It was Friday, January 20, 1989.<\/p>\n
I worked at City Limits in Rosemount.\u00a0 It was a pretty tame night.<\/p>\n
Bummer.\u00a0 I’d hoped for a fight to break out.<\/p>\n
Because I wanted to hit someone.<\/p>\n
My heart raced, I think, all night; I seemed to be on a big adrenaline buzz, and for no good reason.\u00a0 I didn’t do drugs – and I didn’t have anything positive going on that’d justify it, either.<\/p>\n
It was a slow, cold night.\u00a0 The bowlers took off by 10.\u00a0 The few girls that tried dancing left by 11ish. By midnight, the bar was down to me, the bartender, a waitress and a couple of regulars.<\/p>\n
I looked around.\u00a0 I hated the place.\u00a0 Not just this place; I hated every one of the horrible bars I was working, City Limits, Jams, Wallaby’s, Whispers, Shooters, the White Bear, Silks, you name it.<\/p>\n
I hated the way my ratty tweed jacket smelled like smoke.\u00a0 I hated the ratty tweed jacket.\u00a0 I hated the music I was playing – indeed, I was starting to hate music.\u00a0 I rarely listened to music at home anymore.\u00a0 Music – the joy of my life, the thing that’d led me to the Twin Cities three long years before – was an irritation.<\/p>\n
Toward midnight a bunch of drunk snowmobilers came into the bar.\u00a0 Four of them sat at the table next to the DJ booth.<\/p>\n
“Heeeeeeey”, one of them bellowed.\u00a0 “When are you gonna quit playing this…”<\/p>\n
He’s gonna call it “n***er sh*t<\/em>, I thought<\/p>\n “…n***er sh*t off and play some…”<\/p>\n He’s gonna call it “white peoples’ music”, isn’t he<\/em>?<\/p>\n “…white peoples’ music?”<\/p>\n I hate my job, my jacket, music, the smell, the sound…I hate my life<\/em>, I thought. But not as much as I hate you, you fat f**k<\/em>.<\/p>\n “Ah.\u00a0 White peoples’ music.\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 What did you have in mind?”\u00a0 Hank Junior? Lynyrd Skynyrd<\/em>?<\/p>\n “Play some polkas<\/em>“.<\/p>\n My jaw may have dropped.<\/p>\n “Sorry, fellas.\u00a0 I’m fresh outta polkas”.<\/p>\n “I brought some!”<\/p>\n I stood there,mildly agog. “You brought polkas – on a snowmobile…” I started.\u00a0 Then stopped.\u00a0 “Sure.\u00a0 What the f**k.\u00a0 Bring ’em in”.<\/p>\n Two of them got up and left the bar.\u00a0 They came back five minutes later with four albums of Swedish polkas.<\/p>\n Not even f***ing Polish polkas, or German polkas.\u00a0 Swedish<\/em>.<\/p>\n I stood there, as I cued up a song, puzzled at the depths of the rage I felt for the fat, drunk, bearded rednecks. \u00a0 Why do I hate them so?<\/em><\/p>\n It mattered not.\u00a0 I did.<\/p>\n I played a polka.\u00a0 And counted the beat in my head; perfect.<\/em><\/p>\n I reached into the record bin and pulled out Prince’s Erotic City<\/em>.\u00a0 I cued it to the chorus, sped up the turntable just a bit…<\/p>\n …and during an instrumental break, mixed in the bit from the chorus:<\/p>\n “We can f**k until the dawn…”<\/em><\/p>\n The rednecks were none the wiser.<\/p>\n I cued it back, scratching the record over the polka beat.<\/p>\n We can…we we we – we can…we we we – we can f-f-f-f-f**k unti the the dawn<\/em>…<\/p>\n Three of the rednecks sloshed around the floor, dancing with one of the drunk women from the bar, oblivious. ———-<\/p>\n Usually, when driving home from City Limits, I either went to Cedar (and then 35E) or drove up HIghway 3 to get to Saint Paul.\u00a0 This time, when the bar let out for the night, I wandered over to Pilot Knob road.\u00a0 Slowly – well below the speed limit – I meandered the back roads through Apple Valley, up through Eagan, and to the West Side of Saint Paul.\u00a0 I crept through the side streets, as if I were sneaking up on an animal in my car – shifting, applying gas slowly, driving slowly and quietly.\u00a0 Trying, it felt like, to disappear into the dark.<\/p>\n Eventually – like toward 2:30AM – I crept up Smith Avenue above the High Bridge. I turned onto Cherokee, which runs along the top of the gorge on the south side of the Mississippi River, across from downtown Saint Paul.\u00a0 I slithered my car into a parking spot and sat, looking over the city.<\/p>\n I looked around.<\/p>\n I saw nothing but rejection.\u00a0 My career had rejected me, I thought, flipping the radio off.\u00a0 The music racket had pretty well had enough of me.\u00a0 Girls, friends, attempts to break out of the rut – all of them shaken their figurative heads and looked elsewhere.<\/p>\n And so here I am<\/em>.<\/p>\n F**k. There must be a reason for this.\u00a0 There must be a reason my life has completely stalled.\u00a0 That I’m living in a rat trap, getting conned monthly by a f***ing drug addict. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I deserve this.<\/em><\/p>\n I looked over the city.<\/p>\n No.\u00a0 Bulls**t.\u00a0 Something’s gotta change.<\/em><\/p>\n I felt cold.<\/p>\n But it isn’t gonna change.<\/em><\/p>\n I was right.<\/p>\n And <\/em>wrong.\u00a0 But not in the way I’d have ever predicted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was Friday, January 20, 1989. I worked at City Limits in Rosemount.\u00a0 It was a pretty tame night. Bummer.\u00a0 I’d hoped for a fight to break out. Because I wanted to hit someone. My heart raced, I think, all night; I seemed to be on a big adrenaline buzz, and for no good reason.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twenty-years-ago-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI stowed Prince.\u00a0 Just an hour to go.<\/p>\n