The job search was in its infancy. Nevertheless, I sent out at least a hundred resumes, applied for every job on craigslist for which I might be the least bit qualified and contacted all the temp agencies I could find in the Chicago area. I was determined to be employed. It wasn’t just the money, I had a pithy savings and likely could not take any prolonged sabbatical from the working class, it was also my temperament.
The recognition that my temperament was less than ideal for appropriate integration into society was the reason I started tutoring elementary school kids in Math and Science every Thursday afternoon and evening. Although, admittedly, it wasn’t why I continued. I continued for selfish reasons like: the kids liked comic books, they were funny, and I liked doing it.
If left to my own devices I would eventually become a hermit, sans my weekly tutoring on south side. I knew the longer I was out of work the more despondent I would become. I even considered learning to knit. I think this last revelation is what led Elizabeth to insist that we spend some time being outrageous.
And, therefore, we were destined for club Outrageous.
The only items she approved of in my wardrobe were my shoes. In fact, she borrowed a pair of orange faux-crocodile leather wedge heals with a turquoise bow at the toe. I wore a zebra printed spiked heal; the rest of my outfit came from her closet. She said I owned the clothes of a radiologist and the shoes of an OBGYN; which is like the medical doctor equivalent of saying that I dressed like a librarian with a propensity for fuckmeboots.
We wore the same shoe size but she was at least a size smaller than me everywhere but her waist. There were only two dresses she owned which actually fit over my expansive direr: an olive green button down, Mad Men throwback, 1950s style house dress or a cinch-waisted, almost backless, simple black dress which gathered and flowed nicely over her shoulders and hips but which merely stretched and puckered on me in the same areas. The black dress ended mid-thigh. I looked at myself in the mirror then gazed longingly at the olive green dress still hanging in the closet; it was knee length.
Elizabeth gave me a dirty look from over my shoulder, meeting my eyes in the mirror, having seen my attention stray to the closet.
In the end I wore the black dress. Even with the addition of thigh-high stockings to cover my bare legs I felt exposed and, if I must admit, a tad sordid.
We were able to enter the club with little difficulty even though a long line of party goers snaked around the length of the building. Elizabeth walked to the front and handed two large tickets to a man wearing sunglasses, at 11pm, flanked on either side by two beefsteaks of man-meat. As far as I could tell, the man in the sunglasses didn’t look at the tickets but I got the distinct impression he was studying us behind his dark lenses. He nodded his head, just once, then moved to the side so we could pass.
Elizabeth tossed me a bright, carefree smile as the clicking of our heels was swallowed by the jungle sounds of the club. I gaped at our surroundings in uneasy wonder; it was definitely going to be an experience. She didn’t communicate to me that the name of the club was actually ‘Outrageous.’ To be honest, ‘Overwhelming’ would have been a better name.
The inside of the club was quite literally a jungle. Twenty foot replicas of trees native to the rainforest towered above us and I followed the line of one of the taller trunks as it reached to a ceiling, either painted or canvassed to look like the canopy of a rainforest.
Strategically placed lights filtered through the pseudo-branches creating the effect of twilight in the heart of the Amazon. The ground slanted downward as you entered and it was impossible to tell how big the room was; I guessed rather than saw that the majority of the walls were covered in mirrors which multiplied the jungle atmosphere in every direction.
428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles have been classified in the Brazilian rainforest; I wondered how many would be represented in club ‘Outrageous.’
Unlike most clubs I’d had the misfortune of attending; the music wasn’t oppressive or omnipresent. I recognized the music playing unobtrusively over the sound system as The Mix-Up by The Beastie Boys, specifically the song B For My Name; intermixed with 2007 Grammy award winning album for instrumental pop were wildlife calls of the Brazilian rainforest. Just as the bass strummed a low rhythm a call wretched forth from what I guessed was the giant leaf frog, which was found in western and northern Brazil.
It could have been a different frog species; admittedly, I was not at all familiar with all Amazonian frog calls. But, since I recently read an article about the giant leaf frog and the medicinal potential of its waxy secretion leading to biopiracy of the species, it was the first frog which came to mind.