Alpine Dolphins
Order and chaos in a strange, macho Disneyland
Disneyland is not necessary.
I mean, it’s only a couple
hours away, but it’s just not
worth paying the $40 it costs so 1
can run about .scaliwags in some
sterile-fantasy theme park.
Just like Alice (you know which
one), I ate the Mushroom that al
tered my world. And after I rode
that 10,000-mile, brain-scathing, trav
eling hurricane — likesliding down
on my spine on razors -1 landed in
Daytona beach, Fla.
I found my wonderland.
• • #
It was a quiet night. I leaned
over the railing, watched the small,
endless waves create the dull
pound-purr sound that constantly
envelops the city. I walked inside
the bar; the pop-metal cover band
wound along a crowd of only 100
or so.
1 walked back into the foyer and
saw Jay and this scrawny kid
sprawled on the floor, Jay beating
rapidly on his head and screaming
at him:
You don’t never go around
hitting people.”
He hit him in the head again,
and I got him off the kid The kid’s
girlfriend is standing there scream
ing, scratching and crying. I take
both of them out the door, and the
scraggly little kid turns around and
smacks me in the chest.
I grab him and throw him a few
feet, and the girlfriend starts whin
ing again. I push him around a bit
so he’ll go away - that’s all I really
want them to do is go away — then
1 go back inside the bar in time to
see Vinnic, another bouncer along
with Jay and myself, land a poorly
performed, spinning back-kick to
the face of this large, fat, back
woods Gcorgia-boy. He and his
three buddies square-off against
the bar, and we go to getting them
out.
1 grab one of them, lock him up
with a full chicken wing and pick
himupofftheground. Hisfect flail
about, and a couple customers join
in.
Many of the patrons come here
just for the fights.
The weight and motion of the
added people prove loo much for
me, and the whole lot of us goes
down on a table of sorority girls --
drinks go whipping across the room,
the band keeps playing, and the
crowd starts taking bets on the
victor.
I move quick and grab the fat
boy I’d locked up before he gets
any notion of wnat’s up; we get
them outside, and it's not over yet.
They are mad and mean, from all
that tree bark and hickory moon
shine, and it looks as though our
only option is to kick the crap out
of them when Ron, the mighty 6
foot-6 Samoan, bursts through the
dooi and ka-thwangs a lead pipe
against a metal light pole and roars
some profane thing about kicking
a certain part of their anatomy.
He moves toward them and they
seem really interested in conduct
ing themselves like gentlemen. This
is good. After all,it’s a quiet eve
ning.
And order reigns. The waves
still pound the beach, and aside
from the music it is calm now.
Vinnie, Ron and Jay bounce around
freaked out and hyperactive due to
the massive amounts of adrenaline
and cocaine in their systems, so
they light up. This is a group of five
or six, and we stand around and
brag about the display.
1 don’t recognize the two who
said that. Thcreareso many around
here who come from all over and
stay fora bit--long enough toscam
what they can, then either get
married, arrested or move on to the
Big Time in Miami. The scam is the
root idea behind Daytona Beach
It’s an anarchist carnival for all. The
entire city spans 23 miles on a large
sand bar, and it comprises several
towns from Ormond to New
Symyrna, and Daytona reigns parly
central. Kach city is separated by
maintaining its own police force,
mayor, council and on and on.
It makes it very easy to hide.
You live in one city, work in an
other, deal in yet another. Nothing
costs too much if you know the
right people.
And if Daytona is party central,
the Pier is dead-center of central
and boasts the highest scam rale of
all.
“Eh, brother, I’m your friend, ya
know? There are people here ya
can’t trust, so it’s a lucky thing for
you ya found me. I’ll take care of
you.”
Then he leads them around the
corner where he and eight of his
tiny, beach-scum, runaway cronies
jump the gullible trio of frat-boys
and scam away all their Spring
Break finances.
I used to see it happen time and
time again standing around at the
door of the Pier — standing, it
seemed, at the very door to the
Gales of Hell.
Many of the patrons frequented
the bar because they thought it was
the Gates of Hell, too.
We survived the night, and I
needed to stay late and see that the
band departure went smooth The
band busied themselves with their
equipment. I had orders not to
help, so I sal there drinking beer,
watching them work their butts off.
I took the opportunity to look
around the bar. It was grand, if you
could sec through the tacky, holi
day-glitter, lounge-lizard coverup.
The room was vast and set out
over the ocean. Huge windows
composed most of the south and
east walls, increasing the impres
sion of space triple-fold. This was a
large room. Opposing stages faced
each other like thugs in a dark
alley, there was a dance floor in the
middle and two bars at either end.
The floor and the walls and the
ceiling and the doors and the bars
were covered in a short, plush, red
shag with little black spots, most of
which were the ghosts of cigarettes
past.
I’d dreamt of this room. I’d seen
it in my dreams, and now I sat in it.
T he scene was this: Someone built
the Ocean Pier 70 years ago so I
could experience it tonight. It had
bee i a quiet night. A quick flip-out
like that was not uncommon, and it
sure beat absolute chaos.
Absolutcchaos happened when
the place bulges with a 1,000 people,
the foyer is packed, and a fight
breaks out inside while a group of
15 assorted minors hound you with
fake IDs, and little minors are run
ning out the door and puking over
the railing while an undercover
cop is standing there telling you
you’re going to go to jail unless you
get every last arunk minor out of
the bar.
I hen u lelt like chaos.
But chaos was quiet now, and
order was the loudest as the band
babbled a nd moved the equipment
from stage to winch-lift and down
to the trucks on the beach. The tide
was coming in, and they had to
hustle or sit it out for six hours.
They were grouchy, depressing and
lethargic, and 1 really felt like leav
ing the room. 1 went to the roof.
Life looked different on the roof.
A blood-blush sun in the process
of scamming day from night stopped
to flip me a tip of his hat, and the
wind showed up with a stolen
stereo and a pound of seaweed.
Who could ask for anything more?
I salon the railing of the balcony
watching this fiasco when a dol
phin broke the surf, flipped up and
over on her back and rode the
wave for 20 or 30 meters. It was a
fine ride, and she seemed to enjoy
it though she didn’t repeal her
haul. I was truly impressed. I’d
lived in this city for nine months
now, I’d drank with burned-out
bikers and beggars, whopped-up
and kicked the butts of all the
stringy beach scum, dawdled with
hookers and spoke briefly with the
crack lords of Second Avenue, but
this ride shamed them all.
It’s an amazing world.
Peace reigns now as the dol
phins ride the gnarly ones . . .
peace, that is, for a moment.
Then some girl on the beach
starts screaming, and some drunk
who swam out loo far starts drown
ing, and the whole natural order of
Daytona Chaos is restored.
I smile, watch a surfer swim out
to save the drowning guy, watch a
pack of drunken kids beat on the
guy who made a grab for the girl. I
look out to the sea, and the whole
mess is gone.
You near a lot about all the
really terrible things’going on in
the world provoked and provided
by all sorts of different people. You
hear loads of whacked-out disin
formatjpn. You’re told to abide by
one system and reject another, and
the biggest joke of all is that chaos
will exist in any systCTn. There cannot
be order without it.
If you don’t understand chaos,
just ask a metal-head.
Gazing up the beach, f knew it
would be lime to leave this place
soon. Theseason will end — there’ll
remain only slim tourist-pickings —
and it will be me and 100,000 sun
wrinkled grapes called locals bick
ering and squabbling over the last
woman in a bikini, beating each
other senseless over the last moron
with a camera and a fifty-dollar bill
in his or her touristic hand.
This is our hell . . . and at this
point in time, 1 commandeer order
from the people waiting to pass
through, waiting to trade one hell
for another. What else should they
do down here on the planet?
Some people like paying wads
of money to play in a world where
all the nasties are toothless and
foam-padded, where the ride al
ways ends where it started, and the
smiling attendant lifts the harness
holding you in and asks you to exit
safely down the gangplank.
Others prefer to mix a bit more
reality with fantasy.
"Disneyland?”
"No thanks, don’t
need it;”
I remain, Anomie.
Kevin Cowan is a senior sociology and Kng
llsh major and a Diversions columnist.
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