Jade Awakening

The Gorilla Club

A burly looking man handed us two clipboards with wavers on them. I didn't care to read the whole page, but according to the man, we needed to sign them agreeing that we wouldn't sue the club in case we got injured... or killed.

Looking around, there were several small crowds of people surrounding various events or games. The first one I noticed was something called the "Balls of Pain." A greasy looking man with a biker jacket was trying to maneuver through the swinging, metal beach ball-sized balls without getting hit. The catwalk underneath was narrow enough that you could lose your balance and fall to the ground if you got hit by one. I watched him struggle to get through the first time, and when he succeeded, he had to collect a couple rings and run through the balls again to get them to the other side.

A dozen people were screaming at him or cheering him on – it was hard to say whether they wanted him to see him win or lose. He nearly got to the other side of the walk, but at the last moment, one of the large, metal balls struck him on his back side causing him to fall forcefully to the ground. "LOSER!" radiated through the air and the crowd screamed louder.

I have never signed my name faster.

"So what do you want to watch first?" Beck asked. He loosened the tie around his neck and removed it so that his attire better fit the setting.

"Watch?"

He still looked too dressed up for a place this grungy, so I took it upon myself to reach for the top button on his shirt. I acted as if it was an effortless and perfectly casual thing to do, but my heart raced in undoing the button and seeing a little more of his skin freed. A deeper breath of his caused his chest to press into my fingertips.

"Yeah," he exhaled, "they've got a mechanical bunny, the balls of pain, and the gorilla challenge."

"What's the gorilla challenge?"

"It's the hardest one out of the three. People have to try to take that big banana over there away from the gorilla." He pointed to a comically large banana stuck in netting high above the ground. The only way to get to it was by climbing up a bunch of storage crates. "The problem is that the gorilla will stop at nothing to stop people from taking it – I've heard he can be ruthless... it's not a real gorilla, of course. Just some guy in a costume."

"I want to do that one."

"Wha- Wait. You don't have to do any of the challenges here. People who enter them can get hurt. It's just as fun to watch and scream at the players."

"No, I want to do it."

I felt a resurgence of energy upon entering this underground club. I was feeding off the screaming, the excitement, the rage. A monster inside of me was scratching to get out.

"If you really want to do one of the challenges, wouldn't you rather want to do a safer one? Like the mechanical bunny?"

I think upon seeing the seriousness of my face, he conceded.

"Of course not," he laughed nervously. "Umm, there's a sign-up sheet hanging by every game. You can write your name down if you want to – they call out contestants with a megaphone."

"Good, I'm going."

He followed me to the gorilla's pit where the sign-up sheet was. Six people's names were written before mine, so it would be a little while before my name was called.

"Let's watch a few events in the meantime," Beck suggested. "Someone's about to get on the bunny."

A small crowd was beginning to form on the burlap-padded floor next to the mechanical bunny. A homeless looking man pulled himself up onto the back of the distorted looking creature and held on to the short piece of rope – the only thing that you could anchor yourself to.