The Doorman’s Diary: 6.25-26.11

A summer Saturday night and the city is alive with options. Being a hidden away locale and being jazz always limits the crowd. As The Doorman for the jazz club I was at my post and with my stern, but welcoming, face set as the night began. Jazz aficionados filtered in, but it’s always a lean night when the number can be counted on a full-fingered pair of hands. The jazz quintet played hard. The bass and keyboard player were stand-ins and pushed the group to play differently. It was the kind of night that I fully expected to see a couple of Realm Dwellers… Alternate Realm Dwellers to be exact. Their visits are rare, not Bigfoot rare, but definitely out of the norm. Realm Dwellers are as the name suggests, occupants of a different existence than 99% of us. O.K., I know I sound crazy… but bear with me. On random and rare occasions, we get customers who show up within a half hour of closing. They have a different look and aura. It’s as though they walked off the pages of a comic book or the cover of the Beatles’ Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band Album. They are eccentric-looking… a bit of a hard edge… and beaten down. When they come as couples, they are mismatched—an argyle sock with a striped one. It is clear they are most comfortable in a post-midnight world. They don’t stay long and appear to be the Roma of the night, drifting as gypsies do from place to place. Mystics on the run. They clearly dwell in a different realm.