You see only your demons when you travel at night. Out the windows of a bus you see them lurking in the trees and fields and small towns you pass on your way to where ever it is you’re going. You see your regrets and fears. You see your failures and shortcomings. You see your life as it is: empty and dark.

Before I left for Atlanta, my sister told me, “People are scum. They love to hear about other people’s pain.”

Indeed. And hopefully they do, because I’m starting to have serious doubts about this who walkabout business. That would have to wait though, because I was already headed to Atlanta, Georgia. I was going to stay with my cousin Ginger, another of the families outcast members. Ginger was a campus cop and had a nice place on the outskirts of Atlanta.

The trip was boring. I rode for a day, got to Atlanta, Ginger picked me up, I ate and hung out with Ginger and her girlfriend, and then crashed for 13 hours.

And dreamt of the prize at the end of all of this.

My first outing was to the infamous Secret Room in midtown Atlanta. My cousin came with me to check it all out. Since she was on her way to work, she was in uniform, a fact that didn’t escape the notice of the promoter. After I had introduced myself to Jason and was touring the place, he asked if my cousin was there in an official capacity. It turns out that the club got raided the previous week and some of the go-go dancers were fined for indecent exposure. Not surprisingly, the staff and the crowd were very nervous. Ginger assured her she was just there to help me settle in and she split soon after. It was time to get to work.

One of the things you learn after years of being a fortuneteller is that you must be visible at all costs. Find a place with a lot of foot traffic, like a hallway or on a smoking patio. In this case I settled in the foyer where there were couches and comfortable chairs. And of course I needed the height factor, so I switched out some tables so my set-up was closer to eye-level. The staff didn’t have a problem with me shifting some furniture, and for the first time in three weeks I was ready to read some runes.

The night went well enough. The crowd was a little thin due to the previous week’s raid, but still a respectable one. I met some great people, like the guitarist from the performing band, St. Eve, and the infamous fetish model Rubberella. Other than a few long conversations and some quick readings, the night was sort of quiet for me. The music was good, if only because the DJs weren’t afraid to play some “different” stuff at the beginning of the night. Hell, when was the last time you heard Outkast followed by Leonard Cohen at an Industrial club?

I stayed in the next few evening as I didn’t think anything interesting was going on. It wasn’t until Wednesday night that I ventured forth into the city again, this time for Pandemonium.

Pandemonium plugs itself as a more purist Goth club. While they do play some VNV and Assemblage 23, they spin mostly old school Deathrock and the like. Their crowd is small, but friendly. I set up quickly and did a few readings in the first hour, but then wound up sitting there with nothing to do for almost the rest of the night. It wasn’t until about 1am that she walked in.

Leanne was older me by far. Forty years old in fact. What she saw in me is still beyond my comprehension, but nevertheless she came and talked with me. After a bit of a chat, we headed to a place down the road called Disco Diner, which lived up to it’s name by playing old Disco songs non-stop at about 20 decibels.

Leanne was a former military intelligence officer. Recently retired from the service, Leanne was in the middle of a legal battle with her former CO. I believe the charge is Sexual Misconduct.

“He tried to pass me around to all of his buddies. I was supposed to be the entertainment at his party.” She clearly wasn’t one to shut-up and take it since she’d been fighting this battle for about 8 years. Leanne hit me with all sorts of strange tales and theories, from the astrological importance of 9/11 to how the government knows who really killed JFK. She was smart as fuck, smarter than me in fact, and didn’t take shit from anyone. I was in love.

She was a mind reader as well. A witch of one of the more crystal related persuasion, she used her powers to dig into my head. She was both horrified and aroused by the fact that I didn’t live in my mind but in my instincts. She saw the Wolf but couldn’t understand it, so she dug into the man. She asked me why I had no girlfriend back home. Why I creeped people out. How I could live with so little. She was both accusing and encouraging in her probe of my spirit. She told me that it was some sort of astrological destiny that she found me. She said she wanted to be my teacher.

You can’t imagine my rage at this time. How the hell did this lady know anything about me. She’s got a house and kids and money and influence. She had no clue who I was. And yet I could deny the fact that she truly wanted to help me and become my mentor. The bitch had made me. Fuck, so much for keeping my private life private. I spent the next hour or so spilling my guts like a Catholic at confession. She told me to keep in touch with her. I’m not sure I will.

That Friday wasn’t the most fun night for me. I had heard about a club called Convent. I kept seeing posts on the Atlanta Goth LJ list about it, but with no address of contact info. When I started asking around about it, I got more than a few responses of “it’s invitation only.” Hell, when I IM’ed the girl who posted it, it was like pulling teeth to get an address. So I IM’ed another It-Girl on the list, telling her I saw her post and wanted the address. She didn’t even respond.

So I headed out... and regretted it. The place was a decent size, but nigh-empty. I think a total of thirty people showed up. So much for exclusiveness. This was supposed to be the “elite” of the scene, or at least that what the owner must have been going for. As far as I’m concerned a club isn’t elite until it’s packed and has crushed all competition on the night it’s open. I ended up chatting with two or three people, drank a little, and then left.

What surprised me was that I got a response from the It-Girl I IM’ed the next evening. The girl said that she thought I was mistaken, that she hadn’t posted anything about it on the list. I told her she might have been right and that I must have seen her post something about it somewhere else. She asked if I had a good time that night and I had to answer in the negative. I told her I tried to talk to her that night, but she blew me off. She told me that she had been really drunk and apologized. Whatever.

We talked for a while. It seems this particular It-Girl didn’t see herself as such. She told me that she wasn’t a snob, just really shy. “Shy?” I asked. “How the hell can you be shy, you’re the kind of person people get shy around. They admire you.” She told me that she just was very uncomfortable around new people and that she was constantly slandered by other girls in the scene. I thought it was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard. Where did this It-Girl get off playing the “no one loves me” card? It-People aren’t allowed to do that, only us lowly troglodytes get that privilege.

It took her a good half-hour to convince me she was sincere. “Fuck”, I thought. How long has this shit been going on? It-People with insecurity problems. Jesus, it truly broke my head wide open. Does that mean that all the hotties back home aren’t Gother-than-thou and they’re just bashful? This is insane. If word leaked out about the true state of every “unavailable” woman in the club scene, the entire mystique of club life would shatter! C-list dudes would start hooking up with A-list chicas just because they had the balls to talk to them and not get scared off. But my panic was sort lived as I remembered that this was all bullshit. And I could prove it.

Back in the day at Atomic Café, I had done a reading for a girl named Ginger. She was a semi-regular. Not a Goth, just liked hanging out and fucking the bartenders. She asked me about her love life and gave me this sob story about how no one loved her and that they only wanted to fuck her. I told her that tons of guys would like to know her if she gave them a chance. Nice, non-Bad Boys. I told her she only wanted the Bad Boys and that she got what was coming to her. She begged me to take it back, insisting she wasn’t like that and that I was being too hard on her. I told her that I couldn’t feel sorry for the beautiful people; they had enough of a leg-up as it was and I sure as hell didn’t think they needed any more privileges, like being able to play the “no one loves me” card.

But there she was, in all her understated glory, telling me she wished she was more social and wouldn’t be a target of slanderous rumors. God in Heaven, how much weirder can mankind be.

I left Atlanta a few days later. After eating my cousin out of house and home, I left with a feeling of relief and remorse. I had made my first real stop, but didn’t get anything accomplished. Then I realized how much I’d learned in the last week, about myself and the world, and felt remembered that this is what this walkabout is supposed to be all about.

But I still have this fear that this whole column will just end because of lack of money and gigs. The last thing I want to do is it early. While there is a twisted appeal in following in the footsteps of Hunter S. Thompson’s infamous column “Fear and Loathing in Sacramento” and just have the story end in the middle, I know I can’t do this. This is a case of “hell or high water” as far as I’m concerned. I’m sending e-mails to promoters in New York City and waiting for replies. Since I thought I was going to Miami first, I’m way behind schedule in my preparations. It’s Monday now. I’m at my aunt’s home in Cocoa Beach, Florida with my parents and I’ve got to be out of here by Friday since my folks don’t want me “mooching” here after they’ve already gone back to Texas. Hopefully one of my fearless editors can swing some gigs for me in NYC, otherwise I will be officially doomed.

Then again, I’m a Goth. Doomed is what I do best.