Dancing at Worlds

Sometimes I think about what it was like when I was in college, especially when I'm teaching in a building close to the buildings where my friends and I used to  hang out with military boys.  Back then, we never thought about where we would all be in ten years. We were having too much fun to think about the future. Then graduation came and we all went our seperate ways.  How could we have known that we would end up missing those moments later and constantly reminisce about them as if willing them to come back? How could we have known that our husbands would become annoyed with our reminiscing because they could never understand our wild times? We couldn't have known and now we just dream about those days and even though we are all different people, something about our particular friendship makes each of us remember the same vivid details from those times. I'm sure we each have one favorite moment from those times, but if I could time travel for one night, I would go back to World Cafe.  The building is hidden among industrial buildings and has become a medical supply warehouse.  But, back then, it was a place where you went to let everything go.  For as long as you were there, you were happily talking to strangers, while standing on the square-shaped, platform bar.  Or you were dancing to every single song because the deejay always seemed to have the perfect playlist.

One night....

We were all getting ready.  It was only 6:00pm, but we were girls and there were five of us.  I lived in the dorm at the top of the hill and so did two others (in different rooms).  The other two lived down the hill and across the street.  I was wearing my usual going-out outfit which consisted of; black pants, a strapless top, and super high shoes that I could only walk in whenever I'd had a few drinks.  I was in my room re-doing my hair because my friend (who usually did my hair when I went out) had gone rogue and turned me into Scary Spice's twin sister. Once I had it under control, my roommate asked if I wanted to go to the store with her to get something to drink.  We went to the store and wandered around the liquor aisle.  While we were there some guy from another university noticed her sweatshirt, which read "San Bernadino".  He was from there too.  They became engaged in deep conversation about their shared hometown. I smiled as I continued searching for the right drink.  They exchanged numbers, we bought the orange-flavored rum, and went back to the room.  My roommate and I sat on the floor in our room with shot glasses, cards, and the rum.  We played a drinking game and had a long conversation about boys.  The phone rang and it was one of my friends who lived at the bottom of the hill.

"Where are you?" I could hear the annoyance in her voice and I almost didn't want to go out, but then she said, " They're having $1 drink specials at World's so that's where we're going."

"I'll be down in a few minutes."  Even though my friend got on my nerves with her bossiness, especially when she was drunk, I loved World Cafe.  It was the first nightclub I'd ever been to.  I'd gone there the first week of college with a group of people from freshman orientation.  That had been a good night.  Every time I went to World's, it ended up being a good night.  So I finished getting ready and went to the bottom of the hill. Our other two friends from my dorm met us a little later and we piled into the car and turned up the radio.  We always listened to a cd we'd made that was titled "Yellow Jeep Jams."  We knew the words to every single song and even had moves for Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now".

We arrived at World's and got out of the car. We always managed to bump into the most random people in the parking lot.  The first guy that I dated during Freshman year I had met at World's, two years earlier.  That night, we saw his best friend in the parking lot.  He immediately recognized us.  He walked over. We talked to him and laughed with his drunk girlfriend for a few minutes before heading inside. Once we got inside, three of us headed to the dance floor and the other two went to the bar.  We were dancing in a small circle, like girls always do at nightclubs, then some guy grabbed my arm.  I danced with him for the next two songs and then we started talking. 

"So you're in school out here then?" he asked.

"Yeah, what about you? Military?" I could tell he was in the military.

"Yeah, Army."

"Wait, what? Army? Like, Schofield army?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Oh, I just got out of a relationship with a Schofield guy, I'm kind of trying to stay away from them."

"Um, really?" He looked at me like he couldn't believe I'd just said that.

"Yeah, all of my friends and I were dating these Schofield guys, it ended badly for all of us."  My jaw was hurting from trying to hold in the laughter. 

My friend came up to me suddenly and I introduced her to the guy and told her that he was from Schofield.

"Ugh, not Schofield, maybe we should go to a different club." 

The guy just stared at us like we were crazy.  "Are you serious?"

I couldn't take it any longer and started laughing.  "A little bit, but not really."

"Oh, okay... you had me trippin' there for a second."

I kept laughing and then my friend grabbed my arm so that I could walk to the restroom with her. 
When we got inside, the tiny lady who had candy, gum, hairspray, lotion, etc. ran over and hugged us.  We hadn't seen her in a while and we always spent a good thirty minutes in there talking to her whenever we were at World's.  We also left her five dollar tips even though we never used anything.  She was like this mother figure, while we were away from home.  It felt nice knowing that there was someone who cared about us, even in a nightclub.

We went back out and found our two friends who'd been at the bar chatting it up with some other Schofield-Army guys that we eventually became good friends with and ended up hanging out with all the time.  We took them with us to the dance floor. Cam'ron's song "Hey Ma" started playing and one of the guys and I knew the moves from the video. We danced for a while, and then I started dancing with someone else.  After a few songs, the new guy and I walked over to the bar and sat down.  He told me he was also in the military and then he started to cry.

"Is everything okay?" I didn't know what to do.

He told me that his wife had passed away two weeks earlier. 

"I'm so sorry." I hugged him and he continued to tell me about her. I sat there and listened to everything.  It was the first time he'd been out since she'd passed away.  I felt sad thinking about how he must've been to World's with her and how much she probably loved to dance.  The club was about to close and he asked for my number.  I gave it to him, but felt strange about the whole thing.  I was not a psychologist.  On the way home, I thought about him in the car as my friends and I cruised around the island like we always did.  He called me the next day and told me that he was sorry for unleashing all of that information on me, but he was glad to have talked to me.  He had been feeling suicidal since it happened, and his friends had encouraged him to go out.  That night had made a difference.  Dancing at Worlds had saved his life.  Every time I went to World's, it ended up being a good night, even if it wasn't always for me.