OK, so I was thinking back to the bar days after reading Clublife and have to tell my bouncing story. Don't worry, no look-what-a-total-badass-I-am stories. Just a little history.
I started bouncing in a bar and grill. It was fun. I got the job through a friend and eventually started doing the scheduling and hiring for the other bouncers for two of these places so I was surrounded by my friends from college. And they started giving me bartending shifts. Since this was a bar frequented by the staff from the surrounding places tips were great, especially compared with the low hassle. I mean, the perfect bartending experience has got to be a lazy Sunday afternoon with no manager and your only customers are 10 waiters and bartenders on their day off. The bouncing was pretty easy most of the time except for the fact that we were surrounded by clubs and we closed an hour and a half after they did so all the drunk, drug addled clubgoers came in for sandwiches and try to get drinks. On the weekends there were four of us, one at the inner entrance running the line (at 2:30am the place would get rushed since that's when the other bars close. The inner entrance is the end of a long hallway you have to walk down to get into the bar), with the other three floating around the room. Fights were plentiful but they were the typical after-last-call fights where the combatants were too drunk to really do any damage. Plus the bouncers from the surrounding clubs would also come in for sandwiches so we had tons o' backup. Crowd control was a huge pain in the ass and getting people to leave was Sisyphus and the rock. They just never left. You get them going in the direction of the door, move on to another group, turn around, and the first group's back where they fucking started!
Then I moved to the club next door because a bunch of my friends started working there. It was actually less money, but at the time, I really didn't give a fuck because A) I moved into a nice rent-controlled apartment about 2 blocks away and B) I was friends with many of the surrounding restaurant workers and got deep, deep discounts on everything.
This was different from what I was accustomed to. It was a huge, 3-story, gaudy monstrosity. We usually had 20 or so bouncers working each night. I started on the inside and then went to the door (presumably because I could speak in whole sentences). That was a cushy position because on weekend nights there was a line and people would bribe you to let them in.
My favorite memory here was it was closing time and we were kicking everyone out. One guy came up to me and wanted to go in. I wouldn't let him. He offered me $100 to let him back in. Of course I let him. He walked in, went right up and grabbed a beer out of one of the tubs about 10 feet from the door, and got launched (and I do mean launched) out of the door I just let him in. Figuring he'd want a refund on his hundy (or at least get it pro-rated) I grabbed the bouncer that tossed him and told him to switch places with me and went inside.
Well, that glory couldn't last because eventually every doorman pisses off the cokehead owner. Sure enough, one night I let in some of his pals (the aforementioned middle aged guys with a penchant for fucking 18 year olds. Fucking is used as a verb there, not an adjective) with their "dates", as every doorman here did because if you didn't you'd get kicked off the door. Naturally, being 18 or 19 or whatever, these girls could not hold their liquor and proceeded to get violently sick in the middle of the dance floor. Of course I got rebuked for letting in those underage girls. Then about an hour later, another friend of the owner's came up with some biker guys and asked if they could take pictures in front of the club. I said it's not the club's street so whatever. Next thing I know there's this giant, tattooed fatass riding his bike down the SIDEWALK and stopped right in front of the door. While the photographer started taking pictures he still had the bike running! Not only that but he was revving the fucking engine with the exaust right in front of me! I go grab him and start yelling over the din but before I can get him to leave the owner comes out of his hole and is pissed.
No more door for me.
Then I move inside on the third floor. Best floor to work in my opinion because it's pretty much open air. Plus that's where I met Baby on Board since that was her bar (in her previous life she was one of the star bartenders at this place).
A little on the other bouncers in this place. Some were like me, just college kids making some extra money and not looking for trouble and then there were the hard-asses. I mean these guys LOVED bouncing. Would actually start shit because they loved fighting. This club would have a shitload of fights without these guys but these assholes just made it worse. Some are in jail now.
There were fights aplenty. Crazy, stupid fights. I mean there I am, sitting on one of the huge speakers, trying to see how many cigarettes I can smoke in a 6 hour period and having the occasional drink, and all of a sudden some guy punches (not slaps, punches) a girl 5 feet in front of my face. Jerkoff central. People would steal tips off the bar, break lamps, throw bottles, harrass women, fight at the slightest provocation, etc. In my time here I learned the most popular pastime in Cleveland is taking steroids and hitting each other over the head with beer bottles. I got a great workout trying to pull bloody meatheads apart. The one huge drawback of this posting was that if something started I had to drag the offending jerkoff all the way across this room, down several flights of stairs, across another big ass room occasionally (depending on which exit we took), and then out the door. Once they were outside the cops can take them but the whole time we're getting them there their friends can join in the fun and we basically fight our way out or just tumble down the stairs.
And I thought getting people to leave the other place was bad. Jesus. At closing time everyone is a friend of the owner's, or the DJ's, or the bartender's, etc.
I only have a few regrets. One of them I can't figure out why I feel bad is this: I remember this shady looking gangbanger that was in the club all night. He was alone and I never saw him with a drink. At the end of the night I saw him walking fast alont the side of the room opposite me and it looked maybe like he had something under his shirt. I was about to go over to grab him and see what's what but it had been a long ass night and I didn't want any more unneccessary confrontation and I convinced myself I was profiling. Sure enough, as soon as he enters the stairway I hear "MY PURSE! SOMEONE STOLE MY PURSE!" I fly across the room and barrel down the stairs knocking people all around. By the time I get downstairs he's gone. I give a description to the cops and talk to the girl. She's beside herself. "My whole life was in there!" Normally I would have thought "Why the fuck were you bringing all that valuable shit in here and if it did have so much money and shit in it, why'd you leave it unattended on a table in a giant club?" But for some reason I still feel bad about it. Funny what sticks with you.
Still, all in all, it was a blast. To quote the guy from Clublife: "Where else, besides law enforcement or the military, can you say to yourself, "
I don't like what that person is doing, so I think I'll go choke him," act on the impulse, and get paid for it?" I had a great time and made some great friends (well, Baby on Board, but she's worth at least 3 or 4 regular people).
