The sun eloped into slumber, its last visible streaks shaded in intense hues before blackness swallowed the whole sky.
“The night is young, Thuso, bro. Don’t drop me. We haven’t turned up together in a while. And it’s student night. We gotta swag up on them at the club.”
I wasn’t blotto, just quarter-to drunk, and I shook off the dreariness. “Ahh man. Student night, huh? Zane, man, tonight, everything is on me, everything bro. Just you wait and see the tricks I’ve coiled up my sleeve!”
“Hehe. I wonder what it is!”
When we arrived at Chronic Night Club, the venue was alive, already packed to the brim. The crowd heaved in time to the ratchet music that blasted through the speakers.
“I hope your liver had a soothing massage, Zane, you’re about to deep-dive into a liquor vortex of madness you’ve never witnessed before.”
He laughed it off. “We’ll see about that one!”
We headed to the VIP section.
“We’ll have three Ace of Spades bottles please. And a round for everyone at the tables, of whatever they’re already drinking, thank you,” I said to the shell-shocked waiter, while he jotted down the simple order and marched off briskly with a generous tip.
“Bro, what the hell? I know you don’t have money like that. Did you rob a bank, win the Lotto or something?”
“Like I said. We’re covered, hahaha…Come a little closer, let me let you in on a radical conspiracy, my friend.”
Zane sidled up to me.
“I won the damn lottery boy, seven million! I’m rich. I’m rich!”
Zane’s jaw dropped, slobber trickled, and he gawked like a man receiving a rectal examination. “That’s crazy. Wow, dude, absolutely crazy… Happy for you, bro.”
The gorgeous ladies arrived as easily as a breeze. And the bottles leaked like faucets, enough to bring Can Themba, Charles Bukowski, my late uncle,and other distinguished drunks of history to their knees.
The party never stopped, only taking intermittent breaks between lukewarm and rowdy potency. From the venue, we ended the night at a luxurious hotel. In the morning, the sweet music began again, before we were kicked-out…By then, I had amassed twenty-five missed calls from my mother, which I intentionally ignored. I could again exercise the freedom I’d longed for.
The debauchery extended into a long, taxing week of exploiting the pleasures of the flesh, over at Zane’s place. On Sunday I woke up from the stupor, mouth parched, with a jolt…
“Woah, woah, Zane, bro. I need to leave. Where’s my phone? My parents must be worried sick. Eish. I’ll see you. We’ll link up some other time…” I downed a couple of glasses of cold water and headed for the taxi rank.
While I wandered past the hubbub of taxi jams and racing people, I thought about what exactly I wanted out of life, what I truly wanted to become…With all the money in the bank, was that even something worthwhile grinding the gears of my brain over? After all, my account could buy me out of my confusion.
Tell us: Have you ever gone off without telling your parents where you’re going? How did that make you feel, and how did it make them feel?