Sick Feed and Dylan Galvin @ Bayou

Bayou, 2519 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC

It is about 9 o'clock in the evening, the first of April, a Saturday. With a full moon shining, I am neat, clean, well dressed. I am everything a rowdy Washingtonian on the make ought to be.

I am heading to Bayou.

Bayou on Penn is two stories high. Three if you count the office upstairs. Outside the entrance door the bouncers look sharp, ready. It is as if they are primed to let in a rampaging troop of Indian elephants. The sign out front reads:

Appearing Tonight

Sick Feed and Dylan Galvin

Inside the door behind the hostess stand Beryl whispers, "DJ Chupacabra is playing the late night set tonight." I wink at her. She smiles back. On the east side of Bayou a free staircase rises to the dance floor. Beyond the dance floor lies a stage with a wooden guard railing and large mirrors flanking it. The lighting is low. Perfect.

Large booths with rounded red plush seats are backed into the spaces by the upstairs window overlooking the business end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Tonight they look as if nobody has ever sat in them. In the middle of the east wall there is a big empty fireplace with black trim. Perched over the fireplace rests a wooden mantel with tea candles placed on the corners. The candles are lit. So am I.

Above the mantel hangs a large mirror. I stare back into my hot black eyes when the front door opens far back under the stairs. It isn't Francisco coming back. It is a girl.

I stand at the upstairs bar and order a couple of double scotches from Justin. They do me good. They make me think of the girl and I wonder if I will ever see her again. "Show's about to start", he says. I hear the opening strains of a song I love. A song I love for all the wrong reasons. Just like the girl. The night is young. The night is mine..