Monday nights (continued)

"I have a bad form," says Leduc as he snacks on a dinner of chicken fingers and fries from the refreshment counter, raising his voice above the crack of dozens of bowling balls smacking pins in the busy practice time before the start of the game. "I don’t have a fluid motion. Basically, if I was going to show anybody how to bowl, they shouldn’t watch me."

Luckily, Leduc has been spared this paradox because, as far as he can recall, he’s never shown anyone how to bowl. In fact, now that he thinks of it, he can’t remember the last time he bowled with anyone outside of the league.

"I haven’t really bowled for fun in years," he says, shrugging. "I don’t come here on the weekends. I try to stay away from this place as much as possible. You can only stand so much of this place. If you’re here every night, it gets excessive, just like any place."

His eyes wander to the crowds of people lining up to the alleys running the length of the building. He tightens the Velcro strap around his forearm and pops up from his seat, mumbling something about getting a few practice shots in before the competition starts.

Here are some things we know about Monday: The name Monday comes from the Moon, which is the ruling planet of the day like the Sun is for Sunday. Monday has been called "dark Monday" by actors who take this day off on Broadway, "blue Monday" because it is associated both with laundry day (a blue dye was used to keep clothes from turning yellow) and depression at the start of the work week, and "Manic Monday" by the Bangles, who really wish it was Sunday.

Monday’s association with the inconstant moon freaked out cultures worldwide, many of which view Monday as an unlucky day that can turn people insane. The Latin word for Monday’s ruling planet, the moon, is even embedded in the English word "lunacy."

Monday nights out are a ritual for Portland’s Byron Nilson, 27. Nilson is director and co-creator of the "PV Scene" theater troupe, which performs fetish shows on Mondays at Industrial Goth Night at Styxx, a club at the bottom of Spring Street. Industrial Goth Night has wandered from venue to venue here in Portland since being ousted from its home turf at Zootz when that club closed in 2000. Goth Night at Styxx is relatively new, since the club replaced the night’s former venue, the Underground, only five months ago. Despite the nomadic tendencies of Goth Night, Nilson says the scene has been active on Monday nights for about six years, apart from this past April when the Underground closed. Nilson has attended every Monday since the beginning, barring illness or venue demise, and in 2000 befriended another Goth groupie, a redhead known in this world only as "Mistress M," who, obligingly, some Mondays later, dressed as a housewife and assaulted him mercilessly with a feather duster and a brillo pad in front of a group of appreciative Goths. According to Nilson and M, this was the birth of the fetish show which five years and hundreds of fantasies later features six core performers, a monthly prop budget of between $50 and $100, and a regular show time of 11:30 p.m. on the second Monday of every month at Styxx.

It is a bitterly cold Monday and about 50 friendly-looking Goths sway purposefully on the Styxx dance floor to a thunderous cacophony of songs which sound like Depeche Mode if the band had decided to drop a lot of acid and lock themselves in a morgue to fuel creativity. On one end of the dance floor a simple white sheet is draped, concealing three pairs of shackles attached to the wall and a white table on which sit a bull whip, a knife, and a posterboard with some magic markers. This is the PV Scene stage and Nilson, jittery with pre-show anticipation, is in the whitewashed storage room behind it with his cast, pulling together the last details of the upcoming show. It is 11:25 and the small room is packed with PV Scene performers getting into costume and character.

The title of the night’s performance is "Dementia." Surrounding Nilson is an evil nurse dressed in a white latex uniform so tight it seems painted on, a female Master of Ceremonies with a tattered top hat and a bull whip, an asylum patient in a blue hospital Johnny with dozens of authentic red welts on his forearms, and a young nun in a brown robe and habit who keeps reminding everyone not to lift up her skirt too high during the finale orgy because she doesn’t want anyone to see her underwear.

Amidst the primping and the conversation and the nun’s admonitions, Nilson begins to change into his own costume.

"A lot of people think Goth equals freaks or Satanists," he says, thumbing open the black buttons of his tight fitting black coat to reveal a pale, hairless chest. "We tend to get a very bad rap."

He reaches behind him and pulls a pale blue Johnny out of a pile of clothes on the floor. He unties the laces at the neck and slips his arms through the sleeves.

"We’re not all depressed either," he says, glancing down for a moment while he unbuckles his belt and drops his black vinyl pants.

"Here, you can come and totally be yourself and no one thinks anything of it."

He turns to the man with the marked forearms and points to the Johnny laces hanging loose on his back. "Tie me up, will you?" he says.

And, with that request granted, Nilson is transformed from matter-of-fact director and taskmaster to licentious asylum lunatic ready to perform for your sadistic amusement. Beside him, Mistress M dotes over the nun, who is fiddling with her habit nervously in the moments before the actors take the stage.

"Now keep in mind, Chase, you are a crazy person impersonating a nun," M says softly. "It doesn’t matter if your costume is crooked."

Ten minutes later, after a disturbing performance which included wailing and whipping on stage and fervent applause and dumbfounded stares from the audience, Nilson is back in the storage room, decompressing from what he and his actors agree was a pretty good show.

"I really enjoy Mondays," Nilson says later. "I really enjoy the music and the people and the dancing. Plus, I’m something of an exhibitionist, so this is great."

The stories in this article were compiled from reporting conducted on two separate Mondays — January 10, 2005 and January 31, 2005. Sara Donnelly can be reached at donnelly_sara@yahoo.com