I’ve been advised by my lawyer that I should cooperate with your insurance claim, even if I am suing your asses to kingdom-come. Something about “acting in good faith.” So here is my account of what happened, for all the good it’ll do. I could apologize for the handwriting, but since it’s your damn fault, I won’t bother.

I started working at Jack’s in the spring of ‘21 after finishing The Flair Academy six months earlier. I hadn’t found a job the whole time and I was just about to call it, go back to flipping burgers, when Jack’s replied. Got an interview straight away, bossed the demo, and somehow found myself tending at the Soho Gentleman’s club.

Jack’s has dances on the bottom two floors with VIP suites for hire above, with a dedicated bouncer keeping them separate. Really, it’s just a quieter box with a private bar, some comfy chairs and the option of private dancers.

It’s always booked up with swank dickheads trying to show off, but Stags are the worst: they’re cheap, they’re loud, they drink too much, tip too little and only ever hire one dance for the groom. Plus there’s always some “nice guy” that won’t shut up about exploitation without even bothering to stop staring.

This lot weren’t the worst. Just a bunch of heavyset, middle-aged lads with names like Ozzer, or Rozzer or whatever. My guess was they used to be a school rugby team or something. The groom was fine, acted embarrassed even though he was obviously keen, and they were easily pleased.

They mostly just ordered lager, so I did a couple of Helicopters and a Flash with some empties just for show, and then left them to it and got ahead with restocking while they all swore they’d come back every year! (No one ever does).

They started giving the groom gifts. Same old tat as always, cufflinks, poo gags, all the standard stuff. Then the groom spotted the last one on the table, this cheap yellow-and-purple kid’s lunch box. It looked old and shoddy and no one admitted to bringing it in, but the groom just squealed with glee and carefully opened it before pulling out a bunch of old souvenir merch. Pencils, postcards, keyrings, all sorts of crap, all the same yellow and purple, and last of all a cracked CD case. When they saw it, the whole bunch gave this big laughing cheer.

I could see which way the wind was turning, and sure enough the best man came over and asked if he could play it. The cover had this awful Comic Sans title, “Mr Bonzo’s On His Way,” and I wasn’t exactly thrilled by this.

Mr Bonzo was way before my time and from what I had seen online, he had always looked pretty messed up? But… hey, it was their night. If they wanted to spend it on some cringy nostalgia trip, who was I to say no?

This kind of thing happened often enough that we kept a battered old CD player in the back that we could patch into the room’s speakers, just in case. So I ducked back there, put it on, turned the volume down as low as I thought I could get away with, and prayed it wasn’t too obnoxious.

Immediately the cheering children’s voices blared out the speakers, accompanied by bouncy tubas loud enough to drown out the rest of the club’s music. It was awful. But I could hear the lads stamping the floor in rhythm, and as the kids started singing the men were singing along: “Mr Bonzo’s on his way, he wants to stay, he wants to play! Mr Bonzo’s on his way, he wants to stay, he wants to play!”

I gave them a minute since I didn’t want to be a total killjoy, but finally, I reached over and turned off the CD player before Derek came down from the office to “have a word.” But instead of stopping it just grew louder, rattling the glassware in the bar: “Mr Bonzo’s on his way, he wants to stay, he wants to play!” I even yanked the cables from the speakers, but it just kept getting louder.

I was just reaching for my walkie to call for a techie when I heard this massive crash from the room, followed by this cheer from the party. I rushed back in ready to give them a bollocking, but then hesitated behind the door when I saw it.

It was hunched in the doorway, a bulbous figure with a purple hat that cast crazed shadows in all directions thanks to the club’s lighting. Then it doffed its hat and pushed itself into the room, foam catching on the doorframe with a squeak that set my teeth on edge. Its massive bulbous googly-eyes seemed to roam all over the room before settling on the groom, and it was almost as if the huge toothy grin grew that little bit wider when it saw him.

The rugby boys were tripping over themselves to get in and hug it, laughing and pushing the groom to the front, and so I figured at that point it was a prank. Again, none of them took credit for it and there was a moment of genuine hesitation until one of them yelled out, “It’s ya lapdance, Baz!” And they all fell about laughing.

I know you’ll think I should have seen the funny side of it. After all they weren’t a bad bunch, but – I was pissed. Not at them, they didn’t know any better, but at Joey the doorman. Derek had already ripped him a new one after he ducked out for a smoke and left me alone with punters. If he’d done it again and this time accidentally let this kind of thing happen? I was ready to kill him myself.

I began to stride over, readying for the inevitable complaints, then hesitated as I saw something far more unnerving than the ugly costume that was capering with the groom in the middle of the group. There was a pair of heavy boots on their side, poking just inside the still-open doorway. Joey’s boots. And they weren’t moving. Just then the googly eyes turned to me, and a puffy finger raised cheekily to its mouth.

By this time the men had all started chanting “Bonzo! Bonzo! Bonzo!” and stamping their feet and banging the tables in a circle around the pair in the center, as the music grew deafening, distortions creeping in as the speakers strained.

I grabbed for my walkie to call for help, but as I raised it to my face, I could hear that same godawful tune blaring from the tinny little speaker: “Mr Bonzo’s on his way, he wants to stay, he wants to play!”

I started to yell at them, telling them to stop, to get out before we called the police, but none of them heard. They were still focused on the thing as it took the groom by the arms and began to spin him around, faster and faster.

The watching men were falling over one another in their hysterics as it drew itself up to its full height, a full head taller than the largest of them, and, still spinning, suddenly ripped the groom’s arms from their sockets with the gristly snap of bone, tendon and muscle.

I remember – they were still laughing as the groom began to scream, blood flooding out of his shoulders in gouts. It was only when I screamed with him that they realised what was happening.

They began screaming themselves as Mr Bonzo plunged its oversized hand into the groom’s mouth, his teeth unable to penetrate its sweaty hide. The other hand closed over his face, stubby fingers pressing into his eyes and smothering his nose. Then the two hands jerked apart, unfolding the groom’s head with another flowering explosion of blood.

The men began to roar, some in rage, most in terror. A few of the bigger guys picked up chairs or bottles and began to beat and slash at the thing. It didn’t seem to notice, its bulbous, bloodshot eyes staying fixed on the groom’s body as it raised it overhead.

One slash from a broken bottle burst one of the spots on its body, releasing a stream of thick, viscous liquid sloughing out from inside: some vile mixture of putrid water, rotten foam and rancid meat.

The Bonzo thing didn’t seem to notice as it raised the body and slammed it back into the floor over and over and over, each blow pulverizing the flesh and showering us in gore until all that was left was a dripping sack of shattered bones that it shoveled into its gaping, gap-toothed mouth with satisfaction.

For a split second, all was still.

But the music just pounded on, barely recognizable now over the distortion from the smoking speakers as those voices, no longer childlike, still chanted the words “He’s here to stay… He wants to play…”

Then Mr Bonzo turned towards us, with its head bowed almost reverentially, and everybody went silent. Slowly, awfully slowly, it raised its head, tilting it coquettishly to one side. Then the seams across its face split, revealing its gaping maw filled with even larger, sharper teeth. And it boomed playfully: “Bonzo? Bonzo Bonzo?”

I don’t remember much of what followed, but… I dream about it most nights. In the dream it digs through all those men to get to me, grabbing fistfuls of them and throwing them to smash against the wall. The strobe fires as its hands plunge into the pile of us and each flash shows a little less flesh between me and it, between me and all those teeth… Finally everyone else is gone. I raise my arm to protect myself and it gently but inexorably lifts it into its mouth, smiles and bites.

None of us was left whole, but I was the luckiest. All I lost was a hand. It wasn’t even my dominant one. I’ve told the investigators everything I know, doctors too. I don’t know why nobody outside the room heard or saw anything, why the cameras weren’t working, why it let me live. But I do know why there weren’t any bodies.

All I actually want is my hand back so I can tend bar, but that isn’t going to happen, is it? So I’ll have to settle for the next best thing, and sue you for everything I can get, because I don’t know what happened that night, but it was in your venue and no one came to help. Not Derek, not another doorman, no one. So yeah, you’d better have one hell of a settlement waiting for me, or I’ll see you in court.