Prologue: The Night I Left
All I could hear was the music. The voices of the people were drowned out as everyone danced. There was just the beat of the Techno and the flashing of lights. It was a night that was unlike any other. I saw my friend Je44rey, the DJ, playing a mix of tunes from various sources. Some of them I knew ,but most of them was from his repertoire. Others were most likely the ones that he has mixed together over the weekends
It was exhilarating. Thankfully I always fancied myself as a night person, otherwise I would probably be passed out at my workstation. That was because I moved my shifts around ,so I could attend his performance around midnight. I don't know why ,but I never go to any other clubs. Maybe it was because I owned and bartended this place ,or it could be the fact that this was the only place where my type of music and friends were. I washed some of the glasses that someone puked in while a girl walked up to me. She was wearing something too normal to be worn at a club like this. Golden hair falled around her perfectly framed glasses, while her auburn eyes looked around the club. I stared at her. It was hard not too for she was the type of person that couldn't be ignored.
Her name was Marilyn. She was my girlfriend. Emphasis on the was. She was from way back when the club was just getting started. I truly did love her ,but due to reasons that shall never be spoken about again, she dumped me. Trying hard to ignore her I turned my head downwards focusing more on my work than on my surroundings, hoping that anyone upstairs could hear my prayers so I could silently be ignored by this walking mess.
"Hey Max. How's the business?" Surprised I looked up to see that she was ,in fact, sitting down at the barstool talking to me. Crap. I think God wants to fuck with me. Trying hard not to looked perturbed I put on a smug expression as I began to speak to her.
"Heh. I thought that we weren't supposed to be talking too each other anymore Marilyn. What's brought up this turn of events?" Her face betrayed her emotions. Longing filled her eyes as she stared at me. I didn't notice earlier ,but now I noticed that her eyes were indeed tear-streaked and puffy. She was also giving me the damned puppy-dog eyes.
"I thought that we could hook back up. Maybe talk about how we've been ,and what's changed with our lives." Seriously. She expects me to just stop my awesome job and run into the night who knows where just so that I could have pity sex with her. *sigh*
"Marilyn, you know I can't do what you're thinking. I know you think that maybe we could go back to the way it was ,but what you did that day.... it broke my heart. Maybe if you asked at least 2 weeks after we broke up I would've possibly done this ,but Marilyn it's been 7 months. Whatever I had for you it's gone now. You may as well look somewhere else." I stopped washing the glasses and turned around to the gloriousness that was my giant booze rack. I grabbed the Fire Inhaler as well as some good ole' vodka. I put them on the bar, and brought up the mixing glass. I swished it this way and that before I put it down and gave her a glass of my famous drink known for giving people sever cases of forget-me-not.
"It looks like you need a dose of Memory Loss. It's on the house. Who was the guy anyway?" She grabbed it and chugged it down She pounded the glass on the table and said, "He was just some huge pussy that cheated on me. I don't even need Jonathon! He might be handsome, strong, and good at sex, but that doesn't mean he can treat me like crap! " At this she began a long and tiresome, boring monologue about how she would do better then him ,but after a while she began to blubber about how she shouldn't have dumped him and how she would make it all up to him. Such is the life of your typical American bartender and the heartbreak of a natural woman.
Carefully, I walked away out of the bar while she was busy chugging down the rest of that concoction. I didn't want to be around for the mess of emotions that was surely going to be drunk-Marilyn. Besides, it was Matt's shift anyway. I pushed gently through the crowd of dancing drunks and techno-hipsters to get to Jeff. At last I was able to get to the side of the stage. I walked up to him as he was turning the tables. I yelled at him ,but it was lost to the music and the screams off the crowd. I tapped his shoulder and he pulled his blue Vinyl hoodie down to reveal his brown hair, forest green eyes, and a hidden pear of Bose headphones. He set the music to slowly turn down and walked towards a nearby microphone. Most of the people noticed that he gotten off the tables. Some just were too drunk to care, but either way he still did what he did.
"How's everyone doing at The P0n3 Establishment?!?!?" The crowd roared as they heard the name of their favorite club.
"That's great. Now I don't want anyone to get upset ,but I'm going to have to leave for a few." The people displayed their growing disappointment through groaning. Honestly, I don't know if it's awesome that this many people care about Jeff or if it's sad that so many people have nothing better to do on a Saturday night.
"Now don't blame me! For some reason my friend here, Max, wants to have a little of a private talk with me." Everyone immediately booed. Great. Make me feel bad for wanting to talk with my best friend.
"Anyway, while I'm gone here's something I think you'll like from Living Tombstone" Everyone cheered as the song came on.
We walked away as the music played and the people danced. Eventually we reached our private section of the club near the front where our bouncers and their "guests" usually spent their breaks. After pulling the curtain over the door, I walked towards one of my beanbag chairs and sat on it with my hands on my face. What? Beanbags are cool. Anyway Jeffrey just walked over to the pool table and began setting up one of his games. The music played through nearby speakers built into the corners of the room. Thankfully they were set on low volume, otherwise I wouldn't be able to have this conversation with him.
"Jeffrey. She showed up today. I almost went back to her." Jeffrey looked up from his game and saw how upset I was. Quickly he stopped playing pool and calmly walked over to the other bean bag chair. He picked it up, placed it next to me, and sat down with his hand on my shoulder.
"Dude, was it Marilyn?" I nodded slightly. He took his hand off my shoulder and leaned back into his bean bag chair. He laid like that for a while before he nodded sagely and sat up.
"Max, you have to learn to get over break-ups. You barely survived your High School one ,until I came into the picture with all my awesomeness" At the word "awesomeness" he started flexing his biceps in numerous positions. If I wasn't so down I would give myself a facepalm. Instead I just stared at him blankly until he noticed I wasn't laughing. That was one thing I like about Max. He always tried to get me out of a funk with half-assed comedy sketches. Unfortunately for him, this was a funk too deep to mess with. Slowly he stopped flexing his muscles and stared at me.
"Damn. That was my best material too. Dude here is what I'm going to do. Tomorrow night I'm going to take you out on a night on the town. We'll have great adventures ,and at the end of it all you will for sure have a dame that will worship the ground you walk on." He put on a cheeky grin and laid back down into his bean bag chair staring at the ceiling with a cocky grin. This time I did facepalm myself at his stupidity.
"You do realize that tomorrow is Sunday right. Everything will be closed that late at night." I stated. His smile disappeared for only a second before it came back full force.
"Well we'll just do it on our holidays. I'm pretty sure that after running this hip club for over 8 months we have earned ourselves some vacation time." Yeah, sometimes it just feels surreal. The days have gone by too quickly. I can remember when me and Jeff were just graduating college. Me and him already knew what we wanted to do with our lives. He wanted to be an Engineer while I wanted to be a Chemist. At least that's what we wanted to be. It all changed when we discovered MLP.
At the time season 3 had already ended, but we had seen enough to know that we wanted something entirely different to what we originally thought. I wanted to be a bartender. I wanted to be the kind of guy that could just tell tales of wonder and make any sad drunk a better person. He wanted to spread music across the world. Jeff thought that if all the people could stop spreading war and listen to some cold hard beats, then maybe we could all focus on important stuff like diseases and how we're going to survive overpopulation without killing all of nature. Yeah. Jeff kind-of turned into a hippy after that day, but he was a good kind.
Now, the easiest and quickest way we thought of back then was by buying a huge complex and turning it into party central. Of course it did take a while to actually find the perfect place and get enough money, but thankfully we got a few donations from some people and we found a sick warehouse by the city's harbor. When we finally set up shop and got rid of all the cobwebs and the rats, it immediately became one of the biggest events of the year. Nobody had ever heard of someone making an all MLP anything. Usually most MLP fans just made stuff online or showcase their stuff at conventions or local clubs for one night stands that were usually booed upon ,but we took it to a whole 'nother level. People have come from all across the country just to party hard be themselves, and know what it is to truly be the brony. Eventually the newspapers and television stopped broadcasting about our place, but people still came.
Heh. I sound like an old man reminiscing in the past. I should seriously stop doing that. I have nearly 7 decades of my life to live.
"Jeff I think your idea's great and all ,but who will run the club? Who will know what to do and how to do it?" Jeff's grin disintegrates as another problem was put into perspective. His eyebrows squished together as he thought long and hard on what to do. His eyes then sparkled as a "brilliant" thought flowed into his mind.
"Dude! What about Kayla?" I realized I never even thought about the final member of our small "party". We met her not long after we bought the building. She heard about what we were trying to do and thought that it was a "noble" enough cause to lend her services. She even loaned us a grand to start off with. Without her help we would probably still be in the phase of making our club popular. She was currently working as our #1 bouncer.
"That's genius bro! She already knows how to operate the entire club. All we have to do is know when she's free. We'll even pay her a 200$ increase on her salary if she'll do this." We're on a roll. Pretty soon we would be able to get a night on the town. In disguise of course. I mean we were kind of famous in this city.
"Alright Maximus! Tomorrow we shall have a night on the town! I'll go ask her about it right now. Hope you have a good night bro." He got off his bean bag chair and dashed off through the curtain towards the entrance where our bouncer friend would likely be. I was slightly surprised that he knew that I was heading to my apartment, but then again my shift is over ,and I should probably get a good night's rest for the awesomeness that's coming with our vacation time.
Carefully, I got up out of the chair, pushed through the curtain, and headed for the back entrance. On my way there I walked over to the stage to write Jeff a note.
Hey Jeff! Sorry I had to leave early, but I figured I should probably get back to my apartment. I'll need all the sleep I can get for tomorrow. Anyway we should probably meet somewhere. How about P.F. Chang's around 3:30? You can call me if you don't agree with the time or location.
I finished the note and placed it in between his two turntables. Carefully, I head back through the crowd towards the back entrance as the song came to an end.