A Nightclub Scene

Don't ask where this came from, it just is.

We trudged through ankle-deep slush on a cold January night.  It was nearly midnight and Rick had finally convinced me after a couple beers to come out with him to the club.  With my shivering, reddened hands shoved in the pockets of my winter coat, I followed behind him, my eyes looking more intently on where I was tromping my feet than where he was going.  I just stayed two footprints behind and assumed they were still his.

                Abruptly, he stopped.  I looked up.  We were now waiting in line outside the club amidst a flurry.  A pair of bouncers were checking I.D.s, taking money and waving people through.  “Must be a slow night,” Rick yelled to me over the zoom of a passing car, “They’re just letting people right in.”

                When we got to the third and fourth spots in the lineup, they paused.  They were nearing capacity and had to wait for a few people to leave before they let anyone else in.  Rick scanned behind us for cute girls we could chat up.  He found a pair too far down for us to spark any kind of conversation, so we just bullshitted each other and pretended like the cold didn’t bother us.  He glanced back over to the two girls further down the line.  They looked back at us.  Rick nodded at them.  Contact had been made.

                A few minutes later, a small crowd left and we were waved in.  We checked our coats.  I immediately regretted my decision to leave the house.  The dampness of everyone’s shoes was making the dancefloor slick.  The ratio of girls to guys was not favourable.  Creepy immigrant dudes were bothering all the females, putting everyone in a bad mood.

                I hate places like these.  I love to talk to women, but I can’t dance for s**t.  I’m worse than useless here.  Rick, I don’t know how he does it, is better at the nonverbal thing than I am.  Within minutes he was out on the dancefloor mixing it up, while I was hanging back by the bar.  I flagged the barmaid and asked her how over the pulsing noise much for a beer.  She held up the palm of her left hand and the index finger of her right.  7 bucks?  Fine, I’ll take it, but I don’t have to be happy about it.

                I was sipping the drink and watching over the scene when the two girls from further down the line came in.  I saw them craning their necks, apparently looking for Rick and/or me.  I kept them in my line of sight in case they noticed where I was.  They came over.

                The tall brunette yelled something over the noise I couldn’t quite make out.  She repeated it and I interpreted it as “WHERE’S YOUR FRIEND?”  I gestured to the dancefloor.  She walked right out there without skipping a beat.  Her friend, shorter with tan skin, nodded her head sideways in that direction, seeming to say “Let’s go.”  I gestured at my drink.  She held my wrist firmly with my hand on the bottle and the bottle on the bar.  I released my grip.  She pulled me gently by the wrist toward the dancefloor.  Fine, I’ll take it, but I don’t have to be happy about it.

                She began to wriggle in front of me.  I moved awkwardly next to her, keeping my distance and trying to approximate the rhythm.  As the night went on, she kept me closer and closer, and I went along with it.  Across the dancefloor, her friend and Rick began to paw at each other wildly, hungrily.  I began to contemplate making my own move when suddenly everyone stopped dancing.

                I looked around in a mild panic.  Had something happened?  Was someone injured?  No.  People stopped dancing and began to file up the back stairs toward the fire exit.  Slowly, orderly.  There wasn’t a fire.  It was as though everyone had just decided to go right up.  Maybe there was a reason.  Maybe they were being led.  I couldn’t tell.  I just went along, and so did the girl. 

We followed the mass out the back exit and into the alleyway.  A hundred or so people all just stood crammed in the back alley until the fire door closed behind us.  People began to shiver, having not had time to grab their coats.  I wrapped my arm around the girl, trying to play hero and keep her warm.  She began to convulse.  Everyone did, except me.  I just watched.

Practically in unison, the entire gathering doubled over and began to vomit.  Each and every one of those men and women hunched over and started throwing up.  Some crouched low, some tried to stay standing, lunging their sternums forward and projecting the contents of their stomachs onto their neighbours.  The sound of mass retching, the odour of a hundred or so dancers’ stomach contents filled the alleyway.  Everyone was standing in it.  People couldn’t stand up, they had to kneel down in it.  People just kept throwing up.

I just stood there, watching this spectacle.  Minutes ticked by and the mass vomiting didn’t let up, until one by one people regained control.  Girls, guys, bartenders, bouncers, Rick, all just stood looking back and forth at one another for answers, but nothing was even said.  It was just something everyone was going to have to get over.

Someone held the door open and the crowd filed back into the club, wiping their feet off on the doorframe as they passed.  I just stayed behind, taking stock of the mess left behind, thinking it was probably time to go.