Non-Negotiable. part 1

Inspired by "Clublife."

Saturday. June 2003, 10:17 pm.

I showed up to work 15 minutes late due to traffic and my fucking prick of a boss is already busting my balls telling me to “suit the fuck” up and get my ass out by the VIP entrance. I grab my radio out of my locker, slip the ear-bud into my ear, and clip the wire to the lapel of the western-style long-sleeve shirt I’m wearing. It’s my favorite shirt, the tight, black and white one with the embroidered green marijuana leaves and shiny rhinestones. Instead of clipping the radio to my belt I instead slip it into the front right pocket of my intentionally-faded, low-rise “Energie” jeans, which by the way cost me over 165 dollars. On my way out one of the bar backs tosses me a Red Bull.

It was a hot night. Saturday is my least favorite night on VIP. It’s hip-hop night. There's already a line of thugs, shorty’s, pimps, and ballers stretching to the end of the block and halfway down the adjacent block and the club hasn't even opened it's doors yet. Saturday night is the worst night of the week in terms of monetary compensation. Usually, when I work VIP, I can pull in some decent jack as EVERYBODY thinks they’re a VIP and are usually willing to pay for a speedier admission. No one likes waiting in line, it’s humiliating and insulting. However, hip-hop night usually draws a more unsavory crowd. “Ghetto” could be a suitable word. There aren’t as many high-rollers which usually means I make less tips.

The first thing I usually do is walk the line. Walking the line is the process of cherry-picking the most attractive girls and escorting them up to the VIP line. That way, if someone happens to drive by they’ll see a huge group of fine-ass girls near the front entrance and the likelihood of them stopping at our establishment increases exponentially. It's also an opportunity to address any dress code issues earlier on, and thereby avoid an ugly scene in front of the club, and also as a courtesy to the customer, prevent an unnecessary 2 hour wait merely to be turned away at the doors.

On this particular night, as I start to walk the line, I spot 2 dew-rags and 2 jerseys in the first 20 ft alone. Usually patrons are good about removing their beanies, dew-rags, or sports caps upon being asked because, put simply, if they don’t, they will not fucking get in. There are always those few assholes who think they’re above the dress code. They’ll take off their beanie and cram it down their pants mistakenly thinking this will suffice. It doesn’t, when I ask you to remove your dew-rag I’m really TELLING you to take it out to your fucking car or toss it in the trash cause you sure as FUCK aren’t bringing it into my club. Of course, I’m a little bit more polite. A lot of these losers have nothing better to do than sit in their cars at the crack of dawn, waiting for me to leave the club, so they can beat the shit out of me or better yet, cap my ass. Working VIP has its perks, namely untaxed, cold, hard cash direct in my pocket (getting paid under the table is a blessing…especially when you’re on unemployment - which I was at the time), but the flip side to this is there’s the possibility of making a lot of enemies. However I digress.

So I spot 2 dew-rags and 2 jerseys. The first three guys obediently removed their questionable apparel upon being asked/told. The fourth guy was a bit more difficult.

“Hey, do you have a t-shirt underneath that jersey?”

Dude just stares at me. He's Mexican and he either doesn't understand or is pretending he can't understand. It's usually the latter with these guys.

I turn to his buddy and tug at my shirt as I say: “Tell your friend he's not getting in with that jersey. He needs to remove it.”

They converse en espanol. “Hey Mee-ster, where he gonna put it? We were dropped off.”

“That's your business.”

They converse some more then they turn away and continue to stand in line as though our conversation didn't even transpire. What the fuck?

“Hey.”

These two dickwads continue to ignore me.

“All right, get the fuck out of the line, you're not getting in.” I motion to the head bouncer, Socko, to come over. Socko is the guy who landed me the job in the first place. He's an Armenian monster, about 5'8", but built like a fucking tank. Easily over 3 bills. He also happens to be my girlfriend's (R____), sister's boyfriend.

“Hey Mee-ster, we don't have no car, yo.” All of a sudden this fucking lowlife piece of shit speaks English.

“Oh you can talk now. Well then didn't I just tell you two to get out of the line? You're not partying here tonight.”

“But Mee-ster...”

“No, it's non-negotiable.”

I hear Socko start giggling behind me. “Non-negotiable....” he softly repeats to himself. You see, the ongoing joke at this club between the bouncer staff and I is that I'm somehow “too educated” to be working a job such as this. Whenever the guys would overhear me use correct grammar or syntax, or bust out a word with more than two syllables, they'd always snigger among themselves. Despite the fact I know how to fight, and have participated in quite a few altercations, and have size, and tattoos, and all of the physical characteristics of a bouncer, I could never fit into their world, or maybe they weren't allowing me to. Maybe I'm just the pretty, shit talking, firecracker VIP guy. Consequently, I stopped trying to become one of them. I'd merely show up, do my job, and go home.

So this dude again has the balls to turn his back on me AND Socko and continue to stand in line with his piece of shit friend. At this point I get really pissed. Normally I keep my cool, but tonight I lost it. Perhaps it was due to some extraneous drama going on in my personal life, or perhaps I was just tired and pissy, but was ready to blow off some steam on this piece of shit. You see, the key is to maintain the utmost professionalism up until the client takes a shot at you. Once this occurs, it's open season. So I proceed to lay the bait.

“Hey stupid..."