A couple of lost-looking souls bum around outside a bar that clearly had its best days a few decades ago. Around the corner some outdated mannequins stand in a storefront and monitor the foot traffic while numerous frowning folks get on and off the bus downtown. Above it all, the dreary, cloudy sky enhances the eerie, depressing aura of Harvey.

Talk to ravegoers around Chicago, and they will undoubtedly share stories about partying here, in the unlikely mecca for Midwest dance fiends—the south suburbs of Harvey and Dolton. At night Harvey is a ghost town illuminated only by the smoky glow of the El Ranchito Lounge and the dim light from a taxi station. Just minutes from this wayward taxi station sits Dolton, another surprising Saturday night magnet for the thousands of rave-goers who have found life—or, rather, created life—here over the past few years.

Hauling their baggy jeans to the Dolton Soccer Dome, the Dolton Expo Center and similarly large venues, raver kids gravitate here from all corners of the Midwest just to dance in a forgotten corner of suburbia. As they pack the town’s meeting places with glittery faces and bass booming music, raver kids blast life into Harvey and Dolton, creating a mysterious, bizarre environment. Former WNUR DJ Christopher Robin used to plug parties on his radio show by saying where a party wouldn’t be: “It’ll be on the Near North Side,” he would say. “No driving to Harvey.”

If Harvey looks like an abandoned mill town by starlight and Dolton pumps up excitement only at the Amoco station, I wondered what the two suburbs would look like by daylight. I visited Harvey and Dolton on a recent Saturday afternoon to find out what happens when the lights go back on.

Night and Day

The trip to Harvey and Dolton brings back memories of my first rave in Dolton. It took me more than two hours to get to the party, Dee Day 2, because my friends and I took the El to the Loop, switched to a Metra train and finally arrived in downtown Harvey. Then we trotted through Harvey’s eerie, almost silent downtown to the taxi station, where “Showtime at the Apollo” entertained us while we waited for a taxi driver to show up.

Even though Harvey and Dolton are just five minutes apart, our taxi driver didn’t know where the Dolton Soccer Dome was. This seemed odd, but maybe he’d been hanging out and chugging Old Style at El Ranchito Lounge all night. Anyhow, we found our way to the venue, where hundreds of glittery faced, glow-stick-waving bodies were gathered to hear Los Angeles DJ Trance gas the joint with fumes of pounding house and trance music.

By day Harvey remains about as creepy as it was on the night at the taxi station two years ago. A couple of bars, a laundromat, a few retail stores and many abandoned storefronts line the sidewalks here. Folks drift in and out of the not-so-glamorous Plaza Harvey, where there are baggy pants, Adidas hooded sweatshirts and hair supplies galore. Glow-in-the-dark jump ropes and other random doodads also can be found.

Though there’s literally nowhere to go in Harvey, many souls wait at the bus station at 154th and Park streets for some escape. No one smiles—except for one cute girl of about four years old. Strands of her dark hair hang from green and white barrettes, framing her smile. As the young girl waits for a bus, she hops from one foot to another, shaking her head and barrettes back and forth. The liveliest person in Harvey.

Boarding and disembarking fume-spouting coaches along 154th and Park streets, the bus-goers stumble off at the station, often drifting into the Western Union office to cash Friday paychecks. Cars parked on 154th Street are rusty, faded hunks of steel. One corroded blue station wagon sags in front of Harvey Plaza. In the back seat there’s a light-colored blue blanket, and I half-expect someone to jump out from underneath and scream “Boo!” But the only sounds I hear are a bus rumbling along the street and a couple of boys arguing and cursing in an alley. Part of Harvey’s eeriness is that people rarely say much but often look really ticked off.

A police car is parked about a half a block up 154th Street. As I walk past the car, the cop rolls down his window and asks me what I’m doing in Harvey.

“Just exploring,” I tell him. That doesn’t satisfy, so I tell him that I’m writing a story about what it’s like to spend the day in a ravegoer’s midnight playland.

Then he gets out of his car and looks at me funny—as if I’ve spoken in some foreign and unintelligible language. He asks me if I have an ID.

“Yeah, but why do you need it?” I ask him.

He says the Harvey police posse likes to take notes and check up on suspicious folks who drift through town.

“What, you think I’m suspicious?” I ask the guy, who is wearing a badge that reads “Jage.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not a troublemaker,” I assure him. “Why do you think I’m suspicious?”

“You’re white,” he says. He’s also white. Maybe that makes him “suspicious,” too.

“So?”

He informs me that Harvey is about 85 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic and 5 percent white. “You don’t see that many white people on 154th Street,” he says as he copies my driver’s license information on a white 3-by-5 note card.

I ask him what a typical day in Harvey is like. He says every day is different and that a good day is “a quiet day.”

A bad day in Harvey, Jage says, involves shooting, rape, robbery, domestic violence and other crimes.

He questions me for about five minutes, inquiring about how long I plan to stay in Harvey, asking me again why I’m here in the first place. He also takes down my address and phone number. Meanwhile a fire truck or ambulance blares its siren down some nearby street.

After dealing with Jage I decide I‘ve seen enough of Harvey. El Ranchito Lounge is barely alive at this hour, anyway, so I head to Dolton.

Chicken Tonight

The Village of Dolton sputters with life. Though lacking a traditional downtown, this town of 23,000 people shows more signs of social and economic survival than Harvey does.

The Dolton Chamber of Commerce’s promotional literature might lead you to think that bingo games at The Dorchester Hall—a senior, business and bingo center—are the raciest happenings in Dolton. “Don’t forget... You can play bingo 12 times a week!” the town’s newsletter reminds folks.

Oh, but you can feel your pulse race more at other Dolton hotspots like Skin Graphics, where snake and scantily-clad chicks are only a needle prick away. And after the permanent scarring, you always can shoot pool at Pocket Billiards up the street or check out a movie for $2 at the Dolton Cinema. Or you could get liquored up at one of the town’s proud beer barns or lounges.

Dolton’s two mainstays (besides B-I-N-G-O, of course) seem to be fried chicken and Colt 45.

Near the intersection of Sibley Boulevard and Chicago Road, you’ll find Howard’s Chicken and Seafood, Brown’s Chicken and Pasta and an “opening soon” banner for another chicken joint. Most of the grocery stores, convenience marts and liquor barns are well-stocked with 40-oz. bottles of Colt 45.

But Dolton isn’t the type of town to discriminate against six-packs. Boxes of Colt 45 and Olde English 800 six-packs are stacked up about four feet high near the deli of Dolton Foods, a grocery store with a sign advertising “finest foods.”

Finest foods? Well, Chuck’s Chunky Cookies look mighty tasty, but the homemade ham salad and the reduced-deli foods—two chunks of meat loaf for $1.05 or three chunks for $1.37—don’t look too appetizing.

Brown’s Chicken and Pasta may be Dolton’s most happening afternoon hangout. The Popeye’s-esque chicken joint serves soft, sweet, yummy corn fritters and hosts a steady stream of customers, many of them high school-age kids, coming in for a weekend Crisco fix.

A guy who looks about 16 flirts with the girl behind the counter, telling her that he comes in every day just to see her.

“You can’t see me every day,” says the girl, about 18, who has a fresh, polished face.

“Why not?” the boy asks, looking hurt.

“Because I don’t work here every day,” she says.

“Can I get an application to work here?” he says.

“No.”

“Why not?” the boy asks, looking bummed.

“We don’t have no applications,” the girl says. “We’re out.”

As four or five guys fill some cups with water and soda, another guy finishes what appears to be a doobie, and then they head out.

A Different Beat

Up the street from Brown’s Chicken and Pasta stands MuzicNet, a gospel music store and studio. A quick glance around the store delivers a message that also is the name of a CD on a shelf: Jesus Is Alive. Glaringly short on the latest mix tapes by DJ Trance and house legend Derrick Carter, MuzicNet does offer Praise In The House with Radical for Christ. Yes, Jesus Is Alive, and he’s selling CDs.

Can’t get down to the funky beats of Fatboy Slim or the newest bass-laced tracks on the City of Angels record label? Well, then it must be time to check out Slim and the Supreme Angels: Stay Under The Blood. The CD cover shows Slim and crew in yellow suits holding their hands in the air. And if Slim and the gang don’t give you enough of those Praise-be-Jesus moments, there’s always Classic Gold: 12 hits from your favorite contemporary Christian artists.

Across the street from the tattoo parlor and pool hall stands a Midwest rave temple: the Dolton Expo Center. The upcoming Body Building and Swimsuit Competition, Charity Ball, and Santa’s Antique and Collectible Toy and Advertising Show are advertised on fliers taped to the front door of the Expo Center, but no fliers for upcoming Saturday night raves can be found around town.

No cute raver kids stand outside the center handing out flashy, brightly colored, nauseating-neon rave fliers for me to stuff in the back pockets of my baggy raver jeans. And there’s more than enough available parking nearby. But the party isn’t here.

I’ve been to Harvey, and I’ve been to Dolton. I had a ragin’ time, but enough’s enough. I’ve had my fun.

Though I hated the long haul and the wait at the Harvey taxi station, I still remember how overwhelmed with excitement I was when I finally entered the Dolton Soccer Dome for Dee Day 2 back in October 1995.

Two soccer fields under one roof. Filled with booming bass, hundreds of kids dressed up funky and freaky for the Halloween weekend, and many friendly glow stick fiends who just wanted to dance to decent dance music.

We didn’t go to Dolton to grind to bad booty-shaker music. We went because were really determined ravegoers. That is, we just wanted to dance all night and get lost in the music. And we did.

As the rave scene constantly evolves, the party places move, the vibe changes, and we ravers dance to new beats at new places. I don’t want to move to Harvey or Dolton, but I’m glad I got to go ravin’ in the ghost-like towns because dancing some place is better than dancing nowhere.