I had booked us a few tables at a highly regarded and hard to find club called Masquerade. It was reportedly partially owned by an ex-boxer. A boxer neither me or Danny had heard of and both of us were boxing fans. The guest list for our soiree included Danny and his Mrs, Kins who was coming stag but I suspected he had begun a thing with his neighbour Magda, Monika from my office, Paweł and his wife Anetta and a few of the girls said they might pop in.
How gracious of them.
From Elly’s side she invited Klau, Emily and Victor, Monika and Gustav, a second Monika with her fiancée/boss/possible sponsor, Aniesto and finally Elly’s oldest friend Mona who was going to come with what sounded like a sponsor but he cancelled on her at the last minute with an urgent work matter.
That or his wife needed him.
I had invited Hamish but he was back in Scotland at a wedding. Sadly I felt a potential friendship fail before it even began.
Once the guests were assembled we order a tray of shots and a few people ordered bottles of champagne. Things started to get wild. Elly wasn’t drinking and was officially put in charge of photos. She was just as adapt at taking them as ordering others to take them when she wanted to be snapped.
We weren’t the only people there as the club was open for normal business and someone was having a birthday party at the tables behind us. It was as good a club as I’d been to while in Poland and I was having an amazing time. Gustav, one of the husbands had never been to a club in Warsaw and wondered around taking it all in. He was truly amazed by it all but he was an amazing sight to look at. He was a life sized Ken doll, the hair, the chiselled features but mainly the fake orange tan.
He was a nice guy though and while the rest of us were getting sweaty on the dance floor he just wondered around. I thought at first he was busy scanning the club for hotties, which there was an abundance of but he seemed immune to their glances only having eyes for his bubbly wife.
Mona wasn’t upset about being spurned. Well maybe she was but she was smiling, she was flirtatious and busied herself by rubbing up to anyone and everyone. Kins got all flustered when she turned her attention to him for a song.
She ran her hands up her neck and flicked her hair over her head and pounced at him like a cat. He fled to the safety of the toilets. She simply moved onto the next guy. You had to admire her spirit and confidence.
The office girls came and went, Paweł and his better half left, well she dragged him off and Monika continued dancing the same dance steps whatever song came on. I didn’t know that it was possible to force a salsa dance into a Kings of Leon bass line but she sure tried. I think that when I was swaying hopelessly out of time a dawn of realization engulfed me; I could survive here. I didn’t need the arseholes. I could surround myself with the good. I could insulate myself and refrain from ending up like the sad barflies that I’d met.
I snaked across the black and white tiles, offered my hand to my lady and spun her onto the dance floor. Even when she was pregnant she was more graceful than I could ever hope to be but Kins was running a close second in the most uncoordinated mess so I didn’t feel too bad. The night wore on and the crowd thinned.
Monika and Aniesto snuck off somewhere with Klau, Kins made his excuses and returned home a sweaty mess. Gustav and Monika and Emily and Victor headed back to the countryside together and a little more merry than they should have been to say they were driving. Polish drivers think they are the best in the World but the figures don’t reflect that and the number of accidents involving drunk drivers is appalling.
Elly couldn’t dance anymore so we said our goodbyes and went to get our coats.
She still wasn’t showing that much and the amount of men who blatantly were checking her out while I was stood next to her was disturbing. I have to hope that I was less obvious in my gawking than those idiots were. If I was in England and as drunk as I was that night I think there would have been fighting, there certainly would have been words but it was so wide spread in Poland that you got accustomed to it.
Is that an example of relativity?
Einstein sat in a lab thinking up reasons why the circumstances for decking someone staring at your woman altered based on the societal factor?
Probably not.
We got outside and there wasn’t a taxi in sight so we began to walk.
“We could catch the bus into the centre.” Elly suggested and it seemed like a good idea so we did.
It was only a journey of a couple of minutes and nobody checked if we had a ticket. It was crowded and Elly had to stand. I tried to force her into guilting someone to giving up their seat but she wouldn’t. Since the journey was so short I didn’t fight it, my explanation would have lasted longer than our trip. We arrived at the Central Station where you could catch a bus, train or tram. Since it was late the trams had stopped running and there were plenty of taxis waiting.
As we approached one a bus pulled up and Elly squealed that it was our bus and dragged me on.
“What do you mean our bus? I thought we were getting a taxi?” I asked as we sat at the back, putting our feet up on the empty seats opposite.
“This will be cheaper and takes us all the way home.” She seemed pleased with herself.
Elly nestled into my neck and as I stroked her hair I felt her fall asleep. The bus sped along empty roads and the distance didn’t feel too bad. I knew that we’d be back home soon enough. We past petrol stations and bakeries that were lit up even though they were closed and no one was working, observed drunks dancing along to the songs they’d heard earlier that night and watched the ubiquitous drunken arguments between couples.
After about fifteen minutes I felt myself nodding off then jerking back awake. I felt myself falling but waking before I hit the ground. I tried to shake myself awake whilst simultaneously letting Elly sleep. I gingerly edged closer to the window and tried to open it. A security guard told me off and told me that the bus was air conditioned. I think that’s what he said anyway.
I rested against the window watching the now familiar roads as we headed out of Warsaw proper. I swung awake, this time waking Elly as we were in some woods that I wasn’t familiar with. She checked the route and told me that the night bus turned down a long street then looped back on itself and we would be heading back to familiar territory soon enough.
She went back to sleep but I waited until we got back on the main road. Once we did I saw that we were only minutes from home and I remember the joy I felt. The next thing I felt was the security guard shaking me awake.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled.
He just grunted at me.
I checked my wallet and phone then shook Elly awake.
“Are we home?” She asked.
“Not quite.” I said helping her off the bus.
We were actually in an IKEA car park about half an hour’s walk from our home.
Elly asked the security guard when the bus was going to set off and he told her about half an hour.
We should have walked.
Neither I nor Elly were in a state to though so we bribed the guard and driver to let us sit on the bus and wait as they had wanted us to wait outside. I also bribed the guard to wake us up at our stop.
I think the taxi would have been cheaper.
It definitely would have been quicker.
As we waited we looked at the pictures from earlier in the night.
We laughed at an ice cube fight that started with me trying to get some into Elly’s cleavage, as if I was a basketball superstar. It didn’t work but her netball training helped her nail three in a row into my cleavage. It continued on the dance floor as Kins got a handful into his ass crack and then it was a free for all which spread beyond our group.
It was enough to see us home and even though we didn’t need him to wake us I honoured my agreement and gave the guard his money. I tried to give Elly a piggy back but I underestimated either how drunk I still was or how much weight she had put on because I collapsed onto one knee outside the church. I ripped my jeans and bloodied my knee but I continued stumbling towards our home.
In the peace of the night with the moon reflecting of the river, Raszyn actually looked good. By the time I woke up the sun had been up for a long time shining into every defect of the not so sleepy suburb. Elly slept longer than me even though she wasn’t hung over. It was my job to trek around the inconvenience stores to see which opened on a Sunday.
I am a Catholic so nobody can do anything on a Sunday.
What a crock of shit.
The church goers drove like bats out of hell after the service and headed straight off to the large shopping centres. If the local stores wanted my business they should learn to open on Sundays. I am a firm believer that everybody should work every day. Not in the same week but you wouldn’t be happy if the firemen or doctors refused to work because it was Sunday.
Twenty four seven is the only answer. It would increase jobs as well, as businesses would need extra staff to cover the hours. It might not be profitable for all businesses but if a shop is open on a Saturday then it must also be profitable to keep it open on Sunday.
That is logic and unfortunately the World isn’t run on logic.