The last few days serve as empirical evidence to the fact that my life is seldom devoid of drama. Where do I even start? The phone call. Yes, let us start with the phone call. Thursday morning, or perhaps it was early afternoon, I received a phone call from Chik. To jerk your memories, Chik is the girl I fucked a few years back, and in so doing, effectively turned a bi-curious girl completely gay. I am quite proud of that.
So Chik calls me, informing me that she is stalking Destra, a local female soca artiste, and a hot one mind you, and was inviting me to join her in the said stalking. Apparently Destra was performing in South the next night – Friday, and she wanted me to come along - TT$150 for the ticket. She tried to persuade me by saying that Sha, a friend of mine that I had not seen or heard from in over 2 years would be there.
I was indecisive. I wanted to go because it would give me an opportunity to see Chik who I have not seen in over 2 years (though I’ve spoken to her frequently online and to a lesser extent, on the phone), and also to see Sha. And it is a party after all – although I am not one to go partying every weekend, it is a nice break from the routine. On the other hand, it was FUCKING $150, and it was in South which is all the way on the other side of the country! I told her I’d get back to her – what decided whether I would go or not would be if my parents wanted me to baby-sit that night. On Fridays, the parental units usually go out to enjoy their quickly encroaching old age, while I stay at home with their spawn. It is no fun.
Thursday night, now, I am called by another of my friends – Candy. She called to inform me that Bow had been in the country for a week, and had been trying to get onto me but could not – my phone was not working (and it still is not). Bow was going back to Canada on Saturday, and therefore was organising a lime with everyone before she went back on the Friday night – the same Friday night that Chik wanted me to accompany her Destra-hunting.
Both Destra and Chik were going to be in the country for the next few days, and my parents were going to be home on Friday night. So Friday night eventually saw me with Candy, Bow, Kerri, and Liz at Shakers. It was actually really, really fun. We spent most of our time at Shakers, but we also went St. James, the (Trinidadian) city that never sleeps, and limed outside of Zen, one of the best night clubs in Trinidad, a bit (we did not go in, because we only went there to meet up with someone else). I did not arrive home until almost 4 in the morning. I never called Chik to tell her that I could not come.
Saturday afternoon, I received a phone call from Chik:
“Hello, bitch.”
I thought she was going to cuss me out for not even calling her, but she did not. Instead she invited me to yet another Destra event, which was meant to happen that same night. It was $160 this time, but in the North of Trinidad – which is pretty much where I live. I felt bad for standing her up the night before, and Sha was leaving the country on Wednesday, so I just had to go.
I do not regret it whatsoever.
For the first time, I met Chik’s girlfriend, and I also met the guy who tried to be Chik’s boyfriend, and with whom she is now very good friends. Let us call the guy Welsh. Welsh has joined the rankings of Raj, a good guy-friend of mine, as being one of the very few Black guys who I really enjoy myself with. Oh, by the way, if you’re stumbling across this diary and thinking I’m racist – I’m black, too. He is a really, really cool guy, and if Chik invites me anywhere and simply says that Welsh is going to be there, the chances of my coming will increase threefold.
At the party now, from quite early on, I began to meet a lot of people I knew. Most of them were from one of my client companies – a company where my relationship with almost all of the members of the accounting department was good enough to be completely relaxed and informal. First it was just one girl I saw, who then pointed out 2 other people from the company. I then met up with three other guys from the company. This was during the course of the night, and continued even while the alcohol level in my blood rose steadily. And of course it would – it was a free drinks party.
I had just as good a time as I had on Saturday – just with a lot more dancing. For every performance, we were at the very front of the stage, doing everything the performer told us to do. It was great. There were people taking pictures. I did not notice. I should have.
Anyway, immediately after Destra’s performance, we left. We wanted to avoid the traffic, and there was no one else left to perform really. Half an hour later, we were at Sha’s house – we had to go there to pick up Chik’s car, which she did not want to go to the party with (long story not meant for the pages of this diary). Almost as soon as we arrived there, I got a call from another employee of that same company mentioned earlier. Let’s call him Ant (no relation whatsoever to the gay comedian, and in no way an implication of short/skinny stature – Ant is actually quite tall, and slim without being skinny).
Ant. This is where I have to back track quite a bit.