Poison Images (Chapter 1)

I’d just like to start by saying, I am not a reliable teller of the events that follow. Although I am the one who experiences the tale you are about to hear. Nothing I can relate can come close to the crazy feelings and images I must and will relay. At various time my tale may defy reason and even logic. I ask you to accept this, as I show you what should never be known.

Bar Times

It started as an average night out, average by my standards. In that I was already a good deal out of my tree on alcohol. So here we were, queuing up, it was the all-night rave at our local student bar. I’d gone out with my mates; John, Nick and Andy. The hard-core of our flat who were always up for it. After a bit of bad noise from the bouncers (I hadn’t brought my student card), they let us in.

And so, for £3 we were going to dance the night away, to some hard house and trance, flashing lights and the general series of blurry memories that inevitably followed that one pint too many. In short, it was going to be good.

The bar is actually two bars, and an upper level. Theres a bar, and then at both ends there are ways for people to go in between two areas. This night they were only playing one set of music throughout the whole venue. Usually, they close one end (with a partition) and play two different set of music.

In addition to this, the bar has an upper area, accessible by stairs. Venturing up will give you a small balcony area, where you can chill out a little, as the music isn’t quite so loud. If you feel inclined, you can look down at the main dance floor, some six feet below. Usually this is inhabited by either rowdy groups, or seemingly suspicious small gatherings, the area isn’t well lit up at all.

For me, the first thing to do was obvious. Go straight for the bar, and make an order. My friends think that, firstly you should put your coat in the cloak room, then goto the bar. They have never been able to fully explain that logic to me.

More friends turned up, these were some girls that lived in a flat in the same halls as we were living in. Good girls, very funny, and not unattractive I might add! For although I was also more than a little drunk, I was in reasonably high hopes of finding a girlfriend this evening. There was no real reason, I just felt really good.

So there we were dancing away. The music was repetitive, and hard, which is always the best way when you’re drunk. So there we were, dancing away. I was dancing and looking around, looking to see if anyone had noticed me, apparently not.

Suddenly, someone shoved into me from behind, someone quite large, and tall it seemed. I nearly fell over, but John, and this other girl, who had been dancing with us for a bit caught me. The person, didn’t follow me down. As I turned round I saw it was a man.

He was, I had observed quite large, and wore a leather jacket, which would never zip up on him, a t-shirt with a skeleton on a motorcycle. He had a very thick beard, compensating for near total baldness. He was looking at me and grinning. `Just start something’ his grin said. I didn’t. For one thing, he had three similar sized friends with him, who were also taking an interest in me, and for another, a bouncer was making his way over. The bouncer had a word in the guy’s friends ear. I gave the guy one last disapproving look, and turned back round.

My friends asked me if I was ok, and I was. We started dancing again. About two songs later the fat bastard rocker crew started dancing aggressively next to us again. They were just dancing in their way, but using a tactic I sometimes use in moderation to gain space on a packed dance floor. Just get as close to the person behind you as you can and dance right up against them, don’t push, just dance. Eventually they’ll give some more room to you.

These guys weren’t just dancing, they were actually pushing. The one behind me, the original “fatso basto” as I remember thinking at that moment, was actually trying to elbow me at the same time. My mate Andy saw this, and was about to have a word, I stopped him, and suggested we go to the bar. They were obviously way more drunk than us, and wouldn’t last long, so we went and sat down for a bit.

It was a good chance to sit and cool off. Andy was telling me to get the bouncers onto them; they were really showing how drunk they were. I said if they started on us again I would. This calmed him a bit, I calmed him down a bit more by offering to buy him a drink.

By now the bar was crowded, and it did take me a while to get served. I would have felt uncomfortable leaving Andy on his own, sometime he can get wound up about things, and he did seem annoyed at the fat bastard gang. But he was with John and the girls so he’d be ok. They were all sat with him, which is probably why none of them saw what I did when I turned back round.

Above them, on the balcony, was the fat bastard gang, right above them. They were sat with half empty glasses. It was fatso that caught my eye though. He was directly above Anna, one of the nicer girls we were out with. He had his manhood out in his hand, trousers and jockeys at his ankles and was either about to start jacking off, or…

It’s a strange thing anger. I know that I have been very angry at stupid things, like computers that are slow, or puzzles that take far too much effort. This time, I was reasonably sure my anger could be justified, even in the bouncer’s eyes.

The pints were left at the bar, I started pushing through the people. Fatso’s gang were laughing uncontrollably. He stood there, grinning stupidly, massaging the wonder of his small endowment. My friends below were talking and hadn’t yet noticed me.

I was clear of the bar crowd now, and could run with ease. My friends finally noticed me, and turned to look where I was looking. They just managed to get out of the way as I jumped on the table and off of it onto the railing.

I remember thinking how scared, but excited I was. I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt right. I raised my fist, and was surprised to find I had given a heafty uppercut to Fatso’s balls, squashing them like the useless bags of puss they undoubtedly were. Then I fell back down again, my arse landed on the edge of the table, and It almost broke I’m sure. Then I fell off that and onto the floor, which as always was already wet and sticky with spilt beer.

For a second I just sat there, breathing hard. Then I picked myself up. I looked around, a big crowd was looking. Not at me, the man who was now screaming in agony upstairs. His mates were looking down at us. One pointing, and then in another second he disappeared. I was sure he was coming for me. My friends looked at me with a “time to go expression”.

“I’ll be right back” I said.

I turned to run, and saw bouncers heading upstairs. It seemed then, that the bouncers were going for them. Although this was reassuring, I decided to play it safe and ran into the toilets. They would find it hard to get me in there.