The Hit Parade

With the last traces of interest in my trip to Florida dutifully flogged to death over a period of time longer than the trip itself, I feel I may devote myself to other matters, and you may rest assured that I have a matter in mind that will surely drive from your mind any nostalgia for Sarasota. Interestingly, I gather that the word nostalgia originally referred to the lingering pain from an old wound. Does that apply? In any case, my mind has set upon something that must have resulted in a wound of some kind.

There I was with a few friends at a fairly new and very fashionable bar near our apartment building. It's not some quiet pub where old men play darts and sip a pint. It's loud and full of class in the least sophisticated sense of the word. There's a dress code, but fulfilling it somehow doesn't really improve the clientele. A look around produces the sight of immature people enacting what they imagine a fancy club experience to be. Naturally I can't get enough.

We were just leaving a little in advance of last call, having had some beer and some fun. If memory serves, we were headed off to continue our indulgence someplace with cheaper spirits and no bouncers. I heard something behind me as we moved towards the stairs leading downstairs and out of the bar. It was loud. I would have guessed that somehow a supporting beam had fallen from the roof, or that something equally heavy had landed very hard on the floor. As it turns out, it was something like the latter: a man.

I'm here to tell you, that guy fell very hard indeed, and the particular quality of the noise which jerked my head around to see suggests to me that the floor caught nothing but his head on immediate impact. There he lay for a few moments as all of us around processed this very remarkable event. A few moments later, the dedicated and courteous staff of huge, tough looking guys employed by the bar sprang into action, gently helping the stricken man up onto his feet and down to the lower level (away from the dance floor). It was quite a thing to see, but I wonder if anyone who saw that still remembers it, the man in question included.