Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

It's all so fucking surreal. And suddenly I'm wanting to tell Tris about it. Which is so fucking wrong, but it's not the kind of thought that's a choice. Where's Fluffy was the second show we went to, and the sixth, and the eleventh, and the fourteenth. She'd never heard of them, so I dragged her well past midnight to see them at Maxwell's, underage but not underambitious. She was so skeptical of bands she'd never heard of-like she couldn't get a buzz if there hadn't been some buzz. Where's Fluffy convinced her, though. She got it on the first song and wasn't afraid to show it. She whooped and hacksawed and knifed up and hair-flailed nonstop for the full 110 rpm set. Afterward she said, "Man, those guys were hot," and I was so entirely jealous of them, until she said, "But not as hot as you right now" and I became a firework waiting to happen.

But that wasn't all. I'm thinking about the sixth time. I was dancing, doing my thing, and she just stopped for a moment, looking at me. And I screamed, "What?" and she screamed back, "You have to stop that," and I screamed "What?" and she told me, "You're still here. You have to go farther than that." And at first I didn't get it, but then I realized that she was right; I wasn't giving myself up to the music. I was looking at the people around me. I was self-conscious. I was contexting every single note. "Just let go," she yelled. And at first I couldn't, since I was so grounded in the trying. But then the band launched into "Dead Voter" and for the first time ever I freed myself from everything but the chords. I didn't think about Tris-she had hidden herself behind the song, orchestrating it all. After we were done, sweat-glazed and panting, we didn't have to say a fucking word. We just looked at each other and there was this recognition. She'd pushed me and I'd gotten there. I was grateful. Am grateful.

I look at the crowd for a moment, trying to find her again. I know she's there somewhere, even if she's not in the room. Even if she's making out with some other guy in some other club without one single synapse connecting a thought of me.

"Wake the fuck up!" some guy pressing against the stage says. I realize that my hands have fallen idle. Like I can't think of Tris and do anything else at the same time. Which is such a lie.

I finish the connections. The mics are ready for the assault. Tony/i/e nods and the lights dim. I head off, but not before I catch the nod of Evan E., Fluffy's drummer. I smile and nod back, then press back into the crowd. I've lost track of Norah, lost sight of where our table used to be. All the tables have been shoved aside now.

Fuse: lit.

Fuse: burning.

Ready.

Set.

Explode.

The guitars rampage. The drums batter. Owen O. snarls bastardizations at the world. A bell rings and Pavlov's dog has a fucking seizure on the dance floor. Since I'm not a part of it yet, I see it: how a group of people can become a blizzard, how all the time spent buying and picking out exactly the right clothes doesn't mean shit now because nobody is looking at clothes or poses. It's about force and pulse and unleashing the gigantic urges. I am pushing through skin and spike to get to Norah. I am jolting through this human turbulence to catch sight of Tris. I am slamming though this bright, bright darkness to figure out who the fuck I'm looking for, and why.

Norah. She's ten feet away. Not looking for me or for anything else. She is in the middle of this conflagration and she looks entirely alone.

It scares me.

I recognize it.

I am hearing Lars L.'s bassline. I am falling into it, the black of it, the pit of it. It screams that time is an angry machine. Music is an angry machine. We are all angry machines.

I've lost my kilter. I am downwarding. And it's worse because I know I should be going up.

Norah. Just make your way to Norah.

Dev is in my way. I try to maneuver around him, and he responds with a fevered shove. I shove back. He catches my shoulder too hard and I spin out. I stumble. I bodycheck Norah.

She doesn't laugh. She just throws herself right back at me. Slam and retreat. Then I slam and retreat. We should be smiling and we're not smiling. I throw my whole body at her, full-frontal crash. She is all resistance. She holds her ground and there we are, no distance now, her face so close it's almost a blur.

"What the fuck?" she yells, and it's not me she's speaking to.