Clubbing

A short piece I wrote for my Creative Writing coursework, based on a fictional character during an awkward situation.
This is essentially how I feel about said subject, and the events are pieced together from various 'excursions'....


We opened the door and I knew immediately I wasn’t going to enjoy this night, I didn’t know why exactly but I knew I wasn’t going to be enthralled for the next 3 hours, perhaps it was the unfamiliarity of this place and the feeling of dread on par with somebody running at you with a samurai sword and a disgruntled expression or hearing the words ‘now on BBC one, the ONE SHOW”. I’d done it, something I particularly never liked the look of or appealed to me, I’d been dragged clubbing, forced even! With trite excuses and a large amount of guilt tripping along the lines of ‘it’s my birthday, you’ve got to come!’ I was coerced into either going or being viewed as some sort of social misanthrope who refused to comply with the wishes of somebody on their birthday, in this day and age that’s on par with shooting the person in the knees apparently. I should have tweaked that I wasn’t going to enjoy this when I saw the mass of people queuing outside; for the record, the only thing I’m willing to queue for is Thunder Mountain at Disneyland or a booth to hurl chip fat at David Cameron. One of my friends re-assured me that this large amount of people meant quality, I recall him in the queue trying to get me interested.
“Come on Damien, loads of people are queuing outside, it must be good!”
“You could say that about Nazi polling booths or tickets for Girls Aloud”
I fell on deaf ears as my 5 other friends queued up anyway, reluctantly I followed suit. After about 10 minutes of queuing we finally made it to the front and all my friends were let in, as they neared the door a hand pushed in front of me and one of the bouncers spoke in a low, generically gruff voice.
“Sorry mate I’ll need to see some I.D”
Bull-honky. I clearly looked over 18, it was because I was wearing jeans and a Thin Lizzy shirt; I was being discriminated against because I wasn’t dressed like a French working girl or a member of Spandau Ballet. I fumbled around in my wallet whilst doing my best to mumble under my breath irately in a form of pithy rebellion; after shoving my I.D in his face he nodded and I rejoined my friends. One of them pushed the front doors open, bringing me back to the first sentence, I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy this in the slightest; about a hundred people were all confined to the dance floor, hardly any space between them all as they attempted to ‘dance’, this consisted of girls pretending to pole dance and the men throwing up gang symbols whilst rooted to the spot. I turned to my friends.
“I’m getting a drink”
“WHAT?” Holly motioned with her hand by her ear; the music was louder than I’d thought, even though it seemed to be just below ‘battle of the Somme’. I made a crude drinking motion and walked to the bar and was greeted by a cheery blonde barmaid.
“Hey can I help you?” She smiled, it seemed pretty fake.
“Umm, Oh, just a coke please” I blurted it out like a social cripple asking somebody on a date, I figured I’d rather be sober and have my wits about me at this place; seeing as everybody else was pretty much drunk like a priest at an orphanage, it’d give me some small moral victory. The barmaid returned after a minute or so and laid a small glass in front of me.
“That’ll be Two fifty please”
“Oh I’m sorry, I ordered a coke”
“Yeah...it’s two fifty” her expression became one of exasperation as she mentally assumed I was an idiot.
“Two fifty?! I ordered a coke not shares in Disney”
“Hey It’s a club, what do you expect?”
“You’ve got me there”
I grabbed my overpriced fizzy pop and spun around, my stomach lurched a little bit. My friends were gone; they’d completely vanished from their previous spot and had presumably dispersed into the crowd. I had no intention of standing at the bar by myself like a Dad at a school disco so I decided to seize the day and charge headlong into the crowd of dancers to find them. I pushed through the crowd for about 15 minutes, muttering “Excuse me” and “Sorry” to everybody I nudged, which in this environment was ALL OF THEM. Half way across something latched onto my arm, I spun around and was confronted with a girl who’d obviously had far too much to drink; she’d obviously just turned 18 and was relishing the chance to replace her blood content with vodka. She gripped at my shirt with all the intensity of somebody having a fit and dragged me towards her.
“HEY! LET’S DANCE!!”
“Sorry, I’m looking for my friends”
“I can be a friend”
As much as my self esteem would have loved getting hit on by somebody far too drunk to remain upright, I passed up her offer by pretending to dance only to fall back into the crowd and disappear like a groovy ninja, spending another 10 minutes navigating the place. When I made it to the edge of the dance floor I saw what can only be described as my friend’s huddled like a batch of giggling teenage school girls.
“Hey guys, thanks for ditching me”
Totally ignoring what I’d just said, Steve, a less than intelligent, stocky friend of mine cried out
“DAMIEN! Jack’s pulled!”
“What...a muscle?”
He then grabbed my head and spun it in the direction of my friend Jack, or more importantly, the obviously intoxicated sixteen year old wrapped around his face like some crude, whorish scarf. They were kissing with all the enthusiasm of, well, two drunken strangers who shared a mutual love of having no morals. They continued this for about 5 minutes, my friends cheering with all the enthusiasm as if it was some sort Roman blood-sport, only to suddenly pull apart, whereupon Jack then whispered something in her ear. She was obviously less than delighted at what he’d said, perhaps it was her shocked expression, or her cry of “PERVERT” before flailing her arms at him and skipping off to her friends. Jack stormed over and without stopping by us walked to the door
“We’re leaving, it’s my birthday and I want to leave”
Relieved I led the charge out of this place, like X fighters triumphantly escaping from the exploding death star. It’s pretty much lines like that which show I’m not the sort of person for these places...