How I got there was anyone’s guess, why I got there even more so. A sick joke between the barman, the bouncer, and god. It was a night like any other, soaked in whiskey and creamy pints. Or maybe it was urine, or worse. Hard to tell when you’re elbow deep in the lost promises of a quiet night out. It started well, a little too well maybe. It gave me hope, hope like a stubborn sticker on an empty scratch card, desperate and clinging to a dream that had already been thrown in the bin. I’ll order one more drink, maybe this one will work.
Make it a double.
I turn around and lean casually on the bar, surveying my surroundings like a sheep dog watching his flock. Or maybe I was the sheep. Who knew anymore. The wool had been pulled over my eyes about six pints ago. But there had to be a reason I was in this nest of vipers, a reason I would put myself through this even though I told myself never again. For the last time, every time.
And then I saw her.
There’s always a girl in stories like this, and I just locked eyes with mine. I decided to leave the relative stability of the bar counter and make my way to the dance floor, hoping to make my play. Who knows, maybe she was looking for a mistake of her own that night. When I got there I suddenly became aware of the gravity of the situation I had found myself in, but I had committed to this thing and there was no turning back now, and besides, I no longer knew what direction the bar was in. I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to take a look. Her eyes sparkled like a disco ball at a light show, dazzling and disorienting, leaving me more confused than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I had to think fast.
“Ehxcsushe me, A saw u wer looking at – hic – me from the – hic – the bar A was at an A’m while sorry A’m a bit – hic – pished an A thin – hic – think A pished mesel…”
What a time for the music to stop. The silence was as awkward as a hedgehog at a balloon party, punctuated only by the uncomfortable shuffling of feet and the occasional laugh that echoed like a dying trombone. I swear the DJ did it on purpose. As the music kicked back in, I knew one thing: I had to get out of there. Bewildered, she turned back to her friends and continued dancing. Even more bewildered, I turned and ran for the toilets, the only safe place in a hostile environment like this.
I found an empty cubicle where I could gather myself, maybe sleep it off. I thought maybe if I sent out a message someone would be able to give me some clarity on why exactly I had come here, so I sat down and took out my phone. Thirteen missed calls. I didn’t know what they wanted, and I wasn’t about to find out. Right now I need to send that message. It’s very important that I send this message, and it has to be now. What’s the worst that could happen.
“I went u bakc baby i wus rwong i shod nevver slept have whith them ure th e worst to me an i just didnt neam to hurt y babby am i n the toilet herre n pished mesel i r u out can i come over haha miss you bappy”
“*world”
I press send. That was definitely a very good idea. I close my eyes for a minute and half an hour later I’m awoken by a knock on the cubicle door.
“You OK in there boss?”
It was the toilet guy. I had run right past him on the way in without even saying hello. But here he was, saving my sorry arse once again. There’s always a toilet guy in places like this, and right now, he was my best friend. My only hope. My guardian angel in a bottle of Joop Homme.
“Boss?”
His voice was as smooth as melted butter on a hot frying pan, sliding into my ears like a snail on a buttered escalator. I wasn’t his boss, and I didn’t feel comfortable with the connotation, but I was in no state to argue the complexities of the situation. My trousers were around my ankles and quite frankly I’d forgotten where I was.
“Yep, yep, all good…coming now…cheers…”
I buckled my belt and straightened myself up, flushing the toilet in an attempt to cover my tracks. If anyone asked, I’d say I had a real spicy dinner. I took a breath and unlocked the door, and stepped back out into the world. The toilet guy had sat back at his station, his basket of scents and potions glistening in the white fluorescent lights of the nightclub bathroom. We both remained silent as I washed my hands and avoided eye contact, then he hands me a paper towel. I stand there staring at the floor as he finds the perfect bottle for me, and begins to spray. I still can’t look at him as he coats me in eau de toilette, tilting my head to the right, and then to the left as he does the other side. I then lift my arms, and he continues to spray. I turn within the cloud of intoxicating fragrance the toilet guy was creating, and breathing the perfume I feel myself come to my senses, like a boxer in the twelfth round just given a horse’s dose of smelling salts.
“…what the fuck am I doing here?”, I say aloud but to myself.
“I think you were taking a shit, boss…”, the toilet guy responds as he sits back on his stool. “…I think you were taking a really long shit”
I drop a fiver in the basket and finally look him in the eye, and with a knowing smile, I leave the bathroom. I make my way through the drunken crowds of people and out to the street with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer on a xylophone, but at least I was out. The rain was falling harder than a metaphor in some ten cent pulp fiction story, and I walked home with no real memory of what had happened that night. Lying in bed I couldn’t help but smile at the complexities of life, the things we do and the things we forget. The versions of ourselves that live in the past like ghosts on a timeline ever stretching out of reach, whispers on the winds of time who’s echos fade piece by piece until one day, all we have left is the silence of their emptiness. And then I remember the text message I sent.
“AH FOR FUCKS SAKE!!”