I was I think 17 years old. Went down to Myrtle Beach SC riding along with a friend of mine. We were on the classic First Week of June Tour, when everybody went down there after high school graduation.
He was driving and took us so far out in the boonies I couldn't really you where we were. Way out there somewhere in the swamps. This was decades before the Myrtle Beach area got paved over. Before development at all. I mean we were in Deliverance territory.
A DISCO club, of all things. Middle of nowhere. Lit up real blue in the parking lot, and lots of shady characters standing around in the parking lot as we went in.
We walked in between them all. They sort of parted as we came through. They grunted and looked at us like we were real young meat on the hoof. This night was already real weird.
Got inside drinking illegal beers (no ID check here, that was the draw, according to my buddy), and didn't know what else to do but to walk laps around the place. It was layed out such that you could make laps around the bar inside the building. Every lap around there was this strange girl who looked about as displaced as I felt. As I went by she'd ask, "Do you know what time it is?" I'd tell her and keep walking. It happened maybe every three mintes - "Do you know what time it is?"
Then I got the sense that maybe this was a pickup line she was using. I'd never been picked up before. About the 10th time I lingered and asked, "Why do you keep wanting to know what time it is?"
"Because I just want to get out of here. Would you like to go somewhere else?" I told her I wasn't driving, and she told me that she WAS. She took me by the hand and led me toward the door. What's a 17-year old guy to do? I was being led away from my buddy lost somewhere in the crowd, he has no iea, and I had no idea where we were going, 200 miles from home.
We got out to the parking lot, past all of the gangsters huddled around the door, and we sat down in her car. It was so dark, but I think it was one of the earliest Jap things ever stateside. She cranked it up and I asked, "Where are we going?" She said, "Another place up the road. A better place." The car's motor was running and my heart was beating out of my chest. This has got to be wrong, but this may be so right.
She pulled out the light switch to turn on the headlights. They came on. But she shoved the switch right back in and did it again. "Dang light switch doesn't work right." She was flashing the headlights over and over. What didn't work about the light switch when they come on when you pull the switch out every time?
The gangsters around the entrance to the bar started conferring. The chick was giving them the signal - she had a chump in the car. They talked amongst each other and started walking our way. Here they come. This was a setup. I was about to be robbed and killed in a bar parking lot, and this chick who picked me up is in on it.
I was about to die of natural causes when the gangsters all slid past the door of the car and kept walking further in the parking lot. They were not after me at all. And sure enough, the more the chick played with the light switch on the car, the less the lights came on. She finally turned to me and said, "I'm sorry, but we can't go anywhere at all. I'm gonna have to call my dad. These lights just don't work."
I was never so glad to see the inside of a disco bar again after that.
He was driving and took us so far out in the boonies I couldn't really you where we were. Way out there somewhere in the swamps. This was decades before the Myrtle Beach area got paved over. Before development at all. I mean we were in Deliverance territory.
A DISCO club, of all things. Middle of nowhere. Lit up real blue in the parking lot, and lots of shady characters standing around in the parking lot as we went in.
We walked in between them all. They sort of parted as we came through. They grunted and looked at us like we were real young meat on the hoof. This night was already real weird.
Got inside drinking illegal beers (no ID check here, that was the draw, according to my buddy), and didn't know what else to do but to walk laps around the place. It was layed out such that you could make laps around the bar inside the building. Every lap around there was this strange girl who looked about as displaced as I felt. As I went by she'd ask, "Do you know what time it is?" I'd tell her and keep walking. It happened maybe every three mintes - "Do you know what time it is?"
Then I got the sense that maybe this was a pickup line she was using. I'd never been picked up before. About the 10th time I lingered and asked, "Why do you keep wanting to know what time it is?"
"Because I just want to get out of here. Would you like to go somewhere else?" I told her I wasn't driving, and she told me that she WAS. She took me by the hand and led me toward the door. What's a 17-year old guy to do? I was being led away from my buddy lost somewhere in the crowd, he has no iea, and I had no idea where we were going, 200 miles from home.
We got out to the parking lot, past all of the gangsters huddled around the door, and we sat down in her car. It was so dark, but I think it was one of the earliest Jap things ever stateside. She cranked it up and I asked, "Where are we going?" She said, "Another place up the road. A better place." The car's motor was running and my heart was beating out of my chest. This has got to be wrong, but this may be so right.
She pulled out the light switch to turn on the headlights. They came on. But she shoved the switch right back in and did it again. "Dang light switch doesn't work right." She was flashing the headlights over and over. What didn't work about the light switch when they come on when you pull the switch out every time?
The gangsters around the entrance to the bar started conferring. The chick was giving them the signal - she had a chump in the car. They talked amongst each other and started walking our way. Here they come. This was a setup. I was about to be robbed and killed in a bar parking lot, and this chick who picked me up is in on it.
I was about to die of natural causes when the gangsters all slid past the door of the car and kept walking further in the parking lot. They were not after me at all. And sure enough, the more the chick played with the light switch on the car, the less the lights came on. She finally turned to me and said, "I'm sorry, but we can't go anywhere at all. I'm gonna have to call my dad. These lights just don't work."
I was never so glad to see the inside of a disco bar again after that.
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