The $7 cover is often negotiable. On Friday nights, bottles of domestic beer are $1. The chairs downstairs are shaped like hands. Up top, a disco Rubik's Cube hangs from the ceiling. The movie that provides the bar's namesake, along with everything from 80's dance videos and wrestling matches to "Fraggle Rock" and "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo," are projected on the walls above a dance floor that's packed with all kinds of people.
And these people are always dancing. Sometimes, even break dancing, but usually just grinding and getting ridiculous to the music. The atmosphere is relaxed and fun and very drunk.
Except, surprisingly enough, in the elevated cage in the corner of the dance floor. In the past, that tiny, difficult-to-reach cage has been home to rotating shifts of the drunkest, most hysterical women in the club, who make the precarious, ten-foot climb up the ladder along the side to spend a couple of songs in the spotlight.
Recently, though, that cage has been taken over in force. By a bully. A cage bully.
The cage bully is built like an offensive guard. She wears intimidating boots and black attire. She doesn't drink. Instead, she commandeers the cage for about twenty minutes at a time, dancing in a manner that can best be described as violent and angry. When she gets tired, she makes a slow and wobbly climb back down the ladder, then waits right there in the corner until she's ready to go again.
Aside from keeping most of the other women away from the cage, the cage bully also acts as the resident enforcer of the cage's only rule: No men allowed. On a recent Friday night, I decided to test her. First, I tried to woo her with kindness, climbing up and poking my head into the cage while she was going through her routine to politely asking if I could join. She gave me a firm denial, referring me to the "women only" sign. Then, when I tried to pull myself up anyway, she gave me a firm boot in the shoulder and turned around and blocked off the entrance.
I retreated to the dance floor and waited for her to come down. Fifteen minutes later, she was back at her post at the base of the cage. When she turned to talk to someone, I made a break for it. I was two rungs up when I felt her enormous hand grab the back of my shirt and yank me back to the ground. I tried another lunge for the ladder, but she jumped in front of it, and could not be convinced or bribed to move.
Eventually, she climbed back into the cage, where she danced defiantly for the rest of the night.
If you have any information concerning the cage bully, or how to stop her, please contact Yup-Town immediately.
A photo from the good old days:
No comments:
Post a Comment