The scene: Club Crusade, a one-night-only club...

The scene: Club Crusade, a one-night-only club Friday at the Variety Arts Center to raise money for Jamaicans left homeless by Hurricane Gilbert. The worthy cause netted $10,000 but met an untimely demise when fire marshals decided there were too many charitable clubbies and shut it down at 12:30 a.m. For $15, early birds danced to reggae, rock and rap until they were ushered out and shivered in the parking lot, deciding where to go next. After all, who steps out of the house before midnight?

The buzz: Would the club really be closed? This was a benefit for homeless people and maybe just this once they’d let it go. No such luck. Experienced night-lifers know the presence of police and firefighters is any club’s death knell.

Dress mode: Black on black, the night crawlers’ uniform. Relics of Madonna’s past life showed up in exposed bras; motorcycle babes were decked in leather jackets and chains; itsy-bitsy girls wore teen-weeny minis; both sexes sported Terence Trent D’Arby-inspired braid.

The food: Nonexistent, unless you received a smiley-face button granting access to a VIP-press room.

Overheard: “If there was a celebrity in here, how would anyone know?” asked one clubbie maneuvering through a sea of sweaty bodies.

Entertainment: The reggae group the New Tones, along with local DJs and rappers Young MC and Tone Loc; all the people-watching you could hope for, spread over the club’s five floors; fist fights outside.

Have this at your next party: Stylists from Vidal Sassoon donated haircuts in the basement barber shop for those in the mood.

Fire marshal etiquette: Do not throw beer bottles or incendiary devices at him; do not ask him why he wears red suspenders; do not tell him he is the Antichrist; when beefy security guards bellow “All right, people, move it, move it, move it !,” you had better clear the way.

There’s always next week: Fliers were distributed for the Last Shot’s “Celebration of Mike Tyson’s Freedom” theme night.