At the beginning of the evening, Nick wasn’t too sure that he wanted to go out and club with his friend Mike and a few of Mike’s friends and their girlfriends, but once the night wore on, he decided this was the best he had felt about himself in months. It was almost as if he had a new lease on life - no stomach aches, no throwing up and his appetite was at normal levels for a change. Life was seeming to be good and all his cares were gone for the moment at least.

“Sooooo dude, aren’t y’all glad I talked your ass into coming along?” Mike grinned as he elbowed Nick.

Spilled the drink he had lifted towards his face, Nick glared at first and then his expression softened. “Yeah, it’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I’m glad you asked me.”

“Here, this is compliments of table sixteen,” the waitress stated as she snapped the gum in her mouth, setting down four assorted mixed drinks in front of Nick.

“Wow, you’re sure popluar!” one of the young women that accompanied Mike and Nick remarked.

Nick grinned as he eyed the free drinks that were lined in front of him. “Yep, perks of the bizz I guess,” he slurred.

“Well, don’t feel like you have to drink all of those,” Mike advised.

Nick put a defensive arm around the drinks. “These are mine and I know what I’m doing so back the fuck off.”

Putting his hands up as if to shield himself from Nick, Mike shook his head. “Wouldn’t think about taking your drinks, calm down buddy.”

In the beginning, Nick had no intention of drinking the drinks he had been given, but a challenge had been technically made and he was damned if he was going to let anyone tell him what he could or couldn’t do. He was sick of people telling him what to do, especially his mother.

“Fuck Jane,” Nick mumbled as he grabbed a drink and tossed it down his throat. Without even realizing it, he had drank all of the glasses of free drinks plus a few more that had come.

“Nicky, I think you’ve had enough,” Mike suggested.

“Nah, I’m ready to party some more,” Nick slurred and stood up clumsily. Grabbing a girl at random, Nick coaxed, “Come on pretty girl, let’s dance.”

The girl nervously went out with Nick onto the dance floor. She wasn’t nervous about dancing with Nick, she was more scared about what her boyfriend was going to do once he discovered her out dancing with a stranger when he returned from the bathroom. Her fears were soon realized when he started picking a fight with some of the patrons of the club as he tried to get to the dance floor and Nick.

Things went from bad to worse and within minutes the bouncers were swarming around the patrons trying to get them to leave the club. Full of alcohol, Nick’s common sense was temporarily on vacation and he flatly refused any attempts at being escorted peacefully from the club.

“Come on Nick, let’s just go home, okay?” Mike tried to get his friend to leave once they were outside of the club and grabbed Nick’s arm.

Nick managed to pull his arm away. “Leave me the fuck alone,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

Without warning, the bouncers came up to Nick’s table and asked them to leave the club. Words were exchanged between Nick and the men and he was told that someone in his party had become extremely intoxicated and was a danger to the bar, not to mention that he himself had caused a disturbance in the club when he danced with that woman.

“Oh come on, that’s just plain stupid,” Nick slurred.

“Well, if I weren’t mistaken there pal, you’ve had a little too much yourself,” the man joked.

“Yeah, well fuck you, pal,” Nick shot back. Feeling that he was being rushed out, he slowed his pace up and yelled out, “yeah...yeah..yeah, I’m fuckin’ going!”

Once escorted outside the club, Nick decided it was unfair and he tried to get back in. It wasn’t too hard to do because of his celebrity, but once he was discovered inside again, he was quickly escorted back outside by the same bouncer that asked him to leave earlier. Upset at being asked to leave, Nick became vocal and made threats and accusations.

“You can all go fuck yourselves! I don’t have to fuckin’ listen to any of your asses, dammit!” Nick kept yelling at the closed bar doors and finally kicked one of the doors and stormed off back towards the crowd that had gathered.

Several bystanders were egging Nick on when they noticed his uncoordinated steps and choice of words that he was shouting.

“You don’t have to take that Nick!”

“Tell them where they can stick it!”

“Way to go Nick!”

When the police arrived, Nick was full of rage and he wasn’t in any mood to listen to anyone or anything that had to do with authority at that point. He was arguing with a woman he didn’t know.

“Nick, you need to leave the premises,” the tall, slender policeman asked politely.

Nick glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the voice and simply shrugged and continued on with his heated conversation with the woman.

“Second chance Nick, please leave the premises,” the officer requested again.

The man calmly asked two more times and each time Nick chose to ignore his requests.

“Last time I’m asking you, please leave the premises,” the officer stated as he pulled the handcuffs out of the pouch attached to his belt.

Nick didn’t move quickly enough for the officer’s satisfaction and he quickly grabbed Nick’s arm and pulled one back and then the other and secured the handcuffs around his wrists.

“Hey! I going!” Nick yelped as the cuffs were snapped onto his wrists. The policeman firmly grabbed Nick’s left arm and pulled him in the direction of the white and blue patrol car. “Hey! I said I was going! You can’t do this!”

The man didn’t answer any of Nick’s pleas and went about his duty of leading his charge towards the car. Turning Nick around, he quickly patted him down and then pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. The final insult to the whole order for Nick was when the man placed a hand ontop of Nick’s head, and forced him to sit down in the back seat.

“You can’t do this to me..... I’ve never been arrested, I didn’t do anything!” Nick protested loudly.

“Just stay still and be quiet, you need to cool off for a while, Nick,” the officer replied as he settled back into the front seat of the patrol car. He pulled the driver’s license out and started writing a ticket out.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Nick kept protesting over and over.

The officer seemed to be deaf to Nick’s complaints and when he finally finished the work he had been doing, he slid out of the car and closed the door, leaving Nick in the back seat by himself to contemplait the situation he landed himself in.

Embarrassment and humiliation set in and Nick hung his head, trying to block out the stares and camera flashes that were penetraiting the windows of the vehicle.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Nick started sobbing. He realized he was going to get into trouble with management once this hit the media and the fact that Bruce wouldn’t be too pleased with the latest trouble Nick found himself in had him scared. Thinking about what Brian would say to him only made Nick more upset. He felt as if he let his friends down. He let the tears flow that he had held in.

“It’s okay to cry,” he consoled himself.