Dan, 21, composer

Dan 21, Composer

Dan was waiting for a friend outside Covent Garden station when I met
him. About 5'7", he had a very calm face and a studenty look about him.
Wearing a full length brown overcoat, Dan struck me initially as being
quite a serious person, but when he started telling me this story his
strong wit and sense of irony leaped out to surprise me.

All was going well. We'd been on it all day and all night. Really
pissed, with your best mates&;#8230;. or the people you think are
your best mates. You know that point of alcoholic saturation when you
can no longer take it and you start to go mad? Well we were at that
point. It was 5.30 in the morning and although we were in Benidorm, we
were staying in a fairly subdued holiday complex just outside.
I don't remember how it started, although it was probably about sex, it
usually is isn't it? Somebody hadn't got some, probably me, and it
probably involved a girl I'd been working on all night. Eight hours of
hard slog, giving her all the right lines, trying to be original,
genuine, although I do find the shitty lines work the best. Anyway, he
probably got the girl and at about 5.30 in the morning, as the
residents were peacefully asleep, our argument arose. Drunken abuse
loud and shocking rang from around the empty street and when push came
to shove, shove happened!
He lay there on the floor, my best mate, traces of a black eye already
visible. Saturated by alcohol, we'd gone mad and I certainly couldn't
take it.
He didn't speak to me for the rest of the holiday. Luckily it was only
two days. Luckily too as the other holiday-makers weren't best pleased
after that display.
You know that point of alcoholic saturation when you can no longer take
it and you start to go mad? I've been avoiding that recently.
Thank God he started speaking to me again when we got home.