If you are walking down Clinton Street on a Wednesday afternoon, you are probably dragging your feet as you try to prolong arriving to your next class for as long as possible, gazing idly into each bar and restaurant you pass, praying for the weekend. Instead of being able to walk through the doors of anywhere you want, you have to be in your chair in 100 Phillips Hall for lecture or head to the Bio Building for your dreaded two hour lab. Clinton Street is hardly recognized as “The Street That Never Sleeps” on Wednesday afternoons when all anyone wants to do is crawl in bed.
However, Friday night is a different story. As you turn the corner from Iowa Ave. onto Clinton, you first hit the line of students backed up to Iowa Book, waiting to get into (or denied access to) Summit. Girls huddle together, complimenting each other’s choice in outfit and lipstick shade while they gaze at the group of boys behind them out of the corners of their eyes. Most people in line will find a minimum of three things to complain about as they wait: the cold, the wind or how long they have been in line. Guys will talk themselves up about their ID, quizzing themselves on their address as they try to return the eye contact from the girls in front of them.
You keep walking and find Airliner — nicknamed “Liner” by the regulars — where the line doesn’t seem to be too outrageous. The bartenders seem to know a group of people at every corner of the bar, giving it the feeling of familiarity. Friends cram into booths, and girls walk down the aisle as if they know everyone. Guys and girls start to climb on the half wall that separates the bar from the booths, and the music gets turned up, drowning out any possibility of hearing the person next to you. However, you don’t need to hear your best friend tell you she needs to get away from a creepy guy when she grabs your elbow and digs her nails in. Hard.
You could continue walking near the end of Clinton, where you will find people of age and those confident under-agers, crowding into Pints to close down the night. But instead, you take a turn into the Ped Mall and find an entirely new street to be conquered. As you begin to walk, you can feel a bass vibrate underneath your feet. Walk a few more yards, and the poignant scent of too much cologne and alcohol-soaked sweat will find you before you even reach its source. The black and white awning of Union Bar reaches the foreground of your vision, and from the windows, everyone inside appears to be the time of their lives.
Come to think of it, everyone at every bar seems to be having the time of their lives. Is it something in the air on this Friday night, or might this just be the essence of Iowa City? The lights are luminous and inviting, the music is blaring, and voices can be heard for blocks down the street. Uproarious laughter as a group of friends realize they just created a new inside joke that will be told for years to come, some guy shamelessly attempting to pick up a girl while his friends laugh behind him, or one drunk friend trying to get a drunk(er) friend home: everyone will go home tonight with stories to tell tomorrow.
So, next Wednesday when you are stumbling to your last lecture of the day, keep your head up, because Friday night is just around the corner, and there are only so many Fridays to be had on Clinton Street.