Sliding JayeLs (4)

I stayed on. It was very difficult; there were bouncers shuffling around the dark corners of the club, only waiting for my to conk out. I was awake for 22 hours at this stage, a little tipsy and I’d been in work all day. I walked around the club now and then to see if I’d find this jacket, but no. Sat down again; Emer was talking to her friends and she seemed a little distant. Fantastic; she only wants someone to walk home with so I’m left here counting all the minutes I could’ve spent in bed. But then, that’s all I want to. I want to walk home with someone, to my house, up the green behind my house, under those two huge trees that frame my house in the fluorescent glow of the street lamp between them. To stop on the green and look at the stars, the big round black sky and wonder which of them up there is the space station. I mean, obviously I do this shit on my own coming home, but it’d be lovely for someone else to be there too. And no-one ever has. So I hung on.

Elaine and Sinead called me out to dance, but I couldn’t. The music in the place was fucking amazing, mixing Madonna and Daft Punk, blaring out lots of French moozik, crisp, slear and heavy. The place basically rocked, but the energy wasn’t in me and I wasn’t about to take an E (or as that hoor from “Sex and the City” calls it, “X”) to get going. But then Emer emerged from the throng and dragged me out. I didn’t stop her. “Don’t fancy her, don’t fancy her, don’t fancy her”. It was just so cool to see her smile, seeing that face for so long and now seeing her smile……I got a bit of a boost. Then the night took a turn for the better; “Golden Brown” by The Stranglers came on. Is it The Strangers? Anyway, I was about to go sit down when Emer kinda goes….and then I go……and before I knew it, we were….em…..waltzing. The most memorable bit of the night really, twirling her and I just couldn’t stop smiling. I wasn’t really fancying her as such, it was more just the fun of it. I just felt so happy. Maybe I did take an E……

We sat down on adjoining stools and she just said, out of the blue, that we should go out in our town sometime. She must have seen the smile, it just shot across my face and I’d imagine something in my eyes went funny too. I was making a friend, which seemed so much more important than trying to kiss her. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been nice but……just with “Mate”, the young lady friend I’ve had for the past five years, becoming a complete arsehole to me (she now only ever wants to us to meet on a bus or in my house, nowhere public like a…..pub), it felt so good to for someone to suggest I was good company. And she’s such good company. Just talking about stuff, like me and “mate” used to do.

The night ended with the lights coming up at around three. The phone I found rung, I went outside to try and hear the person. It died, a little animated dog running away on the screen and with that no chance of finding the owner. Unless I traced them through the IMEI number inside the battery compartment. See, I wasn’t that drunk! It was coming up to 3.15 and Emer still hadn’t found her jacket. It’d take us 10 minutes to catch the bus, and that was the last bus. I was telling her to leave it, it’ll be handed in. But she wouldn’t leave until she absolutely had to. In five minutes. I walked the length of the club (not too far) and had a gawk at every beige jacket I could find. Returned to find Emer lifting up a pile of jackets behind where she was sat. “FOUND IT!!!” And that was that, against all odds she found her jacket. At 3.23am.