–

Prologue

.

“What the hell,” I said, “sure. Tell him I’ll meet him,” then polished off the last of my Guinness.

“Seriously? That’s awesome!” Shane said, grabbing my glass and pulling another from the tap. “This’ll really help me, man. Garrett is gonna love you.”

Shane had been seeing Brandi, a stripper from The X (Ten) Club, and he just never had enough money, even with his parents’ stipend, to keep her in plastic platform heels and g-strings. She, of course, spent all her money on a giant SUV, fast food, and hard drugs — so obviously it was up to Shane to manage domestic things. Finding a replacement bouncer meant Shane could move to bartender, and go from making jackfuckingshit to actually doing okay. And seeing as I never had any money and he was my roommate, Shane being more financially stable seemed like a good thing.

He’d started at DÜDH as a bar back shortly after Craig and I had cost him his first bartending gig — some stodgy-ass hotel bar on the ghosty edge of Old Town. We’d somehow found our way to the roof and passed the evening chucking banquet chairs down to the weedy mesa fifteen stories below. 
Boom. 
Boom.
Ba-boom.

It was good for a chuckle. Anyhow, Shane hated the ghost town job and either quit or got fired for either the chair thing or all our free drinks or some other shit. He’d been restocking coolers and swapping out tapped kegs since. When the owner Garrett had decided that Shane could 1) dodge a punch, and 2) was “loyal” enough — Shane was ‘promoted’ to bouncer…where he no longer made tips and only occasionally got smashed in the face.

Now I’d never bounced before, but knew a little about how to handle myself and it didn’t seem like you needed much more than that. Maybe a decent pair of steel toed boots. I knew I probably still had a pair from my construction-job summers stuck in a closet at my mom’s house, so I figured I was as ready as the next guy.

Besides, I’d been drinking my way through the downtown Albuquerque nights with a bemused and semi-reckless abandon, had sat sweaty-assed and scuffed-elbowed in not only DÜDH but most of the other beerpits around and had seen what bouncers did for their paychecks. It looked like a lot of standing around, flexing for girls, and bullshitting until the occasional drunken dust up broke out.

And I figured it wouldn’t be too bad to take a bunch of easy money while watching the drunken, idiotic, and very occasionally beautiful ways the young crashed like waves into the jagged rocks of each other, hair and flesh churning, the strobe-light blinking, glinting off beads of sweat and jello shots, the writhing fluorescence of tight tops, cherry-scented fog machine smoke, and the sweep of siren lights when a new special was announced. The slow-motion throb of everyone dancing and sweating and drinking and laughing, singing along to ‘retro’ hits from the 1980s as hope and possibility choked the dance floor with pheromones and imitation designer cologne. People everywhere were desperate to be seen, to be heard, lonely and hungry for connection and ritual and, shit, even love if they could find it. And if not, then for whatever else seemed interesting enough. It had always fascinated me and, despite being hopeless at it all myself, thought it would be instructive if nothing else I mean, shit, how hard could bouncing be? Hell, it might even be a good time…

.

Chapter 1

.

Truth is, I’ve always been something of a doomed soul anyhow, one that flirted with destruction. I thought I should be something or do something but as I hadn’t figured out what yet, it all just depressed me. I’d tried drawing comic books, tried writing, tried sending stories and poems to magazines — with no luck. I wanted to paint, or make a movie, or anything, really, that was filled with joy instead of whatever it was they were paying people to do. All the jobs I’d had were torture, and I just didn’t see any way of surviving with a real career-type gig. The thought of forty hours or more in some cubicle week in and week out made me want to die. But I wasn’t interesting or clever enough to make it anywhere else, so, honestly, what choice did I have?

Of course I’d take the damn job.

$7/hour and a shift drink or two. Every now and again the owner would spring for a staff trip or event somewhere.  Some dogshit trip to a lake or a concert or airshow to rally the troops. Thems the spoils, as they say. And that really was it. Albuquerque, and specifically the DÜDH crowd didn’t exactly tip well, and almost no one had ever heard about taking care of the bouncers, and those cheap bastards that that had pretended not to know. But I’d had worse gigs, and I thought as long as I didn’t get my skull caved in, it would probably be good for a giggle to two.

Plus, my ex Sandra was working there. It was doubtful I could get her back, as I’d spent the end of our relationship playing Sega hockey with Shane, getting blackout drunk on the porch, mumbling along with Pearl Jam tunes, and occasionally sleeping on the lawn. Hardly a catch. I’d spent my college career thus far dreaming and planning but never really doing. I mean I passed most of my classes, but the idea that there was nothing but a job waiting at the end of it all filled me with dread. Still we’d had some good times, and I was still hung up and wounded over it all. Getting her back would surely fix everything, or so went the thinking…

Anyhow, I figured bouncing was at least different than my normal stupid life, and that maybe whatever happened might startle me out of my stupor…a quick fist — pow! — straight in the maw. Plus there was nothing like the dream of a beautiful girl you didn’t know but wanted to, the slow romance of occasional eyes and glances, and, if you finally did talk, the feeling of making her laugh that first time. There had to be something better out there, and maybe this was how I’d find it.

–

Hosho McCreesh is currently writing, painting, & making stuff in the gypsum & caliche badlands of the American Southwest. His work has appeared widely in print, audio, & online.

.

.

.

.