Friday 20 July 2012

The Clatrell Leisure Suite - from a work in progress


The Clatrell Leisure Suite was a barn. Jugs of lager and drunken grab-a-granny nights were its speciality. Dug was a regular. However, he tended to give Fridays a miss. Friday was Rapper’s Delight Night, when all the young Falkirk hip hoppers donned their baseball caps and tried to bring a different kind of ghetto to Glebe Street.
He was on his way to meet some characters he knew were anything but fictional.
‘Awright, Dug?’ Clatrell was on the door, trying to keep out the riff raff. He was almost wearing a tracksuit – the zipper on the jacket was straining fit to burst. He looked jolly but apprehensive, like the Michelin Man contemplating Weightwatchers. ‘Strange seeing you here on a Friday,’ he said.
Dug checked his bag into the cloakroom and was handed a wee ticket. A scuffle broke out in the doorway.
‘I’ve telt you before,’ Clatrell wheezed. The way he was gripping the boy by the collar had him sweating. ‘No Doc Martens on a Friday night! Away hame and get changed!’
 Dug went through to the bar. It was immediately apparent that Stark wasn’t there. Three teenagers in shell suits were strutting around the dancefloor like bored pigeons while the funkiest groove ever throbbed out of the walls. Friday nights at the Clatrell were for the real hard core rap fans. The only music was the Sugar Hill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’ played continuously for five hours until the bar shut at eleven and the Falkirk Peely-Wally Posse went for chips.

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