“Finally, collective action,” said the mohawked guy ahead of us. He dropped his cigarette and pulverized it into a smear of tobacco with a heavy black boot.

“All right, dude,” Thomas said. “Things might get crazy in there, so we’ve gotta have each other’s backs. If we see one of us getting in trouble, we’re gonna step up, right?”

“Don’t do something stupid,” I said. “You’re not that big.”

“I’m here to go all-out, man.”

The old anxiety bubbled in me, less fear than anticipation. I wanted, then, and always, to have the best night of my life, to do whatever thing would change me forever. Everything I read and listened to insisted that all was building toward catharsis. There could be no complete self without eruption, revelation, and the possibility of total defeat, however unlikely.

At the door, the fat white bouncer gave me a cursory pat-down—pockets, belly, chest, go—but he held Thomas back and made him take off his jacket and vest, lift up his shirt, even stick out his tongue.

“Profiling sons of bitches,” he muttered.

“’Scuse me, son?” the bouncer said.

“You’re doing a very good and thorough job,” Thomas said.

At the ID table, I received the black X’s in Sharpie on the backs of my hands. Thomas had apparently already drawn red ones on his, a frequent enough occurrence, I guess, that the ID guy simply waved him on, eye roll very much implied.

Class of ’36 was in the middle of a song when we got into the main room, the one with the chorus that went “Whoa-ah-uh-uh-oh, we’re taking it!” Maybe fifty people were jumping in place or standing with their arms crossed in front of the stage, occasionally shoving the skinny kids who were doing the stumbling-and-swaying-while-being-overcome-with-feeling thing. Save it for your subgenre, guys. Most of the EOB and hardcore-looking guys were stalking around away from the stage, looming over the merch table, wandering along the walls giving fist bumps to confederates. The bar was being used as a convenient leaning post by large, bearded dudes in hooded sweatshirts, most of whom were drinking water out of clear plastic cups, if anything. Over the course of the night, I saw people swigging out of flasks and label-less plastic bottles and discreetly hitting one-hitters, but I didn’t see a single person buy a drink at the bar.

The merch table had a copy of the original Babyface EP on vinyl, which came out before the band was forced to change its name because of a cease-and-desist order from Arista Records. (As if consumers would somehow mistake a violent, surrealist hardcore band for the smooth-singing R&B guy, but whatever.) I wanted to buy it, but didn’t know what I’d do with it during the show.

“How many of those do you have?” I shouted.

“Extremely limited, dude,” the merch guy shouted back. He was good at his job.