A Lot Mic Love

'How was you're night with Steve?' Mary asked with a glint in her eye.
'It was all right.' I shrugged.

It's a normal question, I know. But when it's only 9 O'clock in the morning and the 4th time you've been asked, it tends to grate on you. Yes, I did have a good night with Steve, I tell people. I told the Jane the receptionist when I walked up the stairs to clock in. I told the pregnant Grocery Manager who hadn't spoken a word to me since I started. And I even told the old cleaning woman who asked me the same question, and I didn't even know she spoke English.

Yes, I did have a good time with Steve at the club. But any clear minded person would know I went with him  because I didn't want to go on my own. If I chose to consider him a friend I would argue that's what friends are for. It's not because you like them or want to chat to them, it's because you can't stand the sheer embarrassment of social occasions on your own. That's universally acknowledged. Well, that's what I hoped. But Mary was smiling and proud of the fact that me and Steve where somehow friends, buddies and chums because I dragged him to a grotty club to chat to a girl I like.


'Steve said he really enjoyed it. Asked when you were going again.'
'Not sure.' I shrugged again.

Steve wants to go to Spence's again? If I was him I'd be calling it a 'dick infested, crap music based shithole.' But, no.


'I didn't think I was really his thing.' I said.
'Steve? No, he loved it. He loves a good night out every once and a while. Plus, it gets him out of the flat. Sometimes I think it's just me going out and doing things.'

So, now I'm Steve's 'going out' pal, now am I? That's just brilliant. All I wanted to do was go and spend a few hours with Allison outside of work. Now I've gained greasy, old man-date who looks like he fell off a Metallica tour bus. At 12 noon Steve came down to start his shift. I avoided him when he pulled up in his skoda, chatted to Mary and walked up to the store, but when he came down he was looking pleasantly relaxed. I couldn't avoid him for the whole day, that would be cruel and unnecessary. So I wandered over when the time was right, casually picking my nails.


'All right, Steve.'
'Afternoon, Dylan.'

Dylan? He called me Dylan. Not Student. I tried to ignore the heavy cloud of conversation above my head, the one that told me to talk about our 'night out'. But it was nothing. It was a night out, just a couple of hours.


'What did you do last night, then?' I asked.
'Went watching Mary.'
'Oh yeah?'
'Yeah, at the town hall. Beat Killer Jill in a ladder match.'

And I just played twister with my eight year old cousin. Seems boring now.
Op

'Told her all about our night out, too.' He smiled.

Oh, bollocks. That only took a few seconds.


'Good night, wasn't it.' I said coolly.
'Yeah, cracking.'
'I would have thought it wouldn't have been your kind of thing?'
'My kind of thing? A night club? Oh yeah, I told you...I'm rock and roll.'

Oh yeah, that's why he spent most of the night looking for accessable fire doors that didn't break health and safety regulations.


'You want to do it again sometime?'
O
I made a face. God knows what It looked like. I just stretched my face out in several different directions and looked away.


'Erm...yeah...could do...'

If I was Steve and a girl said that to me, I would cut my losses. But Steve grinned and walked off, happy in the knowledge that there would be a man-date in the near future. Sharon called me up into her office a few minutes later, calling one of her minions off the shop floor and pass on the message. I sat down at her desk as she finished one of her long cigarettes.


'Afternoon, Sharon.' I said, after clearing my throat.
'Dylan, how was your evening with Steve?'
O
Oh, for fucks sake!

'It was all right.' I shrugged, making them cramp up a little. I haven't shrugged that much in years.
'Dylan, I need you to do me a little favour.'
'OK.'
'Do you know how to get into the plant room, next to our personnel offices?'
'Yes.'
'Well, go in there and turn down Glen The Greeter's microphone.'
'OK...why?' I asked.
'Just a little knob on the right of the panel.'
'OK, but why?' I asked again.
'It's labelled 'Microphone'.
'Why, Sharon?'
'Because that's the knob that controls the microphone.'
'No, why am I turning it down?'
'Well, Glen's been a little...odd, of late. We think he's going through a divorce. And what with only third in The Weakest Link last year, we think it's got on top of him a little.'
'I haven't noticed.' I shrugged.
'He called all customers pillocks over the microphone.'
'Oh...'
'Luckily it wasn't turned up that much so not many people heard. But it gave me the idea of turning it down all the way. It keeps everyone happy.'

Sharon was right. Glen wouldn't notice. He could still hear his own voice and customers aren't labelled pillocks. It's a win win situation. I got to the personnel offices, opened the heavy door and stepped inside the whirring, massively over heated plant room. I turned down the knob that was labelled 'Microphone' and made my way outside.

O
'I've heard of a good club on Beckett's Street.' Steve squawked at me when I got back down.
'Oh yeah...'
'Yeah, cheap drinks too.'

I honestly didn't think it would come to this. Why can't he go back to being a boring, piss taking old man who occasionally lies about having been a roadie? Is that too much to ask? I seem to have re-captured his glory days of 'doing things' all in one night. People get paid for stuff like that, or at least get their own column in a magazine.

'What do you say then? Saturday night?'
'Maybe...'

The actual end of that sentence was 'Maybe if you suddenly become 20 years younger and Allison was in the same club.' But I just left the word hanging in the air, those three little dots whizzing around Steve head. He was about to ask about question when the walkie talkie hissed through to us. It was Sharon, screeching at me to get upstairs.

'Glen's probably gone off on one again...' 
'Oh, poor Glen. He came third in The Weakest Link.' Steve frowned.
'And his wife left him.'

Steve shrugged, I ran upstairs.


'What did you do!' Sharon shouted at me when I got to reception.
'What?'
'You turned down the wrong microphone! You turned down the receptionist's microphone!'
'Oh...sorry...what's happened?'
'Jane's collapsed. We needed a First Aider! We couldn't get one because the mic was turned down!'

Sharon was angry, and if Jane was still on the floor and not in the canteen having a sit down she'd have been angry and panicking. Two things that, when combined, turns her voice into a Scottish ball of fury.


'Sorry...I'm sorry, Sharon.'

She huffed violently and stamped back into the office, shouting at me with her back turned. Steve opened the door behind me.


'What's happened?' He asked.
'Jane's collapsed.'
'Oh...Hey, Dylan. That club on Beckett's Street is open tonight. You fancy it?'

Kill me now.