Outside the club, her band is easy to spot—they all sport that ska-punk chola style but look a little older than Lourdes. “You’re late!” a bleach blonde in suspenders and a tight white tank calls. Lourdes runs to the dirt-streaked van and starts unloading her drums. I go to help, but her bandmates and a couple of guys grab the gear with practiced ease and walk past me. “New girl, lock the van up, okay?” a guy with an impressive shoe-polish black Mohawk yells. I’ve never seen one that high in real life.

I lock the van and realize Lourdes isn’t coming back out for me. I’m alone, stranded in a part of Berkeley I don’t know with no ride home and a bunch of punks filling the sidewalks around me. I could go now—try to find a bus that will take me to BART. But I don’t. It’s not even my sneakers this time. It’s my stupid heart.

As nervous as I suddenly am, I want to see Lourdes drum. I want to get her phone number. I let the crowd shuffle me to the entrance.

The sign at the door says:

924 gilman collective

no racism

no sexism

no homophobia

no drugs

no alcohol

no violence

And now I’m smiling, because how cool is that? I push my wadded ones at the Debbie Harry look-alike door girl.

Inside, Gilman Street is a living homemade comic book, an all-punk metropolis, a waking dream of spray paint and Sharpie-scrawled band flyers where all the superheroes are girls. There are guys here too, yes, but they’re mortal compared to the bandit-eyed glitter-trash pantheon of girl power everywhere I look. It’s the band, I’m realizing, as I see homemade Bikini Kill T-shirts on a trio of what appear to be zombie kindergarteners in pink ankle socks and holey canvas Mary Janes.

The crowd is so thick I can’t even try to find Lourdes, but suddenly that’s okay. For the first time, I know what it means to feast your eyes. The people around me are food—the sweet, salty things teenagers crave.

In the corner, someone catches my eye: a brown-skinned boy giving the girls here a run for their money with his short, sharp Mohawk like the crest of the coolest tropical bird and bright blue eye makeup to match. He’s wearing a short feathered cape around narrow shoulders, and his arms are decked in jingling bracelets from wrist to elbow. My heart catches—a boy like this could never, ever, walk safely down Eden Boulevard. He would silence the halls of Edenrock High to menacing whispers. Here, he’s just a beautiful part of the carnival. And, I realize, so am I.