The Friday Scuffle

In life there are things that should never be mixed, like heels and champagne, obesity and bikinis, North Korea and nuclear warheads amongst many other, and as of couple Fridays back, ego and alcohol.

Oh, but we've already known that too well as witnessed by the obscene amount of fights that have broken out in clubs. And I say obscene not because I think it's complete childish - God forbid, it makes great entertainment value, second only to midget wrestling - , but because fights in real life are never as glamourous as Hollywood depicts.

It's always messy, we never get that picture perfect still shot of a knockout and it ends way too fast. Rocky Balboa looked like he could take a punch from every one in China and still have a Kentucky Fried Chicken before he goes down for the count.

It all started at the toilet for me where I was unceremoniously cut at the queue by a girl. And because I am brilliant at deducing the situation, I figured that if this came down to a fist fight, I would have a substantial advantage over her lithe 40 odd kg frame and plus I hadn't file my nails all day.

Me: "Wah! You just cut my queue!"

She turns around, clearly inebriated and has no idea what I am saying. She wouldn't have anyway to begin with even if she was sober because she wasn't local. And if it wasn't because she was actually pretty and could probably know Wushu, I would have challenged her to a round of Chinese chess for the rights to the toilet.

Me: "Oh it's okay. You guys don't queue to begin with."

So I got out back out to find the guys at the bar, ready to palaver my little tale of friction when all of the sudden, I am hit at the side of my face. I turn, clutch my face and exclaim loudly to the first guy I see. He pays me no attention. Instead, he starts yelling at D2.

I stand there clueless as to what is going on while the guy yells away. I hear juvenile key phrases like, "you bump into me" and "never say sorry" and I start looking around the club frantically hoping to see Ekin Cheng and Jordan Chan pop up from the crowd, cued with techno Canto pop and gang cheers.

The next thing I know, another guy comes over stark raving mad and throws in huge words like, "loser" and "poor" and then starts boasting about being a lawyer. I do not get to drink anything during this 5 minutes of yelling, but I am generally amused by it.

Apparently, everything that the two guys have done is scripted - probably down to what vulgarities they were planning to use because the first guy looked like he would normally have problems saying his name without thinking.

It was a script formed from a thick plot of spurned love, a bruised ego, revenge and a lot cauldron full of inmaturity. It's something a TVB drama would have been if all their actors were 12 years old.

So it was revenge. D2 had been the subject for this aggrevation and his reaction would have been the bait for a full on violence had he not kept his cool and read the situation. RotiPrata had gone out to the smoking deck where they were, to settle things with security.

Bystander: "You okay?"
D2: "You want to start also issit?!"

The guy was livid but it was hilarious because it seemed for a moment, that wrath had eroded all sense of clarity in D2 and he would have killed even Big Bird if it tired to pacify him.

Bystander: "What the fuck?! I just asked if you are okay?!"

I would have have giggled myself to death if it didn't look like another fight might break out from this. Immediately, the bystander's friend started talking to me.

Friend: "Hey, tell your friend to chill lah.."

I would have replied him if I wasn't laughing to badly.

When we got out to the smoking deck, the first guy that hit D2 had suddenly surrendered into an apologetic lump of gutlessness. At first I thought that RotiPrata might have sliced off his testicles with an amonia laced letter opener, then I realized how absurd the whole debacle had adulterated itself into.

Apparently, the first guy who had hit D2, had in his drunken stupor, vitiated his claim against D2 by confessing that he had thrown a punch. On the other hand, the second guy who had instigated the whole affair continued his yelling, which were like stand up comedy punchlines.

2nd Guy: "You are a fucking loser. You are poor. I am rich. I am a lawyer! Just remember that when you kiss her, you are tasting my dick!"

I think the only thing he missed out was 'my daddy has a bigger gun than your daddy. I don't want to friend you'. And then he got dragged out, because he had a friend who is a self-confessing moron that made Forrest Gump look like Ari Gold.

Bystander and his friend comes by again and tries to appease everyone. Yang, who had been quiet all night turns to the friend.

Yang: "I know you.."
Friend: "Oh? Where from?"
Yang: "You look familiar.. you look like someone... that I want to punch the face in because..."

And there was a long pause. I was half expecting a joke at the end of it that would have ended with us giving high fives and chest bumping, but no. There was nothing but contempt that lay ahead, but this was what the guy said in retaliation.

Friend: "Eh.. why your friend like that! I'm hurt by what he just said. I was just trying to be nice and then he come and say such things."

I don't know if he was a Catholic church alter boy or a gay manicurist by day, but I laughed so hard, I barely had strength to hold my cigarette. Where are the Hollywood fights when you need one?

The One About The Stairs

“Who scared who! Drink lah!”

There are few verbal cues in my dictionary that is capable of heralding an eventful night. And when this comes regurgitated from LB, you know that it’s a polarizing effect of either things turning out decent or usually, a dismal spiral to the worst night ever.

And I have empirical evidences to purport my stance. The last time he said that, I ended up walking around St James with a torn shirt and the other time, he tore down the ceiling panels. I don’t remember any of the times that things turned out good.

There wasn’t a planned destruction of our liver despite it being a Friday night. I wanted to check out Lunar and Shanghai Dolly and we capped the tour of Clarke Quay with a decent round of Jagerbombs only because we bumped into Xin at one of the bars and we convinced her that buying us a round was a courtesy tribute to us for winning our money in mahjong.

Then we ended in Zouk, or if you are taking blood alcohol readings then, more rightfully, we started at Zouk with a bottle of whiskey and Red Bull. Then it came a bottle of vodka and somewhere along the way it got out of hand.

Poca joined us briefly before surrendering to a charge of alcohol concoctions that she had re-toxified herself with at another club. Along the way, Felice popped by with an emotionally burdened heart. And somewhere into the second vodka, I lost track of sobriety.

It was one of those nights that we were making cheers out of nothing and celebrating insignificance. We could have made a toast to cockles and starfishes and drank to that like it was a wedding party and none of us cared if any of it made sense. It was the very scene that would have won us an Oscar if we were making film about binge drinking.

Danny pours a glass and hands it to me. I take it respectfully despite a blurring vision and an ailing strength soon to be surrendered to vodka and hand it to LB, who rejects the drink. I yell to LB,

Me: “If you are not going to drink it, no one can!”

In response to this vile sacrilegious snub of alcohol, I spill the entire contents of the drink onto the floor next to me – and on to some girl’s foot.

She starts yelling at me, that much I remember, but I am not responding well to anything even if Megan Fox is requesting an emergency tit fuck. I do what all men do when women are yelling at them, I pretend to search for my imaginary TV remote controller.

I don’t know if someone dragged her away, or she choked on her saliva, but the yelling ceased, or maybe she finally realized that yelling gets you nowhere when it comes to men, because we only respond well to crying, lap-dances and stripteases. We don’t even need you to say ‘please’.

By the time we got out of Zouk, my memory was already in patches. I remembered having a lot of difficulty just standing still on a spot and accusing stepping on pavements as a test of sobriety. I didn’t give a shit what time it was or that RotiPrata was missing. I just needed to get home.

As soon as I got in the cab with LB, I knew two things for sure; I was never going to make it home without spewing in the cab and I was probably never going to remember how I got back. I was right about one, which makes me half a psychic. I started spewing just as we turned in to my place.

UUuuuuuuuaaaAaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!

A torrent flood right out my mouth and had it not been for a seasoned cabbie who read all the facial symptoms of frowns, rolling eyes and furious contractions of the neck muscles and intervened with a paper bag, I would have filled it with so much puke, it would make the Three Gorges Dam look like a puddle.

I remembered throwing the bag out the window and laughing about it. I remembered staggering to my gate and constantly reminding myself to lock up. I remembered struggling with the locks, but that was no where near the Everest feat of scaling the flight of stairs to my room, because I was going to attempt it without an oxygen tank, a Sherpa and with a lot more alcohol in my system.

It was almost an impossible task, like a colour-blind kid trying to solve the Rubic''s Cube. I was barely even capable of standing and no where near making progress of conquering the first step, despite having a wall as support.

I was swaying so much, I started having motion sickness myself and having grave difficulty just standing, let alone comprehend why the steps always seemed to be 2 inches too far for me to reach. Then a streak of brilliance hit me. The only way I was going make it up the stairs, was if I kept my centre of gravity low to prevent myself from falling over.

So I did what every intelligent drunk man would have done; I started crawling. It wasn’t much easier than walking would have been, but what mattered was that I was making progress on the stairs.

Then somewhere after the forth step, I must have either passed out entirely, or decided that taking a nap on the stairs was a brilliant idea. I know so because I woke up abruptly probably half an hour later with alcohol amnesia and freaked myself out.

For one, when I woke up, I had no recollection of where I was, or more importantly, what I was trying to achieve just moments before I surrendered to alcohol and fatigue. But, waking up in pitch darkness and on a stairway that resembles an alley is urine inducing. I sat there frozen, half wondering if I had made a bet about climbing stairs or if I had given the cabbie a wrong address.

A million impulses exploded in my head. Should I scream? Should I trying to get up or just pretend to be sleeping? Did I just puke on my shirt? Am I still in Singapore? Do I still have my kidneys available?

I looked up at the 15 remaining steps and calculated my rate of ascent, to which I vaguely remembered to be time drive. So, if I took 15 minutes to clear the 4 steps, then I was probably going to reach the top by the next season of American Idol, and I needed to puke babdly.

And this was the only clear message I go all night long.

I am fucked.