Days of Disco - a short story

During the 70s, I worked for an oil company named Texas Oil & Gas in downtown Oklahoma City. Though the 80s oil boom had yet to begin, TXO was drilling more oil wells than any company in the Country. The Oklahoma City office of TXO was drilling the most oil wells of any of its branches, and most of the wells we were drilling were generated by me. I know. In the Green New Universe, drilling oil wells is no longer copasetic. We were ignorant in the 80s and knew little about Climate Change.

My Dad was a carpenter and pipefitter. He was a good man and a good provider. Though my parents never had much money, we never missed any meals. Things changed when I went to work for TXO.

I had an expense account and a company car. I was apprehensive when my boss called me into his office to discuss my expense account.

"Shut the door, Eric," he said. "We need to discuss your expense account."

Larry smiled and held up a palm when I said. "I've been watching what I spend."

"That's the problem," he said. "You're making everyone in Geology look bad. From now on, I want you to spend at least four grand a month on your expense account."

"How will I do that?" I asked.

"Take three or four secretaries to lunch every day. Use your expense account for everything. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

Complying with my boss's request was more complicated than it sounded because all the major service companies were vying for TXO's business. One of the companies took all the geologists and all the secretaries to a disco in Oklahoma City called Clementine's every Friday after work. Every Friday, Clementine's had 3 for 1 mixed drinks. It didn't take long to become inebriated, even if you paid for the drinks. We didn't.

I somehow survived the two years I worked for TXO. Barely! Here is one of the stories from my whiskey-soaked life in 1977.

DAYS OF DISCO

In 1977, I was freshly divorced and working in a high-stress job as a geologist—"A new drilling prospect every week or you’re fired!" Nights would find me in a disco called Clementine’s, located in the basement of Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Mall. The place was dark, the music loud, the drinks and women loose. I was usually inebriated or well on my way to getting there.

Yes, it was in the post-Vietnam, pre-AIDS era. Practically every night, I would spend many hours line dancing to the anthems of Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, KC, and the Sunshine Band. Nineteen-seventy-seven was the year I first saw the movie Saturday Night Fever and fell in love with the music of the BeeGees.

There were two ways to enter Clementine’s. You could walk down a narrow flight of stairs or slide down a chute. Either way, you’d wind up in a vast open room that was illuminated only by a rotating disco ball, colored strobe lights that warped your reality even if you weren’t drunk or stoned, and a few discreetly placed floor lamps that provided little more than a dim haze. Most of all, there was a pressing multitude of warm bodies and disco sounds, belting the message of freedom, expression, and free love.

A vast bar extended across the front of the room, where three bartenders served drinks as fast as they could pour them. The dance floor of diamond-shaped black and white tiles was rarely empty; the occasional cooling fingers of vapor rising from grids in the floor made the swaying dancers seem like uninhibited creatures from Hell’s nether regions.

The dance floor was like hypnosis, insanity, and blasting sound. Bodies crushed together amid the beat of drums as ancient as Africa. Once, across the crowded dance floor, I saw a beautiful young woman staring at me. Our eyes locked. We danced toward each other. She passed me a note with her phone number and invited me for spaghetti at her apartment when I called her the next day. I showed up with flowers and a bottle of wine.

Marti was her name. A single mother, she had a five-year-old son named Chris. We ate our spaghetti and drank wine by candlelight. When we finished, I helped her with the dishes, and then she put Chris to bed. Afterward, we made love in her bedroom.

"I want to thank you so much," was her unexpected reply as we lay beside each other in her little bed.

"My pleasure," I said.

"You don’t understand," she explained, sensing the flippant tone of my voice. "I’m in remission from cervical cancer. You are the first man I’ve slept with. I’ve been so worried that I would never have the feelings of a woman ever again. Thank you, you proved to me tonight that I’m okay."

Confused and too young or stupid to understand Marti’s feelings, I contributed little more than small talk before saying goodbye and disappearing into the night. I never saw her again, and I don’t think she needed me to.

Those were the days of disco, my days of disco, for whatever that means. Some people have even suggested that disco isn’t fantastic and people who liked it were less intelligent. I don’t think so. We were all as young, human, and vulnerable as anyone today.

And I do know this. Whenever I hear Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, or the BeeGees, I find myself back on that same dark dance floor with wisps of vapor cooling the sweat dripping down my neck and forehead as I pulsate to a hypnotic beat and message of love and coming together. And when I do, it makes me feel young again.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.