Monday night, I went into my favorite local dive-bar and sat down to enjoy a pitcher of beer, as is my custom. It's not a terribly crowded place at 5pm, usually just a handful of the regular old men and the barmaid. Sometimes the owner is there, checking stock, cleaning, doing whatever chores need to be done around the place.
The owner was there Monday night, and was sitting at the bar finishing up a phone call as I walked in. I sat next to her as the barmaid sat my pitcher on the bar.
"Hi, Mr. Sir. How's your day going?"
-"It'll be better in a glass or two. And yours?"
"Well, my bouncer quit on Saturday night, and I can't find anybody to replace him."
Oh, I had a feeling that I knew where this conversation was headed...
"Do you feel like bouncing again?"
Many years ago, I was a bartender at a nice place where the owner of this dive would sometimes come for dinner and drinks. We struck-up a friendship, and she asked if I would be interested in tending bar for her, as well. The first night I worked her bar, the guy she had working the door got hauled-off by the cops for throwing some guy through the bar door. The closed bar door. I covered the door for the rest of the night, and it turns out that I made more money on the door than the bartenders made, and I could both sit down and drink while I was doing the job. I eventually quit working weekends, and just covered the occasional special event during the week.
-"I don't work weekends anymore."
"That's OK, I have a guy that can only work Saturday nights. I need somebody to cover during the week, when I have bands booked."
-"I'm expensive, you know. Also, I'm all civilized now, and have to get up early for my day job."
"I'll give you 15% of the door and 2 drinks an hour. The bands are usually done by 11 or 11:30, and you can leave when their set is done. Also, I want a big boy on the door, and I've seen you kick an ass or two around here, usually for fun."
This is actually not too bad of a deal to look at ID's for about 4 hours. It works out to about 40 or 50 dollars in my pocket and pretty much all the booze I would want for weeknight. The downside is that this is a rough bar, and I used to get in at least one fight a week with some jerk-off that would need to get bounced.
-"I'll help you out for awhile, and we'll see how it goes."
"I need you to start Wednesday at 7."
And so it began.
Wednesday night, I was sitting at the bar by about 6, having a couple of beers. The owner strolled in at about 6:30 for the shift-change, and then gave me a wad of singles and fives so I could make change at the door. I took my position at the door armed with a fresh beer.
It wasn't too bad, since it was mostly regulars that I knew. They gave me some Shakespeare as the "new employee" but it was mostly good fun. The barmaid kept my glass full, and did not worry about the "2 per hour" limit that the owner set, bless her heart. The band wasn't too bad, but seemed to cut it short. They bailed out at about 10:30 or so, and most of the crowd left with the band.
After I tidied up the door area, I went over to the bar and asked the barmaid if she needed help cleaning... the place was a complete disaster. She asked if I would go clean the restrooms, since she hadn't had a chance to look at them all night.
The men's room was as expected: piss on the floor, fresh graffiti, and full garbage can. After a quick run-through with the mop and a fresh trash bag, I moved on to the women's room. As I opened the door, I was greeted with the hot smell of Shakespeare. It was enough to gag a maggot.
The women's room is only a two-holer, so it was pretty quick work to determine the source of the funk. I pushed the stall door open with my foot and peered into the bowl. Peeking up from the water was a poop-chute periscope... a mammoth chocolate log that had not been flushed. Or, perhaps, had resisted any attempts to flush.
I reached over the beast and tried flushing it. It started to disappear with the water, but as the flush cycle finished it returned to view, like a dookie boomerang, resting in its former position. I gave it another try, but came to the same result.
I was not getting involved with this Shakespeare. I would not plunge, break-up, remove, or in any other way interact with this turd any further than I already had. Frankly, I had already spent too much time with somebody else's Shakespeare in my sight. Aside from my children's diapers and my partner's delicate gifts upon my chest during our love-making, I have no desire to associate with ass-nuggets.
I grabbed my bottle of bleach and dumped the rest into the toilet to kill the smell and hopefully start breaking that beast down. I picked up the mop bucket and thoroughly drenched everything in the women's room with the disinfectant solution and ran for the door. I advised the barmaid that the restroom was "drip-drying" and that I had locked it up for the night.
After a few more PBR's and a shot of bourbon, I walked out the front door with "Straight Outta' Compton" blasting in the background.
I was a little buzzed, had a couple of bucks in my pocket, and the smells of bleach and stale cigarette smoke were clinging to my clothes.
It was a good night.
Mr. Sir doesn't really hang out in bars that play "Straight Outta' Compton". Next time you're in town, buy him a drink, won't you?
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