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As I stood in the middle of the Danforth, oblivious to traffic, surrounded by a mob of howling brawlers, slamming my fist into some cretin’s face, I paused for a moment and thought; how the hell did this happen?

The night began in inimitable fashion. Celebrating Len’s birthday at the Rails and Ales brought out all the party hounds. The Rail’s a place where everyone is accommodated. Just be yourself, come to have a good time, come as you are. There is real jubilation when we get together to celebrate a birthday or a name day or, occasionally, even a Monday. The surrounding bars can be a bit seedy and it is important for the staff to be vigilant in keeping out the troublemakers and riff raff. The Rail tends to be the well behaved establishment on the block. Tends to be…

The party began at a simmer but exploded to full boil as we rounded midnight. Maria, a sweet guardian of children by day, morphed into a pole dancing vixen, storming the bar counter and bumping and grinding with abandon. The gorgeous sisters Tracey and Natasha were quickly gripped by the “dancing on the bar” fever (thankfully no male members were similarly afflicted, though, in fact, our male members were indeed afflicted, if you know what I mean) and suddenly we were, as they say, off to the races…

I drank straight from a bottle of Jagger, waited for the DJ to kick some loud Tupac and then hit the dance floor. I had not danced in years until joining the crew at the Rail; now it is simply part of a smashing party for everyone to just let loose and do whatever the hell they want. And, baby, fat and fortyish, the Meridian partook of some serious dirty dancing (although the mood of the moment was somewhat hampered when I had to inform my dazzling partner she risked impalement if she didn’t cease and desist - yep, not quite as cool as I’d like to be). While insanity rolled through the back of the establishment, our fearless leader, and birthday boy, was presented with another, thornier issue up front.

A pack of buck toothed, greasy, inbred douche bags, doubtless attracted to the fun being had by solvent members of the species, was looking to throttle back the festivities. Unprovoked and unwanted, mumbling incoherently, the pack of turds began to abscond with bottles of beer. Len, neglecting to recollect he was backed by an enormous collection of his friends, confronted the ragged, sweat stained losers alone.

Outside.

Now, Lenny boy was about to learn that pounding the crap out of one soiled dirtbag, and then another, and one more, still leaves all the other dipsticks and, well, that can be problematic. A tussle, many-on-one ensued, while the inferno of a party smoked along inside.

And then we noticed.

And, through the narrow confines of the bar, out we all tramped, and then commenced to whaling the living snot out of the filthy interlopers.

Damn, I thought, as I stood in the middle of the Danforth, watching people from surrounding bars pile into the fight, it feels like Dublin!

Len swears he broke his hand on a deviants head, but it looked to me like he was punching anything in his way, including concrete, pavement and parked cars. His main pal, Brian, was resolutely homicidal and, at this point, the Meridian made the calculated decision to start pushing people off the road and back to where, y’know, the booze was.

It is a birthday party none of us will ever forget.  Thankfully the night ended with a whimper and not the bang, bang, bang of lads being tussled into a Paddy Wagon. Nope it was, as Lenny laughed, the one night when the Rail was the bar pouring the fight out into the hot lights of the Danforth.