richard, welcome”. “Hi” I said.

The back wall of the garage had a large bed against it. Behind the bed was a headboard with candles, books and packs of cigarettes. There was a couch and a chair along the wall on my right and the wall to the left had an odd array of audio/visual equipment. The entire lower portion of the wall was filled with racks of records. In the center there was what appears to be a desk with a pedestal in the middle. In front of the pedestal was a mixer with turntable resting on each side. On top of the pedestal was perched a very large television. To the right was a rack of audio equipment that is taller than I am.

They immediately invited us to sit down and offered us 7-Ups. I noticed that against the inside of the large garage door was what looked like two dressers stacked on top of each other. Morning Glory grabbed a photo album from a shelf and starts pointing out photos of she and Richard with various DJs and promoters at recent events. Some names I was familiar with, Derrick May, Juan Atkins, others I was not. While I was feigning interest in the photos Richard looked through several record bags before donning headphones and taking a seat on the stool in front of the desk. Soon the garage was filled with a crisp but sparse electronic beat.

The fireworks girl asked Richard to show me the lights. She tells me that Richard and Morning Glory sometimes do the lighting at raves. I look up and notice the ceiling for the first time. It is covered in some reflective surface. A framework of metal tubing follows the lines of the roof. There are 8 fixtures with black light bulbs arraigned at different angles. There are strobes, colored lights and several oddly shaped fixtures. Richard started reaching for switches and the place went black except for two small red lights behind the turntables. The black lights came on. There were small plastic planets and shooting stars hung everywhere that were glowing. A string ran from one end of the garage to the other and was lined with long dead glowsticks. The glowsticks took on new life in the black light. Many of them had dates and comments written on their plastic bodies in black felt tip pen. I asked Richard if it was a kind of timeline, he gave me a wink and said “sort of”.

We finally sat on the couches and watched Run Lola Run. Watching the large television and listening to the surround sound coming from several speakers placed in strategic nooks and crannies it was easy to forget that I was sitting on natty old couch in a garage in Detroit. Soon I smelled the distinctive odor of pot. I looked over to see Richard lighting up a glass pipe. I was glad that I was sitting on the end because I knew that I would very possibly be drug tested for a position that I had applied for and I wanted to be as far away from the smoke as possible.

It occurred to me as I looked around that the space was very efficiently used. Racks and shelves and everything very neat. I imagined Richard as a Deadhead from way back. Probably used to living in a Microbus. This garage was likely palatial to him. He seemed like the sort of guy that would have followed the Dead until the end. When it was over he probably wandered back to Detroit, and his parents offered him the garage. Or maybe he had his eye on the garage, to him it may have seemed like a perfect spot. He went to work dipping candles and fell into the rave scene. The leap between the two is not that drastic really. Love, drugs, twirling around.

Suddenly the movie was over and Richard lept up to shut it off. The glass pipe fell from his lap and broke on the floor. He considered it for a minute and then carefully swept the glass into a pile with his shoe.

We announced that we had to leave, but Richard insisted that we check out something first. He searched his racks and pulled out a laserdisc, not the CD size variety, but the ones that are the size of an LP. He lit some candles and put in the disc.

“What is this?” my companion asked. “Just watch, it’s short” came the reply. Suddenly men were chanting on the screen. Moving in unison. Some sort of ancient culture. Then another group of people with their bodies painted, moving in a circle shouting. Then the sun rising over a mountaintop. More scenery, more rituals. Then people on bicycles, then ramshackle housing, tanned gaunt figures picking through large garbage dumps, then people walking on city streets, ignoring each other, traffic moving through cities, crowds pushing through airports. The entire film was fascinating and completely without commentary. It seemed to say beware of where we are headed and what we are losing. I wished that I had caught the name of it. 90 minutes after it started it was over, but I was glued to it the whole time. Richard tricked us into watching it and I was glad that he did.

As we went to leave Richard disappeared into a back room and returned with blue slips of paper. He announced “hot off the presses!” and handed us each one. I thought it was going to be a party flier, but instead it was filled with typewritten words that appeared to have been mimeographed.

There was a round of hugs and then I stepped back into the cool dark Detroit night. Past the run down VW and the candle truck to my car and then through the grimy ghetto streets toward my apartment.

I don’t understand hippies and I don’t understand ravers. I felt a bit out of place in their garage even though I was welcomed openly and asked to please come back. I think someday I wouldn’t mind stopping by again. Of course I haven't heard from the girl since.

DM

On the slip of paper:

Bees dance to tell others in their hive how to get to food sources. Ravers dance to tell their tribe how to get into the vibe. This is spontaneous art as communication. Perhaps even more than that. I think it’s funny, when the powers that be, tell us they are not against our forms of dancing. Because they are. When we dance we go beyond the visible. We understand and accept each other AND keep dancing. We come away each night refreshed and ready to face life with wisdom that we are not alone, that we don’t have to hide and let someone make our choices for us. Our dances create unique patterns, freeform and ever changing. There are no set steps, there are no rules, other than the peace we hope to create, the love we show one another, the unity to which we strive and the respect by which we create space for others. In dancing we can truly be ourselves and express ourselves fully to and with one another. M.G.