I’ve been away from downtown for a while—something on the order of 15 years—and I’m struck by the mix of people I haven’t seen anywhere else in Dallas. New lofts have grown up, and space that was lifeless after dark not so long ago now pulses. When I return on a Thursday night, a clubby sort of music plays in City Tavern, in sharp contrast to the Texas-by-way-of-Johnny-Cash country band setting up, the snap-button shirts rolled up their forearms, revealing long lines of blue ink sexy as a rockabilly bass. A mix of people from the manically hair colored to the youthfully well-to-do hang out in equal measure, many drinking shots of Jack Daniel’s followed by Pabst Blue Ribbon chasers (that pair of drinks is called the Dirty Dusty, City Tavern’s signature special, $4). Some people surely come for the music. The owner and the general manager are two of the four guys who own Club Dada, one of Dallas’ best-known music venues. “Dada,” the word my friends and I whispered to each other when we were trying to sound cool in high school. Dada in Deep Ellum, our teenage shibboleth.
I am here with a woman I knew only vaguely in my teens, the sister of my high school friend who has so many of the same references I do. The music starts, is good and loud, and my friend has a cold. I can barely hear her. We move to the handful of tables outside, watch downtown coming to life. I feel sure the guy with the punk hair and skateboard sitting alone next to us, who surely can hear us, must be scoffing at our late-thirtysomething conversations, about privilege and children, religion and our high school memories. I realize that I have become the ordinary older person I used to wonder about, glancingly, when I was a hipster in bars.Across the street, the velvet ropes are out. Next door, a line forms at Plush. The valets are doing steady business—$10 my friend paid—but there are parking garages across the street, and, really, insiders say, parking (and driving) is so much easier if you just stay off the valet-heavy, oft-congested Main Street and park in one of the garages on Elm. But I didn’t know that then, and, at the end of my night, I walk blocks through the 90-plus-degree night, back to my car parked by a distant meter.
I pass people of all ages coming from dinner, and younger people beginning their nights out in short skirts and cool blouses, lit by neon and stoplights. I hear the footsteps of single men who cross the street or give me a wide berth, as if to signal they mean me no harm, and the soft stride of a fast-talker I know will ask me for something if I engage him or respond to his ebullient “You have a great night.” The energy in his voice cuts through the rolling beats coming from a passing car. I am buoyed and light.
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