Despite all this, sometimes my judgement is still poor. I'll say the wrong thing or decide I'll stand up to perceived bullying, or believe I'm capable of teaching some clown a lesson. Sometimes my levels of natural social awkwardness will provoke disdain in others. This is the beginning of a series of posts about times in my life where alcohol, poor judgement, bad luck or just general dumbassery got me into scrapes or almost scrapes, Narrowly avoided punch ups or rare occasional full blown ones. For the actual street brawlers this may seem tame and for the sanctimonious some of these things may seem tedious proof giving examples of why drinking is a pointless leisure pursuit, but Id like to believe these fables will provide mirth to some.
Let's begin with my first night of drinking,
Conor learns basic boxing combinations, goes out on first actual night out
Amongst some of my friends who have endured me during my extremely awkward teenage years (and later general wanker years of which I still progress through these days) there is some confusion as to when my first drunken night was. Some would point to an Easter "fling" night. A school committee organised underage drinking session in a hotels ball room, where bar staff refused to serve me, knowing full well most of the other students were underage, they had feigned being of legal age by dressing the part - stripey shirts, glitzy dresses and Lacoste polos. I had rocked up in a skull and crossbones embossed skater hoody, as acne ridden as I had been the year I bought the scruffy, bleached by whatever doctor prescribed ointment damn jumper. Made an example of, I was forced to ask others to buy pints for me using the measley £10 coins Id scraped together from my paper round. Four pints in and I was mine sweeping, abducting any wayward pint left unguarded more than 120 seconds. Thankfully no bad came of this grand theft pinta other than being warned by a friend not to open my pig swill filled gob on the journey home, lift granted by her father.
The other grand popping of the inebriation cherry came when I decided I'd head out to meet some potential friends. I say potential friends because Id schooled with them for six years, had shared hobbies and wanted to be part of their group. Maybe, just maybe, if I spent some outside of school time I could prove my coolness and say some witty things. They'd want my trading card shuffling ass in their gang and would want to play all those great games I tried to force upon them. Alas, it was not to be. I soon got brushed off with questions like "what are you doing here?" And "who did you come with". The "you guys, I guess" suggestions quickly became scorned, sniggered at and I stood around feeling out of place. Thankfully, more accepting folk were in that bar. A young Niall graham, whom id become acquainted with through the aforementioned world of collectible card game geekery and his friend Daffy, whose real name is unknown but stands as a pillar of the people nicknamed after looney toons community. They were buzzed, bouncing around the place like they'd drank the maximum sugar squishy from a very specific Simpsons episode you should go watch again (and if you haven't seen it, you're a wankdog, get a life, fuck face). In their haze they seemed far more interesting than those who shunned me and invited me to join them on their level ten hallionry.
After more beers we headed off to nightclub famed for its disdain for anything bright: The Venue. This haven for goths, moshers, metallers, fishnet wearing pale skinned princesses and chain smoking make up wearing men and generally unwashed folk was disregarded by . Though no doubt many cherries of the other kind were popped over the years in the bar, my main concern was being the drunkest bastard in there.
Being that it was a particularly shady club for quite sometime it made a point of not selling alcohol. It sold tickets instead, that could be traded for drinks. I don't know how exactly this got around whatever legal restriction it was faced with but for years it dived right through that loophole reasonably successfully.
Firstly I'd need to buy drinks tickets, then I'd exchange those drinks tickets for vodkas. Straight double vodkas in fact. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to stomach one of them, let alone four of them - not all subsequently but certainly within the space of two hours, the Russian poison had infected me, turned off most of the part of the brain that says "don't do that, it might not be such a great idea...". Id taken up boxing only a few months previously. Now it was time to remind everyone just how skilled I'd become - by busting out my three punch combos at the air. Jab, cross hook! Cross, hook, cross! Hook, cross, hook! With a combination of cheap alcohol and adrenaline coursing through my blood stream, I deemed myself unstoppable, capable of knocking out Mike Tyson with one well placed punch. I needed to show the world how this air in front of my face was no longer any threat to me, how I could dispatch the once mighty foe like it wasn't even there. Maybe then the chicks would flock to me, bountiful breasts bouncing free from their corsets as they leapt towards me.
I had to be sat down multiple times. A group of older guys who I also knew from geeky gaming aimed to ensure I was safe from bouncers disdain, or from landing a stray punch on some unfortunate fat girl's jowl. I'd stop momentarily, gorge on the paper-plated curried chip produced in the restaurant's seedy kitchen, a delicacy made solely so the could maintain "restaurant" status but I couldn't be held down for long. A single back turned and I'd spring to my feet, launch myself towards the dance floor and start drunkenly comboing off again, sweating vodka and dribbling luminous yellow curry as I did.
With the help of the older goths, I somehow made it to the end of the night without anyone doing anything to truly get beaten up or thrown out of the club on my first night of getting steamed. I managed to provoke only one drinker into doing anything giving me any kind of negative response. When the music ended and the lights were up I found myself dancing circularly round the dance floor with a punk shouting obscenities, taunting me, seemingly intent on getting me to fight. I was game, this drunken fight was the one I had been preparing for all night after all.
For the third time that night my wisened goth and metaller friends stepped in to lead me away from the potential fray, intercepting the punk and physically motioning away from the scene. It was utterly anti climax but it would mark the beginning of a series of booze fuelled idiotic adventures.
I'd later go home to throw up a fusion of straight vodka and curried chips or a combination I like to call currodka.
