CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TAKING OUT THE TRASH
“Watch your back.”
I stared at hundreds of beautiful women. It was my third Saturday night working at LATE NIGHT LIBRARY and I was no less impressed by the long line of college girls that led out the front door and spanned down the street.
As I watched the many patrons waiting to enter the club, I decided the only reason I’d be willing to stand in such a long line would be to stare at the asses of the hot girls likely to be standing in front of me.
“Nice view, isn’t it?” a male voice asked.
My gaze shifted to the tall figure of Scott walking down the reentry door ramp. The brown-haired, blue-eyed assistant manager was a handsome young man in his mid-twenties.
“It always is,” I replied. “How come I didn’t see you in the gym today?”
Scott sat down next to me on the railing of the reentry ramp and said, “I went later than usual because I actually made it to class today.”
I grinned. “I didn’t.”
Scott chuckled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Light cigarettes. He offered me one.
“No thanks.”
He fired up his cigarette with a yellow lighter and returned his attention to the line. From what I had learned about Scott thus far, I knew him to be a very cool guy. He worked hard, partied hard, and mellowed out on weed. Scott had grown up in
“So how do you like working here so far?” he asked.
“Looking at women all night beats my last job delivering pizzas.”
The bar manager laughed. “Tell me about it. I was working at Bagel Peddler before I started working here. Russell came in there one morning and offered me a job because he recognized me from the club the night before and was impressed that I still made it in to work at 6 AM.”
I chuckled. “That’s pretty cool he hired you like that.”
The line moved forward and our eyes followed a sexy brunette wearing tight silver pants and an oversized black belt. Like me, Scott had a taste for dark-haired women.
“So what about you?” I asked. “Do you like working behind the bar? I guess that’s where the real money is.”
“Yeah, the money is good, but I get tired of dealing with fake people who think they’re your friends.” He pulled a drag and snorted. “One thing you’re gonna learn about this business is that your friends are the worst people alive.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because they all want freebies, and when you hook them up once, they expect it all the time.”
His words surprised me because I was excited by my new capacity to provide people with hook-ups like free entry and drinking wristbands. It never crossed my mind that this power might one day become a burden.
Scott saw my disbelief and smiled. “Don’t get me wrong. I like hooking people up, especially the people I do consider to be friends. But this is a business. People forget that shit and think you can give them something for free every time they come here.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that must be a pain in the ass.”
He pulled a long drag and exhaled. “Some guys understand that it’s a business and they barter. They slip you a twenty, offer you drugs, gym memberships, whatever.”
“Sounds fair.”
“It can be, but a lot of people want something for nothing or they think returning the favor means handing you a crumpled up dollar bill that’s supposed to look like multiple dollars.”
I laughed. “They really do that shit?”
Scott’s eyebrows arched, as if to say they did far worse.
I laughed again and asked, “Does Russell ride the bartenders hard about giving away free drinks?”
Scott shrugged. “Some of them. Not me. And not Rico and Benny. Those guys give away a ton of free drinks, but they also pull in half the people that come here.”
“And Russell likes that.”
“He respects it. The bottom line with Russell is that you need to bring in more money than you give away.”
Another hot brunette passed us in line and our eyes followed her closely. Her elevated ass definitely showed the benefits of Stairmaster training.
“I’ve been lucky so far,” I said. “My friends haven’t really been hitting me up for hook-ups.”
“They will,” Scott said and pulled another drag. “It’ll start with your guest list or free wristbands.” His blue eyes sized me up. “And you probably have a few meathead friends who like to get rowdy.”
“A few,” I said with a smile. Mickey and Blake instantly came to mind.
Scott nodded. “If they get in fights here, you’ll be in a position to cover for them. Your friends will take advantage of that too.”
I chuckled at this and the bartender flicked his cigarette to the ground.
“But hey,” he said with a small shrug, “you take the good with the bad and there’s definitely plenty more good than bad.”
“Yeah, man. I’m loving the good.”
Scott took one last look at the line and said, “Enjoy the view. Come see me at the bar if you want a drink.”
The assistant manager headed back inside and I silently pondered his words. Ironically, his prediction about friends fighting in the club came to life an hour later when a black friend of mine got into an argument with his girlfriend in the parking lot.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Kevin T yelled after the pretty Asian girl with blonde streaks in her hair.
“Leave me alone, fucker!” she snarled. The girl’s pace picked up and she used her key remote to unlock the door of her silver Jetta. Once inside the vehicle, she slammed the door shut and pressed the automatic lock button.
Her boyfriend was growing agitated. He rapped his knuckles on the window and said, “Come on, Baby. Do you want to fight out here about some bullshit or do you want to go back inside and try to have some fun?”
“Just go away, Kevin. I’m sick of your shit.”
“Bitch, open the fucking door.”
She hated the word ‘bitch’ and he knew it. A middle finger was flung at him and she shrieked, “Fuck you, asshole!”
“Look, bitch, open the fucking door or I’m gonna break the window.”
“Try it, faggot!” she dared him.
The young black man stared at her fiercely with anger burning in his eyes. She had seen that murderous look before and what followed was never good. Fortunately, he decided to walk away. Or so she thought. Just when the Asian girl was about to open the door, Kevin T spun back around and elbowed the rear passenger window. Glass shattered.
“What the hell?” she screamed. “Look what you did!”
But Kevin T wasn’t done yet. He sprinted around to the other side of the car and proceeded to smash out both of these windows too.
The girl’s anger quickly became terror and she fled from the car, back towards the nightclub. Kevin T followed her with a slow, determined, horror movie stalk.
Two pudgy cops were standing in the entry room of the club when the crying girl burst past the bouncers stationed at the front door. Tears and makeup were dripping down her face and the cops sprung into action.
“What happen to you?” Officer Nolan asked her firmly. “Are you okay?”
“My…my boyfriend,” was all she uttered.
It was all she needed to say. Kevin T appeared with blood on his forearms and they pounced on him like SWAT.
I happened to be walking by the entry room when I saw the commotion. Several cops were restraining a young black man and attempting to put him in handcuffs. I quickly descended the short flight of stairs and recognized Kevin T. He saw me as soon as I saw him.
“Bryce!” Kevin T screamed. “Help me out, dogg! Don’t let them arrest me!”
My bouncer coworker Kyle was also watching the police in action. When I started moving towards the scuffle, he intercepted my path.
“Don’t get involved,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do for him.”
“What happened?”
“He was arguing with his girl and punched out all her car windows. He’s going to jail.”
My jaw dropped. Holy shit. Kevin T was a crazy motherfucker.
The cops now had Kevin T pinned on the ground and his girlfriend was watching him with tearful eyes. I ignored Kyle’s warning and approached my friend as the cops lifted him to his knees.
“I can’t do anything for you,” I said regretfully, “but do you want me to call someone for you?”
“Call Chang or Hook,” he replied. “Let em know I need to get bailed out. Aight?”
“Yeah, man. I’ll take care of it.”
I made the call to Chang and the rest of the night passed by without any more violence.
At 2:08 AM, the loud club music shut off, the bright ceiling lights were turned on, and it became the immediate duty of the bouncers to usher everybody out the back doors. This was never a fun process and none of the bouncers were rushing into action.
I gathered near the closed doorway of the entry room with Seth, Brandon, Tyson, and a spiky blonde-haired bartender named Heath. All of us were eyeing the thick crowds of intoxicated college students. My drunk coworkers wanted to join them. The sober ones simply wanted them gone.
“Look at these people,”
“Fucking assholes,” sneered the bartender Heath. “They all think they’re VIP standing around like this. They know we can’t leave until they get out of here.”
Seth’s glossy eyes indicated he was just as drunk as the patrons. “Relax, bro,” he said. “They’re just trying to make last ditch efforts to find someone to shack with tonight.”
“Fuck that,” the bartender replied. “They need to go so I can go.”
Kyle came walking up to us with a big smile. The laidback, brown-haired bouncer also looked like had had been drinking.
“Yo, Seth,” he said, “Kelly is sweating my nuts hard tonight! I think I might have to hit that again.”
Seth shook his golden head. “Don’t do it. Every time you fuck that girl she stalks you for two weeks until she finds out you’re banging some other bitch.” He grinned and added, “But she is looking good.”
Kyle’s brown eyes widened. “I know, right? I think she’s been sweating out her emotional pain on the treadmill.”
“Or shoving her finger down her throat,” Heath said.
Kyle glanced towards Tyson and irritably shook his head. “Bro, I hate it when they do that shit—you try to pull away and then they get all fucking hot again so you show them interest.”
The large bouncer grunted in agreement.
Kyle turned back to Seth. “You got something lined up tonight?”
“Are you serious?” the handsome bouncer smugly answered. “I always got something lined up. The real challenge is finding a girl who’s not gonna pass out on me before we get done with cleanup duty.”
“So what’s the best way to handle that?” I asked.
Seth grinned. “The trick is to call her every twenty minutes and tell her you’re on the way over there.”
Kyle chuckled. “Or you can just find some slutty little coke whore who’s gonna be tweeking all night, waiting for you to come pick her up.”
We all laughed and stared at the girls in the crowd. There was no shortage of club skanks and sorority whores who met this qualification.
Seth stepped closer to me and leaned in to whisper. “Hey, Darren,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you have a good source for sauce?”
“What are you looking for?”
“Maybe some Deca.”
“I don’t know about Deca, but I could definitely get you some Sustanon 250.”
Seth’s green eyes grew bigger. “Nice.”
“You’ve touched it before?”
“I’ve done it and I pretty much think it’s the shit.”
“Cool. I’ll ask my boy if he can hook it up.”
Adam suddenly emerged from the closed doorway behind us. He was not pleased by our standing around.
“What are you guys doing?” he exclaimed. “Start kicking these people outta here!
“THE CLUB IS CLOSED!!!”
“GO HOME!!!”
“YOU’RE NOT GETTING LAID!!!”
My path to the bathroom was intercepted by a hot blonde I knew to be in the Delta sorority. We had crossed paths before at Greek events and she never paid me much attention because of Upsilon’s mediocre social reputation, but that was before I was a bouncer working at the hottest club in Tallahassee.
“Hey,” she said. “I know you, don’t I?”
I shrugged coolly. “I’ve seen you around. Your name is Michelle, right?”
“Tiffany,” she said with a disappointed frown that was quickly replaced with a promising smile. “What’s your name again?”
“Darren,” I replied with a silent laugh. I had no idea what her name was, but figured calling her the wrong name would only make me seem more impressive in her eyes.
“Are you going to that big after-party?” she asked.
“The one at
“The Village. My girls and I are going there. You should come with some of your bouncer friends.”
My eyebrows arched. “Anyone in particular?”
She shrugged. “Kyle and Brandon…not Seth.”
I chuckled. This meant Seth had fucked her or one of her friends and then fucked her over.
“And you,” she added.
“What?”
The pretty blonde smiled. “You asked me anyone in particular. You.”
I smiled. “Okay…I’ll be there.”
“Good. See you later, Darren.”
“Bye, Michelle,” I replied which caused her to frown again. “I’m just kidding. Goodbye, Tiffany.”
I followed
“This fucking sucks,” I grunted as Tyson and I lifted a large trashcan above the dumpster and poured out its contents.
Tyson didn’t say a word. He rarely did. The sentinel-faced bouncer really was a human cyborg.
“It’s not that bad,”
I watched
“Darren,” he said, “It’s all about technique.”
My coworker spun around a few times before launching the container with a grunt. The trashcan flew through the air, hit the gravel parking lot, and then skipped and tumbled a few feet farther.
Seth and Kyle had emerged from the nightclub carrying a large trashcan between them.
“Put your purse down,
He and Kyle dumped the large round trashcan before he too hurled the empty container through the air. It bounced a couple times and then slowly rolled past the other trashcan.
Seth turned around with a grin. “That’s how it’s done.”
“No fair!”
“Hey, Seth,” I asked, “what do you know about that girl Tiffany in Delta?”
“Blonde?” he asked. “Kind of skinny, but hot?”
“Yeah.”
He shrugged. “Not much, actually. I’ve fucked a few of her friends.”
“A few?” Kyle said with a chuckle.
Seth snorted. “Yeah...enough that Tiffany won’t let me get anywhere near her pussy.” His gaze shifted back to me. “Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “She says she’s going to that after-party over at the Village and wanted me to bring my bouncer friends.”
Kyle looked at
“Definitely. My brother and Tyson want to come too. Right, Tyson?”
“I’m down,” Tyson grunted.
Seth smiled at me. “There’s gonna be a lot of sluts there. You want to ride with us?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I might have to check it out.”
“Cool. Maybe we can finally get you to stray from that wifey.”
I laughed and followed
“Yeah, dogg,” he said into his cell phone. “I’m heading that way after I check out the Village. Yeah, I got it, but make sure you bring the water. No, she worked tonight over at POTBELLY’S. I’m gonna meet up with that one girl Janice.”
I chuckled. Water was code for GHB. The meathead bartender always snuck outside during cleanup so that he could make his late night phone calls to determine where the drugs were going or set up a rendezvous with whichever hot girl he was cheating on his girlfriend with that week. Incidentally, this was often the same destination.
Ten minutes later, I was spraying down the last trashcan with a hose when two barbacks pulled bar mats out the back door. The new barback Teddy was being trained by a veteran bar-back named Oscar. Teddy was a short blonde-haired kid with a baby face. His mentor was also a small kid who had earned the nickname Oscar one night when he slipped on the stairs and somehow managed to spill an entire trashcan on top of his head. An employee who witnessed the hilarious debacle told everyone the filthy kid looked like Oscar the Grouch.
“Put the mats on the stairs like this,” Oscar said as he dragged the rubber mat down the short staircase.
Teddy followed his example and laid the other mat on the stairs. The senior barback retrieved the hose from the ground in front of me and handed it to his apprentice.
“Here,” he instructed. “Now you spray them off and we stack them inside.”
While Teddy was being taught the fine art of barback cleanup duty, a tall and slender bartender named Lauren strolled out onto the cement platform of the stairway. The hot blonde wore tight black pants and a black, low-cut midriff top. She fired up a cigarette with a match and watched Teddy spray down the mats. To avoid being sprayed, I climbed up the side of the stairs and cockily jumped over the railing in what I thought was an impressive display of my ROTC athleticism. Unfortunately, I landed on Lauren’s foot.
“What the fuck!” she yelped in pain.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed. “I’m so sorry.”
My face flushed crimson and I impulsively bent over to rub her foot, stopping midway. It was one of those awkward moments when you want to help someone, but can do nothing for them.
“You probably broke my toenail!” Lauren hissed as she massaged the toe area of her black boot.
Her words were bitter, and though I could not be sure, it looked like tears had formed in the corner of her pretty green eyes. I felt like a genuine asshole.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’m sure it was a beautiful toenail.”
A little playful charm never hurt. Lauren, however, remained unresponsive to my allure or my sincere apology. The older girl refused to look at me, and after taking two more drags, she flicked her cigarette into the gravel parking lot and furiously walked back into the nightclub.
Smooth, Bryce. Very smooth.
Teddy had witnessed the entire incident, but he didn’t laugh at me when she walked away. Instead, the baby-faced barback gave me a cautious warning.
“Do you know who her boyfriend is?” he asked.
“No.”
“That’s Benny’s girlfriend. He’s that short, muscular bartender with huge forearms.”
“What about it?”
“Benny is a real psycho. He’s beaten the shit out of a lot of guys.”
I shrugged dismissively.
Teddy returned my shrug with a shrug of his own and said, “Yeah, well, just watch your back because if she tells him about her foot, he might snap.”
Clocking out from work that night, I found out who Benny was when the short, brown-haired, muscular guy standing in front of me lifted his timecard to the printing machine. The huge forearms were a dead giveaway.
After the meathead finished clocking out, he walked by me with a cold stare. I couldn’t tell if it was the typical tough guy, “I don’t know you, you don’t know me” stare down or if it was a mad dog stare down that said, “If we weren’t at work right now, I’d fuck you up for hurting my girlfriend.”
Ironically enough, years later it would be Teddy who incurred the wrath of Benny when the former started dating the very same girl whose toe I jumped on. Overcome with rage, Benny would break through Lauren’s window and find them in bed together. He beat the shit out of Teddy and was charged with multiple felonies. Benny’s tough guy reputation was well earned.
When I left the club, I drove over to the
“Hey, Baby,” she said. “How was work?”
“Good. How was your night?”
“It was fun. I went to a party with Lila.”
I followed my dark-haired girlfriend back to her room and stripped down to nothing before crawling into bed. My hands quickly pulled off Allison’s t-shirt and I was pleased to discover she was wearing panties.
She purred at me. “Mmmhmm. I always keep my panties on like a good little girl so my daddy can take them off me.”
I smiled and slid them down her smooth legs, but when I attempted to mount her, she gave me the roll over.
“Baby,” she whined, “I’m really tired. Can we wait until tomorrow morning to have sex?”
“Sure,” I said and moved away from her.
“Can you rub my butt?”
I fondled her ass with one hand and my cock with the other. Part of me was pissed that I had not gone to the after-party, but I smiled and fell asleep thinking about how I was going to punish Allison the next morning by fucking her spoon position with my eyes closed and my mind on the sorority girl Tiffany.
