Andy groaned. “I’m dying for a piss.”

Gary and Jack laughed as they joined the end of the queue.

“The hunt is on, gentlemen,” Jack announced.

Andy and Gary slapped palms. Jack burst out laughing, then Andy and Gary started laughing too. By the time they stopped, the queue was moving.

“Okay, rules of engagement,” Jack said. “Whoever you choose has to be agreed upon by the other two.”

Gary and Andy nodded.

“If you refuse to target someone the other two agree upon, you forfeit the game,” Jack went on.

“Aw, that’s a shit rule,” Gary said, screwing up his face.

“I won last time. My rules tonight.”

“You won by default,” Andy said.

“Which is why-”

Gary interrupted, “That rule’s shit too.”

“Which is why,” Jack said, louder, “the default rule is suspended tonight.”

“Good.”

“What if I want to shag them, though?” Andy asked.

The other two started laughing again.

“Nah, I mean it. I mean, what if it gets to midnight or one and I just want to get laid? By then I won’t give a shit, anyway. They all look alike at that time.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “If you’re desperate to screw a turkey, then that’s your issue.”

“Yeah,” said Gary. “You don’t win because of it.”

Andy sighed and swigged from his flask.

“Okay, final rule,” Jack announced. “Turkeys that weigh less than thirteen stone only get half points.”

Andy and Gary shouted him down.

“Some of the worst turkeys in the joint only weigh seven stone, like the anorexic ones,” Gary said. “You shouldn’t get double just because they weigh more.”

“Yeah.” Andy nodded.

Jack held his hands up. “That’s already covered by the first rule. If you think a fat one’s too hot for me and Andy, then you can veto it.”

Andy laughed. “Yeah, and you would think a fat one’s too hot, wouldn’t you?”

“Fuck you,” said Gary.

“Anytime, anywhere.”

They were at the front of the queue.

They didn’t have any trouble getting past the two bouncers, who looked as usual like fat men dressed up as James Bond. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet, but already the club was busy. There were at least seventy people on the dance floor.

The Drain was built on two levels. You entered on the top level, where there was the main bar along two walls, and comfortable seating arranged in quads. In the basement was a smaller bar on the edge of the dance floor. You could stand at the balcony on the top floor and look down at people dancing.

The design motif for the club was some sort of sewage pumping station. The walls were a golden rusty colour and there were bubbling blue lava lamps disguised as pipes. Yellow lights, like non-blue versions of the lights on top of police cars, turned slowly on the walls and all the while several automated red search-lights traced routes across the club.

“Wait here,” Andy shouted over the music.

“We’ll start turkey-spotting,” Jack shouted back.

Andy left them leaning over the balcony and trotted down the stairs. He passed a few girls, checked them out. One was very pretty, with naturally black hair with a streak of deep red running through it. Andy thought it was the lights at first, but gave her a second look. She caught him looking and smiled momentarily. Andy smiled back. Pity Gary and Jack would rule her out instantly.

Andy went into the toilets and the urinal was in full use by guys who thought they were being very covert as they peeked at each other so Andy went into a cubicle. There was a faint smell of marijuana lingering in the air and either the guy in the next cubicle had a cold or there was some other reason to be sniffing.

Andy left the toilets with a smile on his face but when he got to the top of the stairs, Gary and Jack were gone.

“Over here!” Jack shouted.

Andy turned. Gary and Jack were sprawled out on a back-less sofa that made up one side of a quad. The other three were occupied. Indeed, all the other quads on this floor were occupied. Andy headed over.

“It came free,” Jack explained. “Thought we’d nab it before anyone else did.”

They shifted over so that there was room between them for Andy to sit down.

In the middle of the quads were see-through glass tables that were probably actually made of perspex. They were too low to get your legs under, they were like coffee tables, and they were for communal use by anyone sitting at the quad. There were three pints on Andy, Gary and Jack’s side of the table, one untouched.

“These ours?” Andy reached for it.

They drank, then wiped their mouths.

“We’ve found someone for you,” Gary said, grinning.

Andy looked at Jack. He was grinning too.

“Over there,” he said. “Sitting at the quad by the wall.”

Andy looked. There were several quads against the wall. “Which one?”

Jack laughed. “You’ll know her when you spot her.”

Andy found her quickly and sure enough didn’t have to confirm. It wasn’t that she was fat, but she had a very weak chin, so her neck seemed to begin a few inches beneath her bottom lip. She was wearing a dodgy sequined top that was a size too small, and when she sat forward, what puppy fat she had collected around her waist was squeezed together and bulged outward. She was laughing cheerfully.

“Perfect,” said Andy.

“Those in agreement say ‘aye’,” said Jack.

“Aye,” said Gary.

“Aye,” said Andy.

Jack nodded. “The ayes have it. Target acquired, my son. Up and at ‘em.”

Andy smirked. He took a large gulp from his pint and chased it down with a swig from his flask. Then he stood up and straightened his shirt.

“I’m going in,” he declared.

Gary and Jack cheered over their drinks.

As Andy walked over, the girl on the sofa a few quads over caught his eye. Andy smiled, then she looked away again and kept on talking to her mates.

Andy crouched down beside her sofa, squatting on his heels so that he had to look up at her like a puppy, and pawed her knee gently.

“Excuse me,” he said, as softly as he could over the music.

She looked down at him.

Andy smiled. “I was wondering if I could jump the queue.”

“What queue?” she said.

“The queue to buy you a drink.”

Her mates all laughed, but Andy took it with good grace and winked, grinning.

The girl began shaking her head. “I was wondering how long it’d take you to come over.”

“Oh yeah?” Andy said hopefully.

“Yeah. Your little friends came and warned me you would. They told me about the little game you’re playing, trying to get off with as many ugly chicks as you can in a night. What is it you call them? Turkeys?”

Andy’s scrotum shrivelled. He looked over at Gary and Jack and they were both convulsing with laughter on the sofa.

“You really are a twat,” the girl said, then she picked up her glass and emptied what was left of her drink over his head. “Now fuck off.”

Andy smiled and chuckled awkwardly as he stood up.

“Loser,” the girl’s mates sang as he walked away.

When Andy got back to the sofa Gary and Jack were still laughing so hard they were almost crying. Andy folded his arms.

“You pair of faggots,” he said.

“Your face!” Gary cried.

“I’m sure interfering is against the rules.”

Jack managed to stop laughing for a moment. “Well, at least one of you got wet tonight.”

Then they started laughing harder than ever.

Andy stuck out his jaw and pouted. “Careful, or you’re going to piss yourselves laughing.”

Then he picked up both their drinks and tossed the contents of their glasses into their respective crotches.

They stopped laughing instantly and leapt up, ready for a fight. Then they couldn’t help themselves and started laughing again and collapsed back onto the sofa.

Andy picked up his pint, knocked it back in one go, then shook his head and headed for the bar alone.

“Jack Daniels and Coke,” he said.

The pretty girl in the loose black shirt with ‘The Drain’ embroidered in red on the breast nodded.

“Wait,” Andy said. “A double JD and Coke.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

The girl smiled.

Andy smiled back, and swapped his money for the drink.

NOTES:
I thought it only fitting that I dedicate at least one vignette to depicting a society that is at the peak of culture and civility, so what better tale to tell than one about the generation that's got its designs on the future: homo alcoholicus. Because the Daniel chapter was so long, I forgot that one of the characters I wrote immediately proceeding that was also called Andy, and it wasn't until after I finished that I realised. I'm in two minds whether they are actually the same person. There's nothing stopping them from being one and the same, but I would just prefer to think the Andy playing Bob Dylan outside the airport is not this cretin. Of course, Andy when we saw him before was alone, and now he's surrounded by his mates, and they're all tanked up.