World music is loud and it makes listeners dance, they have little say in the matter. It exists in abundance, that steady, pulsating baseline, the electronica accents that make it sound metallic, robotic, futurist. World music is default club and party music.
Nebuchad knows it well, he is always in a club dancing his way into Mondays, hoping to prolong the weekend for as long as possible. His friends; who include most of the bartenders and waitresses in downtown Charlotte, NC, his coworkers at the bank where he worked in customer service by day, and his friends from college who stayed in the city after they graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2004; call him Neb (sounds like Ted), and he is usually the only person of Middle Eastern descent wherever he goes. People are usually very surprised to learn that he is Christian, but his parents converted when they still lived in Iran, before they immigrated to the US permanently as refugees. Neb’s father is an engineer for Duke Energy and he’d encouraged his son to follow in his footsteps, but Neb learned the joys of a good night out when he was in school and by the time he graduated, he’d hosted hundreds of parties at various venues all over North Carolina, and in three other states in the south.
Neb likes to be in a big room with hundreds of people, lights off with the swirl of LEDs and glow sticks illuminating the dark, bodies roiling like a body of water, controlled by the steady, pulsating rhythm and the sharp reprise of the synth. He doesn’t necessarily look for a companion, he is not looking for his special girl to dance with, to go home with; the club is his domain, his job, and when he is there, he is king.
Neb schmoozes the VIP rooms, sits with big spenders and makes jokes, refills glasses, European kisses beautiful people dressed to the nine. He is making his presence known as the new manager of club Move, where he’d recently acquired a share of ownership sizeable enough to be the majority owner. It was his dream come true, he hoped soon that he could quit his day job at the bank.
Neb had taken to the deception that can sometimes be necessary in order to be successful in business. He’d convinced a close friend to invest in Move with him, but Neb had used the money to buy one huge share for himself. And it hardly weighed on his conscience, he was a club owner. He’d also slept with the wife of one of the club’s richest patrons, a Thomas Helms whose father is a wealthy furniture maker with stores in eight cities. Helms swore vengeance on Neb that has yet to come to pass, though soon, everything will catch up to Neb.
It can be argued that spending every night in a raging party is detrimental to one’s morals, and more and more, Neb finds himself deep inside club Move, enjoying the perks of running the establishment. Women line up to impress him, men shower him with gifts, with money and drugs, and without even knowing it, without really making a conscious choice, Neb is a casual drug user, pills and powders exclusively, and then his arch rival Helms has his in.
World music and MDMA, sounds and chemicals, a blur, Neb is having a good night. And here is Danny with something new, a beautiful little pill that Neb had never seen before. Danny is new, but he is in the VIP room and insists that Neb sit with him and to thank him for a great night, he has something for Neb that is “better than ecstasy.”
Down the gullet, and Neb is on his back, Neb is foaming at the mouth, Neb is raced to a hospital for help.
Danny is nowhere to be found, unless you look in Helms’ limousine that cruises down Davidson.
PRL Serials 