Sliding JayeLs (2)

I took in the facts. I was -€70 on my credit card. I had all the money for next week in my wallet. I had to be in work at 9am. I had been up since 6.30am, it was now 11pm. I was recording Fraiser at home, I could go watch that. I could just go home and have a nice night and go to bed. There’ll be plenty more nights. Like Phil’s thing in May. Or going to Galway next weekend. Or finally going to Cork some day. I didn’t need this shit.

But I did. I had to go out. I had to give it a go. I had to see what if there was a chance I could have a brilliant Friday night. If I could have a story to tell about the night I nearly went home and I’m glad I didn’t. I texted Elaine; “Are you out tonight?” If she wasn’t out, well at least you tried. Your heart was in the right place, you weren’t going to give up without a fight. She replied; “I’m just leaving Grant Lee Buffalo concert in Vicar St. Might be goin to Riras if u wanna come.” Rí-Rá’s, just as I’d suspected. Ah well, better than moping around at home feeling sorry for myself. So I ran up Dame Street. Just like Forrest Gump, I just kept runnin’. Came up behind a group of girls and frightened them. So nothing new there. Eventually I caught up with a shocked Elaine and Sinead, wondering how I got up there so quick. I must have ran pretty fast, just to try and save tonight. Fight the break of dawn, whatever. I was going to chance it.

So Rí-Rá’s it was. Elaine, Sinead and me walking down Dame Lane chatting. I’d most likely sit around, or stand, and spend the whole night texting or trying desperately to get drunk. And by the time I’m up on the dancefloor, it’s closing time. A less shit night. Elaine stopped walking, she didn’t have enough money. It was going to be €10 in. She was about to turn back to find an ATM, when she started to get apprehensive about the entire paying-in-to-somewhere-at-this-stage. Anywhere free in? I suggested O’Brien’s, but they wanted a club. A club that was free in around there? Not likely. Until Sinead said she knew a place.

Number 4 Dame Lane. That’s the actual name on it, quite strange. “No room upstairs (the club), just downstairs (the bar)” said the bouncer, who let us through since there was no queue. Walked through the crowd to the back, where Sinead reckoned we could get upstairs from. On the way, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. I never stopped walking, but I took it in all the same. “So this is where she goes”. The girl (obviously) was Emer, a neighbour. Literally, the girl around the corner; across the Creek if you will. Only Emer and me have barely ever spoken, despite living within football-kicking distance of each other. She went to the Irish school locally and then on to an Irish secondary school. The only time I have had any dealings with her was four years ago at a party for an old friend, Natasha. She worked with Natasha so while I had the beer goggles on, I talked to her. And she was lovely. I knew nothing about her, only that she seemed a bit stand-offish. She walked past my house every day on her way to the bus stop, and she kinda walks very confidently with her head up. Which in Ireland automatically means you’re arrogant. But I had no right to think that, even though I’d never seen her smile. And she did have a lovely smile, mainly because I’d never seen her before. But I do remember thinking how utterly gorgeous and perfect she looked when she smiled. And how strange it was that I didn’t know someone so close.

I hadn’t been drinking very long (I was such an amateur drinker I was still drinking Budweiser instead of proper beer), I was 16 at the time, about to turn 17 but already the classic Drunken Joe characteristics were beginning to assert themselves. The loudmouth shit-talk, the offensive remarks tidied up as playful banter and remarkably similiar to the personality of Richard Fish from “Ally McBeal” (“Bygones”) and of course the (hopeless) trying it on with anything with boobs. So what does Joe say to Natasha when asked, in front of Emer, what I thought of the party? Something akin to “It’s great, I think I’d like to snog your friend [Emer] now.” In front of her. Someone she knew started talking to her and I walked off, realising how utterly tactless I’d been. I went on to drink some cooking brandy and throw up on the jackets bed. And get kicked out, topless, in the freezing cold. And beg for half an hour to be let back in by some prick who’d decided he was the party’s bouncer. What a childhood I had.

So to make a long story boring, I hadn’t talked to Emer, the girl around the corner who seemed really cool, since 1998 and I was mortified until recently when I saw her. One New Year’s night a year or two later, I was approached by her brother in the toilets of a club and I got the impression he knew what I said. So she hadn’t forgotten. And either had I. But it’s 2002 now. Lots of things have changed. At that party, I was wowing people with the amazing 088 mobile I’d gotten for Christmas, making the house phone ring. Yes, it was a real portable telephone!! And yes, it’s mine!! Bill Clinton was the revered US president, the cast of “Friends” got considerably less than $30,000 a minute and “Big Brother” was some obscure reference over-used by journalists. Lots of things were different, and the fact that I made one daft remark when I was 16 was irrelevant. Yet here I was, givin’ it loads upstairs in the club when suddenly I realised Emer and her friends were stood nearby. She could see me. She was probably telling her friends about that spa over there that lives near here and what he said to her once. Loser. Suddenly, sitting down seemed like a good idea. So I sat.