Imagine you’re me; don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it. You’re a 29 year old man who’s been a nightclub bouncer in Southern California for 2.5 years. Sorry about that. You’ve been looking for other work, but… fuckin economy, man.
You’re standing between a 23 year old Sephora cashier in a grey bodysuit with a boob window and a 38 year old Amazon shift leader in faded jeans, a silk shirt, and a suit blazer. If you’re unsure who the antagonist is, ask yourself how many unions allow in management.
The woman insists that the man stuck his hand down the front of her bodysuit, and points to an angry red line gouged into her boob and running down into her cleavage. The man responds with the condescension and vitriol that has overwhelmed many a single mom putting in for overtime pay.
He makes an accurate, if inane, point: you did not technically see him stick his hand between her tits, and you can’t prove it was his ring that marked her boob. Sensing victory at hand, he wipes a runnel of cloudy snot from his upper lip and scrapes a red line into his own cheek in the process. Certainty was never a requirement; the removal of a sweaty man with dilated pupils from a nightclub faces as much internal scrutiny as a police officer [verb]ing a [noun], but it’s comforting to be sure.
You explain that he can either (A) walk out or (B) be carried out. It’s no Liam Neeson speech, but, when you do violence for a living, every threat is a promise; you like to keep your goals achievable. He says he won’t leave without seeing a manager, which is how you order option B from the secret menu.
You start by securing the ringed hand with one of yours; whether he’s a fighter is anyone’s guess, but he’s already wounded a boob and a cheek by accident and you’re a heavy enough guy to have both of those. The other arm reaches a hand behind his head and presses an elbow into his sternum.
He seems surprised. Maybe he’s never heard of a bouncer or ever seen one on tv, assuming that your job is similar to that of a flight attendant. Either way, he can’t remember any tips to break a Thai clinch from his copy of, “The Art of Fore! Adapting Sun Tzu’s teachings for victory on the golf course.”
Together you stand, one hand behind his head and the other holding his hand out to the side in a grumpy waltz. Your partner is unfamiliar with the steps, but you’ve lead this dance a few times before. Step, dip, and spin. Rearrange your arms, and now he’s in a full Nelson.
He struggles as best he can with his arms hemmed up around his head and his center of gravity settled a couple inches above his hips. The conversion of middle class indignation to fighting rage is an inefficient chemical process that generates more shame and belly sweat than power; His shirt has come untucked in the tussle, and the woman in the bodysuit observes his moist happy trail. Her chloroplasts use the stage lights and moisture from the fog machine to convert the man’s humiliation into sugar and oxygen. Her boob will heal, and she’ll probably be an inch taller when she’s back next weekend.
The trip from the dance floor to the door provides your Millhouse time to calm himself and consider his options. He makes the rational decision to hook his legs around yours to trip you. Every minute he’s in the building is a victory in the war against consent and consequences.
You consider letting yourself drop and dragging him to the floor with you, but guillotine choking a whiny guy in a suit is only satisfying if he makes six figures, and you didn’t pull this guy out of bottle service. You bend your knees, press your hip in just under his, and straighten up. You channel the energy of a thousand moms as you hoist him onto your hip a like coked up basket of laundry.
Toddlers have more dignity as they kick off their shoes while being dragged out of a Payless for being too rowdy. He doesn’t want to go, and he’s sure he shouldn’t have to. He wants to see the security tapes, he wants your manager, and he wants everyone who recorded him being removed to delete the videos.
He’s on the sidewalk, insisting that the vice cops waiting to arrest drunks who try to drive home escort him back inside. They show him as much sympathy as the Israeli commando who trained them showed the last teenager to throw a rock at his APC.
You will do this for roughly 5 more months before moving away and never doing security work again; these memories will hit you like absurdist Nam flashbacks for the next two years.
