Lord, let us party tonight; cuz tomorrow they might kill us all…

The locals show out every Sunday. The floor is sticky and slippery, giving slightly as the wanton movements of the bodies above twist and grind. We drink, we dance, we fight, and we leave…

The sun shone unobstructed, fooling those peering out their windows, hopeful the late February day may promise warmer temperatures and a sign of an early spring. The second semester was in full swing, removed from the early January renewal that saw students reunite with one another after the winter break. Those early days saw a swollen campus filled with parents dropping their children off, only slightly less emotional than their initial goodbyes the previous August. The nervous energy amongst the underclassmen was replaced by a knowing familiarity and comfort in navigating what was once a frightening new chapter. Seniors drove their cars throughout the campus slowly, music blaring, with their immediate future rapidly approaching their purview. In their windshields was the blinding light from the sun, promising a gorgeous spring in Greensboro. Today, however, the campus was light, waiting for the evening when students would return from the weekend.

Sundays are usually a return to normalcy. The school, noticeably empty from the admittedly homesick over the weekend, would see attendees return to their dorms, some with a crisp set of bills in their pocket, and most with a clean bag of laundry slung across their shoulders. Their makeshift homes seemed fresher in their absence, welcoming their renewed spirits. Sunday nights were usually a return to action. And Club Menage.

High Point Road housed any variety of late-night pleasures for the broke and pseudo rich alike. Strip clubs and tattoo parlors line the streets on the drive from the campus toward the mall, with nightclubs nestled on every few corners along the way. Menage sat behind a Wendy’s and was typically deserted during the day. Friday and Saturday nights there were pretty calm; most people found their way downtown, lines stretching down Greene Street with patrons mingling with the vendors selling hot dogs and bootleg hats. However, Sunday night belonged to Menage. While the weekend traffic was segregated between college students and actual Greensborians downtown, Menage was a hodgepodge of both. Florida Street and Pride Hall joked in the entry lines; cars from Randleman Road and Haley Hall fought for space across the street in the Total Wine parking lot; the McDonald’s saw traffic from North Eugene and the Aggie Village. Sundays at Menage were for the city, a collective effort to ignore the demands of the upcoming work week.

Menage is largely like any other nightclub; however, regulars came because of the slight nuances that separated it from their counterparts. Sure, there was a dancefloor and a stage, as there were for most other clubs in the city. Here, the bartenders overpour on specific drinks; their reasoning seemingly indiscriminate. It felt more of a practice of in-the-know patrons to learn which drinks were on this intimate menu, and which servers let the liquor pour freely into the clear plastic cups. There was a grill on a patio near a Dumpster that served the hungry with burgers, hot dogs, chicken wings, and fish plates that was just beyond a door that most assumed was a hallway leading to some unremarkable back area of the building. The place is a secretive society within a club that welcomed everyone, and the slight pleasures of being familiarized with its unique atmosphere made it irresistible.

Scattered Black bodies occupied the dancefloor, mostly reserved and mingling. The ground wasn’t yet littered with those overfilled plastic cups and worn wristbands. The stage had remnants of a local rap group that dragged a drummer along to comport themselves as a live band. A mic stand and a single cymbal occupied a corner, their owners unconcerned about the waves of men and women dancing tonight, their clutter gathered around high heels and Nikes. A prepopulated playlist thumped through the speakers; the resident DJ never showed up before 10:30. A man in an outdated Gino Green hoodie and jeans leaned on his stool, no doubt at the mercy of the drinks taken in that Total Wine parking lot, his eyes focused solely on the leggings and fitted pants of the women strolling by.

Tonight – February 26 – began as a release, but ended in a combination of commiseration and unified angst.

At about ten that night, the news trickled in slowly and without context. A Black kid. Skittles. A hoodie. On campus, PlayStations were paused, and the music didn’t intermingle with the raucousness in the dorm room halls as much. A group of residents gathered in the second-floor common area of Pride Hall, with one girl giving periodic updates from her phone. Another woman, in Barbee Hall, muted the TV, garnering puzzled looks from her roommate and her girlfriend. The campus stood still, seemingly taking a collective breath to process. Maybe the cars with the loud stereo systems drove past, but their vibrating trunks caught the ear of almost no one tonight. And maybe a few individuals continued to dress for Sunday night at Club Menage, but they were greeted by an unwilling desire from their peers to move from the spots they occupied in those halls and common areas.

Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Miami native visiting his father and his fiancée in Sanford, Florida, had been shot and killed by a neighborhood watch coordinator. The facts, as reported, were that Martin was walking home from a convenience store, candy and drink in hand, when George Zimmerman, a resident of the Twin Lakes housing community, seemingly appointed himself arbiter of all things threatening. What ensued was a confrontation that left Martin dead, and audio of a phone call between Zimmerman and the local authorities in which Zimmerman was explicitly asked to not follow the teen. While the days and months following the murder proved to be devastating, both with Zimmerman being found innocent of second-degree murder and his subsequent boorish and repulsive smugness toward a community still in mourning, tonight – February 26 – felt overwhelmingly hopeless.

Still, We danced into those bright strobe lights, phones buzzing nonstop. We ordered drinks, innately knowing the week would punish Us for simply existing, even apart from another damning example of “white authority” to which We were not yet privy. We listened for songs that We knew would fill the room with exuberance, women stepping gingerly toward the seductive glow; men hurried bottom-shelf liquor into their bodies before doing the same. We bumped into someone We didn’t like, staring intently into Their eyes, resigned to whatever violence may result. We sat on the steps, twisting weed up, looking around for Our folks, phones still buzzing. We just hoped We could make it home with some of that light.

Black pain can be both fatalistic and crushing, while being understood to be pain not of Our own doing, but of the circumstances that have arrived to collect whatever some determining body deemed more valuable than Ours chooses to amass. That body is constructed to spread the inherently flawed and historical ideal of Black bodies being lesser, and therefore disposable. They serve to excuse, rationalize, and – grossly – justify the inhumane. What is even more incriminatory about this wicked, never ending, and inescapable pain is that it is simply a burden We have been conditioned to work around. It is as if the hope for lessening that pain is silly; that the focus should be on cohabitation with, and not elimination of, this pain. Merely treating the symptoms of this pain – laughing in spite of, numbing Ourselves because of, and struggling to prevail in the face of – is the concession offered to us. The causes of this pain are permanent, unchanging despite the best efforts of those afflicted, because the creators of this pain are strident in their efforts to maintain their normalcy. That is why Our laughs are heavy and hearty; the weight of this construction tinges even Our most carefree and effervescent moments.

But still, We danced. We finally learned that the world had let Us down yet again. We gathered around, arms on shoulders, and communed. We were reminded that the world outside these doors were unkind; maybe even more so to these older, lighthearted versions of Us. We knew that, and carried on as We were, because in that moment, We had to. This was but another derivative plotline of a sequel retread so frequently, We no longer had the energy to protest its opening night. We danced because We were defeated. Again. We were lost out there, but here – HERE – We were isolated only in danger We could tangibly see and feel and touch. And tonight, February 26, We were above inconsequential conflict. We danced together because once those bright fluorescent lights turned on and We were forced to trot back to Our waiting realities, We were no longer unguarded from them.

At the fountain near the Aggie Village, a young man from Pine Hills, Florida – a 40-minute drive from where a 17-year-old Black child was murdered for having the audacity to exist – sat for hours in pure resignation. There were no tears, and his eyes focused on the spurting water shooting up from the middle of the fountain. In those long solemn moments, and in the midst of a crowd that had gathered around him, he couldn’t help but feel that the water that continuously went recycled through the fountain system and lightly dusted his already frigid arms was analogous to exactly what We were all destined to be. To which all of Us were relegated to, eventually. That no matter how dogged the attempt to escape this cycle, We were simply forced to be subjected to the same result over and over.

Monday passed with expected glumness. The nervous energy of the younger students returned, along with an uncertainty they could not fully explain. The seniors still drove through, their radios more muted and reserved. Classes were melancholy, filled with the silences Sunday’s events filled awkwardly. Conversations were brief, as if a barrier of despair lingered in the air, blocking the words that followed the handshakes and semi-hugs in front of the cafeteria.

Trauma is indirect at times, aiming its arrow of hurt upward, eventually descending into a crowd of people otherwise ignoring its ambush as best they can. We were dancing, laughing, and enjoying the small microcosm that has been afforded Us because of their unwillingness to share their freedoms on any significant scale. To be Black is to be reminded repeatedly of the frivolity of Our humanity. To be constantly forced to accept the reality of why so many Black bodies were no longer able to share in the momentary successes and brief flings of joy granted to Us. Reality had creeped into Our shrouded and private dance, and demanded to buy Us a strong drink while whispering a low but firm reminder of a power that lies so very far beyond Our reach. And yet, the drink spilled into Our stomachs cleanly as We swallowed, clenching Our jaws at this condescending gesture in anticipation of what may come later…

Awareness can be convenient in its arrival and distasteful in its digestion. Trayvon Martin was not Me in fact, but he was Me in essence. Trayvon Martin was Him in the front of class, jotting notes furiously in an attempt to understand Advanced Statistics. Trayvon was Her, walking in front of Smith Hall scrolling through her iPod Touch. He could very well be a Nigga many of Us cannot stand, right up until Their life is tried by those that are eagerly intent of destroying. Mundane territorial matters of self against others that look like Us, for right now, anyway, just seem…less important than they did before Sunday, February 26. What mattered then to so many of Us was that We danced and lived. And what mattered so much more as We learned the evil that We battled so fiercely to escape was inescapable, was that We – jointly and perpetually – did not let that be the day the parties stopped.

We grieve different; A.J. Armstrong is the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities