my future ex-husbands The Slackers

There aren't really any words for this past Saturday night in Red Hook, as friend and I discovered while we were there. We barely even know each other, but a coincidence of hometowns and teenage years spent at ska shows allowed for a moment - nostalgia but not repetition, happiness but non self-aware. We exited the cab, waltzed past the line up with our pre-paid tickets, bought a draft, commandeered the men's restroom with two other gals when we realized the line for the women's wasn't moving, then sidled up to stage left just in time for a clear view of the perfect two-hour set. We communicated only in raised eyebrows, every half hour or so, the in-betweens spent dancing? drinking? watching? Must have been, but all I remember is Glen Pine having his way with that trombone, and Marcus Geard beaming because he loves what he does, and Vic Ruggiero talking in that unapologetic Brooklyn accent about the scene "in heah", and about spending the last ten years angry over what we're doing to each other and the planet... then accepting that we'll go out in some kind of blaze of glory, but here is this. He'll be playing. And hopefully, Glen Pine will be smashing my headboard.