My Episode at Studio 54

by Rashod Berkley

I thought I was fucked up, but no sir, fucked up I was not; I wasn’t nearly even buzzed walking to the mangled mass being hand picked by Steve Rubell for entree. I had bad feelings about this place. I don’t know if by coincidence or if I was sucked in, but all the guys surrounding me had these confetti bashed faces, already sweaty necks, and loose hot pants that discharged the scent of sweat and sour milk. And all of them circled around me, a very compressed circle I might add, and I could have sworn I was being pick-pocketed because I felt a smuck’s hand on my back pocket so I looked back to see. All bulge, and a smile. I left to have a ciggy. I lit up by the garbage bin on the corner contemplating whether I would follow through trying to get into this circus, but Danny had already hooked up the VIP passes for us since he works in the entertainment business. I took one last drag and headed back toward the big mesh of altered beings. Just standing in the jammed crossways of drug infested breath fuming in my face made me feel high. Up ahead you could see the curls from the back of some Jew fro ranting in front of a crowd about how he was driving in a tunnel with a live moose on his fenders. I needed to get in this place before I went nuts. I shoved my way up to the front and saw Danny waiting for me at the entrance.

“Hey Danny!”

“Heeeeyyyy, Tommy my man. Where you been? I’ve been waitin’ for like a couple of minutes.”

“… Well I’m here, man. Get me in.”

“Hey Steve, let my boy in, will ya.”

“Let me see your pass,” I showed it to him, “Alright, looks good. Have fun.”

“So how ya been Tommy? You get up here just fine? You get a little buzzed?”

“Yeah, I went to the pub earlier today; my dog just died.”

“Your dog just died? How the hell did that happen?”

“Don’t really want to talk about it right now.”

“Well alright man. Come with me down to the basement and we’ll relieve some of that stress you got. On me.”

“Naw, you don’t have to do that Danny.”

“Tommy, I got you man. Just follow me down to the basement, we’ll show the guards our passes and everything will be fine. You have my word for it.”

“Alright man, just get me away from these freaks.”

We walked toward the back of the disco. This place was foolish. There were shirtless people with Venetian masks and bloody noses spinning and flailing and falling to “Funky Town” with their eyes taking peeks back at their brains. And up on the ceilings hung these large hoola-hoops with women in leotards flipping and damn near slipping right off of them.

“Its back here man,” he said leading me to some stairs that lead to a room bloodshot from all the red fluorescent light bulbs. The guards there saw our passes and let us through. As soon as we walked in, I looked ahead and I swear to God, there standing was Grace Jones, with her thick dark skin with pints of makeup slapped on her face, and she just stared at me with these ravenous eyes just beaming into mine like hypnotism. I was frightened like prey, and then she started to walk toward me without even breaking her stare. I swear it looked like she was floating across to me like a witch. As she approached me she leaned on me and put her lips on my ear.

“Thirsty?” she said in this low grimacing voice that sent a chill through my ear and down my spine to the tip of my john.

I muttered, “Sure.”

“Follow me.”

She goes around the bar, still staring at me, and she reaches down to two pre made drinks. She walks back over.

“Here you go… love.”

“Th-thanks.”

I stared down at my glass and noticed that only mine was fizzing.

She widened her grotesque eyes at me like an offended owl, “Drink,” she said while gesturing slight crook in her neck.

I gave a little chuckle and took a little sip, “Um, tasty. What is it?”

She just stares.

“Alright… Well, I have to go find my friend. I’ll see you later on. Um, maybe we can have another drink.”

I left that bitch and stashed my drink on one of the bus boy’s hand tray. I found Danny leaned over on a couch doing a line with that same Jew fro guy I saw earlier and now he was talking about Nazis marching in Jersey. I needed to leave that place.

“Danny, I’m read… did you put on some weight?”

I felt my vision being shifted a little off and my mind a little dazed but then growing to numbness.

“Tommy, what the hell are you talking about?”

“And what the fuck is up with the Jew boy’s eyes. Why are they turning red? And… holy shit,” From there my vision started swirling right then left, Danny’s belly started to blow up, Grace Jones’s eyes kept flashing in my vision and there was an evil Jew talking about Nazis in Jersey. Then all of a sudden a pair of lips fall against my ear.

“Come dance,” I felt her voice travel down my body again.

“Excusa me,” I slurred while looking over to the left. All eyes and dark skin. Before I could even say anything more, she grabs me with a firm monkey grip on my bicep. I looked like a child being pulled over by the arm to the dance floor. We get to the center of the disco and then she starts whaling out in front of me jerking her arms in the air and jolting her hips violently back and forth. Then she turns around and bends over, and to me it seems that her whole upper body had completely disappeared. I just saw these hips waving at me side to side and very inviting.

“How are you,” I say suavely to the hips.

It said something back with a deep voice but I couldn’t recall what it was. All I know is that its breath smelled really foul, like corn. Then Grace’s eyes pop up aside the hips looking back at me. She smiles and then turns back and her head disappears again and leaves me and the hips to our lonesome.

I could bare with the halitosis- I like corn.

I stared into its cheeks and they stared back at me, like they were ready. My lips started to tremble and its lips did too (she was bent over quite far). I leaned in, and I gave it a kiss.

I woke up smashed into the wall with a busted kilo of cocaine and money pouring down over my head and shoulders, and Grace being carried out by security screaming something about harassment. I found that hard to believe but paid it little attention because my head was light and ringing and I was still hallucinating. I just sat there, and to the left I saw a blurred site of Steve Rubell screaming at Danny with his belly inflating then popping then healing itself again over and over. He was talking about how he’s in deep shit now that the cocaine mounted in the walls was all out. My ear was a little moist so I rubbed it and saw the blood painted against my palm.

I really fucked up. I’m really fucked up. I should probably tell Danny the story about my dog.

“Danny,” I slur still sitting on the floor. He looks over for a split second still arguing with Steve then quickly turns back. “Danny,” I slur a little louder. He looks at me then shows me his index finger. “Danny!” I yell.

“Wait one second Steve,” then he turns toward me, “What!”

“He was hyperventilating”

“Who was hyperventilating?”

“He kept humping my leg…so I kicked him off, then he ran toward me and tackled me down.”

“Tommy what the hell are you talking about.”

“Then his breathing got really intense… and he started to rape me, Danny. He started to rape me.”

“Wait, who’s breathing got really intense?”

“Then he started to howl really loudly and the little red thing started to shake really fast Danny. Then it started to leak.”

“Tommy, the ambulance is on its way, just be cool and relax.”

“Then he passed out on top of me and wouldn’t wake up. He just lay there limp, and very heavy.”

“Get this piece of SHIT, out of my disco!” yelled Steve.

Later in the night the ambulance came and they put me on their stretcher. I remember all the people with the hot pants the blood the confetti and all that weird shit wishing me luck and touching me, even a pat on the john, on my way to the ambulance truck. I even saw the guy with the Jew Fro again talking to another crowd about some lady picking some guy up over her shoulders, then throwing him into the wall. I guess I could say they were no weirder than I was. Here I was just having got punched into the wall by a model with cocaine all over me and me just announcing that I had been raped by my own dog. I don’t know if this sounds weird, but that was one of the funner nights of my life now that I think back on it. I guess the moral of the story is: If you’ve been raped, convicted of rape, savagely beaten, and have ridden the rollercoaster hallucination; write a story about it.