The Hard Bounce - First Chapter

            I was eight years old when I learned how to hate.

            It's still difficult even today to get the events in their right order.  I know where they should go, but hard as I try, they drift through my mind like glitter flakes in a sno-globe.  Trauma can do two things to your memory.  It can wipe it clean or just smear the order of things.  The effect is not too much different from staring at an old blackboard.  You can see that something used to be there, you just can't make out what it is.  The paths are intact, but the roads crisscross and lead nowhere.

            The screaming and the blood followed the first explosion.  That much I'm sure of.  So much blood.

            The second explosion.  Running at him, the rage in control.  Throwing myself in attack at a grown man like a rabid animal who doesn't care that it doesn't stand a chance.  I was always big for my age.  I didn't stand a chance.

            Bang.  I was gone.  Just like that.  Tumbling in and out of consciousness isn't as frightening an experience as you'd think. It's more like a startled confusion.  Like snapping suddenly out of a deep sleep with no idea where you are.  What time it is.  Who or where you are.

            The rest of it is like a music video edited in Hell. 

            Bang.  A priest.  I can't understand him.  The inside of an ambulance, feeling the hurtle as it hurtles through the Boston traffic, the doctor unable to control his tears as he frantically tries to stem the tide of blood that won't stop pouring out of me.  Didn't know there was that much inside me. 

            Bang.  On a gurney.  Lots of people yelling.  I bite somebody's hand.  A sharp pinprick in my arm.  Where is she?

            Bang.  Another priest.  He's saying the same words to me.  I still couldn't understand the Last Rites, even though I got myself a second performance. 

            Months in a hospital.  Pain like an eight year old should never know has to exist in this world.  Parades of doctors - first for my ruined body, the second for my damaged mind.

            He has an anger management problem.

            Anger management.  It's a nice term for people who can afford it. 

            Psychologists in two hundred-dollar sweaters and condescending smiles, telling me:

            You need to let it go. 

            Think about the rest of your life.

            Think about how lucky you are. 

            The world is a beautiful place.

            Fuck off, Dr. Phil.

            Yeah.  The world is a beautiful place to a kid who's going to need two more operations before he can even piss without a tube and spigot.  And then, only if he's lucky.

             Think about how lucky you are. 

            Ask me one more time why I'm such an angry person.  What I'm so angry at.

            If you ask me those questions, it's probably you.

            I don't do days.

            Anybody who knows me would wonder what in sweet fuck-all was I doing sitting at the door of The Cellar on a tits-hot Sunday afternoon.  Getting to the bar by noon isn't even close to my usual routine, considering the time that I usually got out of work the night before.  Asking me to be anywhere before lunch is like asking Dracula to the beach.   Five cups of coffee only managed to move me up the evolutionary ladder from retarded chimp to over-caffeinated caveman. 

            Somebody in the club's booking office thought that all-ages punk shows on the weekends was a bright idea.  Maybe it was.  Nobody owned up to having the idea though. 

            The place was pretty crowded, high school kids with rainbow-tinted hairdos making up most of the audience.  The rest were uncomfortable parents watching their babies perform in bands with names like Mazeltov Cocktail and No Fat Chicks.  As far as crowds go, they were a nice break from the normal regiment of scumbags, skinheads, punks, frat boys, musicians and wannabe's that we had to deal with at the Cellar regularly. 

            Me and Junior handled the shift ourselves.  Between the two of us, we could easily police a few dozen skinny tweens.  The trade off was that we had to sit through five hours of music that sounded like a car crash filtered through Fender speakers. 

            The detail broke down like this: One of us watched the door while the other patrolled the three floors of the club.  Babysitters with a combined weight of 470 pounds (mostly mine) and about ten grand in tattoos (mostly Junior's).  Every parent's dream. 

            Think that our scary asses were enough to simply keep the kids from fucking around?  Think again.  We'd only been open an hour and we'd already confiscated seventeen bottles of beer, two bottles of vodka, one rum, three joints, and seven airplane bottles of tequila.  The way it was going, Junior and I would be able to stock our own bars by nightfall. 

            Even though we had to pay close attention to the brats, the odds were pretty good that we wouldn't be getting in any brawls or dragging overdoses out of the bathroom.  All things considered, it should have been a cakewalk day. 

            Shoulda, woulda, coulda. 

            Unfortunately, there's always something or somebody willing to crawl up my ass with cleats on.  That's why it doesn't say ‘Cuddler' on my resume.

            It says Bouncer.

            Yeah, like I have a fucking resume anyway.

            My ears stopped bleeding, which could only mean that the third band had finished their set.  On cue, a pack of brightly tinted hormone casualties came tearing up the stairs like a rioting box of crayons.  Since we had to keep the downstairs alcohol-free, we also had to make sure the little fucktards didn't sneak up the stairs and bogart some moron's Budweiser while his back was turned.

            The kids snuck cigarettes in between sets, away from the disapproving glares of the adults.  I guess I didn't count as a grownup to them and stood smack in the middle of the puffing swarm. 

            I knew a couple of them by name, most by sight.  They all knew not to get on my bad side or I would toss them out on their pleathered asses.  Well, most of them.  A kid in a Damned t-shirt mimed the universal two-fingered request to bum a smoke at me.

            I glared at him.  "Not on your life."

            He gave me a cocky grin. "C'mon man.  I just want to be like you when I grow up." 

            I hardened my glare.  "No, you don't." 

            Dirty goddamn habit and I smoked two packs a day.  I chewed gum to help cut down, but all I did was chew and smoke at the same time instead.  Two bad habits for the price of one.

            At that point, the kid's mother popped out of the club like a suburban groundhog.  "Ryan," she gasped, "are you smoking?"

            Familial terror Reillyhed the kid.  "No Ma!"

            "He tried to."  I said, right to Ma.

            Ma glared at me as I took another long drag, my mouth creeping into a smile.  With the reflexes of a mongoose, the Mom grabbed his ear and roughly dragged him from his friends.              "IbringyouallthewayouthereonaSundayandyou'resmokingwhenyourfatherhearshe'sgoingto..." 

            The kid managed to twist his head far enough to see me smiling.  "You suck!"

            The motherly hand not clenched on his ear clipped him upside the head. "Language!"

            The important lessons learned for the day, children:

                        Don't ever try to bum a smoke off of me.

            And more importantly:

                        Never fuck with the bouncer.

            I try to educate the little bastards when I can.  Like Whitney Houston said; the children are our future.

            Wait a minute.  Why the fuck do I know what Whitney Houston said?

            Just as the Ma led her kid down the Kenmore Station stairs, a collective groan floated out from inside the bar as the ninth inning closed at Fenway.   I poked my head in to check the score.  9-3 Yankees. 

            And it just had to be the fucking Yankees again, didn't it?  

            It started to drizzle as I poked my head back out, as if the angels themselves wept for the poor Sox.  I backed under The Cellar's fluorescent sign, which made for poor shelter but the best available.   The building had a flat brick face, but the sign gave a couple extra inches of rain protection.  Didn't do me much good.  The wind zigzagged the drizzle all over me. 

            At least I was in a better place than Junior.  The basement didn't have any ventilation to speak of and crowds produced furnace-level temperatures.  A hot wind would gust up the stairs when the club got crowded, feeling (and smelling) like Satan farting on your back.  At least a dozen heat-exhausted customers had to be carried from the bar each summer during big shows.

            The first wave of baseball fans wandered into Kenmore Square.  Shiny, happy suburban families advertising Abercrombie and Fitch across their wardrobes scurried through the rain, heading to the dry safety of their SUV's.  I popped one more piece of cinnamon gum in my mouth and chased it with another cigarette.

            I heard chants of "Yankees suck" and choruses of loud ‘woo'ing approaching from the Fenway area like packs of howler monkeys.  The assholes were on their way.

            Since winning a World Series, those assholes only got louder.  And let me tell you, the only thing worse than an asshole, is an asshole with an inappropriately inflated sense of self worth.

            As if I needed another reason to be annoyed that afternoon, the bar was going to get hit with a fresh wave of pissed-off sports fans that've just spent nine innings getting liquored up on eight dollar pints of Miller Lite.  Ain't that just ducky?

            "Nice hairdo," a townie in a Yaztremski jersey called out to the kids milling outside.  "What are you, some kinda faggot?" 

            A skinny boy whose head was shaved close and dyed in a leopard skin pattern turned.  "Why?  You looking for some ass, sailor?"   The kid yelled back, smacking his bony behind for emphasis.  Not the greatest comeback, but he got some approving chuckles from the passersby and hoots of laughter from the other kids.

            "What did you say to me, bitch?" 

            The kid flipped the guy off with both hands and ran back into the club.  I heard rapid footsteps from the same direction as the voice and decided it was time to do what I do. 

            Middle management - with punching.

            The guy looked like one of those local hero athletes who went to pot right after senior track season.  His buddy was a little smaller but had wore the same air about him, with a backwards Sox hat hiding his receding widow's peak. 

            Probably. 

            You know the type...guys who will believe until the day they die that they could do a better job than the pros did.  If only they hadn't knocked up Mary Lou Dropdrawers senior year.

            Not only that, but the loudmouth wore a mullet that would have embarrassed Billy Ray Cyrus in 1994.

            Business in the front.  Pawwwwty in the back.  Jesus.

            I decided to keep my opinion about hairstyles and juggling stones in glass houses to myself.       

            When Mullet got a couple of feet from the entrance, I stepped halfway across the doorway.  He stopped short and we stood there, shoulder to shoulder.

            "What's your problem?"  Mullet asked, puffing out his chest, Buddy flanking him.

            "No problem," I said and popped my gum.  "You're just not welcome here."

            "I wanna get a beer."  His breath reeked of soft pretzels and a few too many beers from the park.

            "Not here you're not."  We stared each other down.  "Get one down the street if you're thirsty."

            Buddy suddenly found his shoes reeeeal fascinating.  Mullet and I kept giving each other the hairy eyeball.  If it was socially acceptable, we probably would have whipped out our dicks and measured them.  That's my job, in a nutshell.  Emcee at the dick pageant. 

            Mullet struggled with his own wit.  I waited anxiously.  "It's a free country, asshole."  He nodded and looked to Buddy for reinforcement.  Buddy was still marveling at his shoelaces.

            "And a wonderful free country it is.  This bar isn't, though.  Not for you.  Not today."  I took a long pull from my cigarette and fought the urge to blow the smoke in his face.

            "Who's gonna stop me, you?"

            "Yup."  There it was.  The frog was dropped.  Let's see if it jumped.  I balled my fist around the Medium Point Sharpie pen in my pocket.  Bouncer's best friend.  Won't kill, but hurts like a bitch when jammed between a couple of ribs.

            I stood at the long end of his best intimidating stare.  Amateur.  It didn't take long for him to give up the tactic and turn to Buddy again for help.  Unfortunately for him, Buddy now found his attention drawn to the traffic.  At least one of them knew that they were way, way out of their league.  Mullet decided to give it one last shot. 

            "What are you?  Some kind of tough guy?"

            "Well, gee golly Hoss, I'm not really sure.  I haven't started fights with twelve-year-olds lately, so I'm not sure."  I moved my face right into his.  One more inch and my cigarette was going up his nose.  I removed my hand from my pocket and held it low at my side.

            Buddy grabbed Mullet's arm and he twitched like he'd been shocked, ending the staredown. 

            You blink? 

            You lose.

            "C'mon, man.  Let's go."  Buddy's voice cracked like he'd just been kicked in the nuts.  Now I know why he'd minded his own.  Hard to talk tough when you sound like Minnie Mouse.

            "Yeah.  Fine.  This bar's full of faggots anyway," Mullet bitched as he walked off.

            Checkmate.  Still the undisputed King Dick of The Cellar.

            "Fuck you very much, gentlemen.  Have a good one."  I clipped a sharp salute at them as they retreated.

            The kids remaining out front applauded and cheered as the two jackasses walked off.  I shut them up quick with another one of my patented glowers.  I wasn't there to be their champion or their pal.  I was making eighty bucks, plus tips.  Not enough money to be anybody's hero.

            More noise pollution started thumping from the basement again.  The group quickly ground their smokes out on the wet cement as they filtered back inside. 

            A girl with unnaturally bright red hair lingered outside longer than the rest.  I ignored her, even though I could feel her stare on the side of my neck like a sun lamp.  I glanced over and she gave me a little smile.  She couldn't have been more than fifteen, but behind the smile was something older.  Something that made me uncomfortable.  A couple more years on her and the look might have given me a thrill in the beanbag.  Instead, it just gave me the heebie jeebies. 

            As she passed me going into the club she brushed her tiny body against me, tiptoed up and kissed me on the cheek.  "My hero," she whispered softly into my ear and went inside.

            I shuddered and put my attention back onto the crowd to make sure that there weren't any more dipshits on the horizon.  A vague feeling of the creeps lingered on the edge of my psyche, though.

            I almost had a fucking heart attack when a thunderous crash sounded from the back of the bar.  I sprinted through the bar and down the short hallway to the rear exit as visions of Columbine danced through my head.  It sounded like the racket came from the lot behind the club that was used for parking on game days.

            Junior was halfway up the back stairs when I hit the huge steel door at full clip.  My shoulder nearly separated as I ricocheted off the exit.  It opened only a couple of inches and then slammed into something solid.  The door clanged like a giant cymbal and I flew backwards, landing on top of Junior.  We both toppled hard onto the concrete stairwell.  Pretty pink birdies chirped in my head as I lay sprawled on top of him.

            "Christ!  Get offa me!" Junior yelped.  He may be built like a fire hydrant with feet, but Junior couldn't have been comfortable underneath me.

            I rolled over and accidentally threw my weight onto my wounded arm.  Something popped inside my shoulder joint and I roared like a gut-shot bull.

            Junior pulled himself up and pressed against the door with all his weight.  The door barely budged.  Whatever was jammed against the door squealed painfully against the concrete.           

            I pinwheeled my arm a couple of times to make sure there was no permanent damage.  Apart from a dull throb and some numbness in my fingers, it looked like I'd survive. 

            "You okay?"  Junior asked.

            "Seems like it."

            "Then do you wanna help me move this fuckin' thing or should I kiss your boo-boo first?" 

            "Would you?" 

            I pressed my good shoulder against the door beside Junior and pushed.  Whatever was on the other side, it was heavy as hell.  With a painful scraping of metal, the door slowly slid open.  We had an eighth of a second to wish it hadn't.

            As soon as the opening was wide enough, a flood of garbage and scumwater came pouring through the crack.  Plastic cups, beer cans, crusty napkins and a few good gallons of dumpster juice slopped over our shoes.  Somebody toppled the entire dumpster across the entryway.  The stink was epic.

            "Motherfucker!"  Junior gagged like an angry weasel was crawling up his throat.  "I just bought these goddamn shoes!"

            A horn honked in the parking lot.  Mullet and Buddy sat in the cab of a black Ford Tundra.  They were laughing their asses off and wagging one-finger salutes as they peeled out and shot the pickup towards the lot gate.  We didn't bother chasing.  The fuck-wits didn't plan their escape all that well.  The truck got jammed in about halfway across the lot in the long line of exiting Sox faithful.  They had nowhere to go.

            We, however, did.  As we hauled ourselves carefully over the mound of filth, Junior pulled up his pant leg and palmed something out of his boot.  We took our time walking over.  Savoring it.  The truck still hadn't budged.  Not only were they unable to exit, but other cars moved in from both sides and the rear, neatly boxing them in. 

            Mullet in a barrel.

            In the large rearview mirrors, I could see the bugged-out fear on Mullet's face.  Suddenly, I saw him lean over and grab for something in the covered cab.  The tinted windows prevented me from seeing what he was going for, but I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be a kitten.

            "He's reaching!" I yelled to Junior.  We took the last twenty feet at a sprint and I swung a haymaker into the open driver's side window.  My fist cracked Mullet right in the back of his hairdo as he turned back.

            "Gahh!" he replied.  His hands were empty.  He either dropped whatever he'd gone for or decided not to provide me with any foreign objects to jam up his rectum.  Either way, bully for him.      

            "Hey!" was all Buddy had time for before Junior reached into the passenger side and whacked his face onto the dashboard.  Our rushing attack suddenly robbed them of their bravado.  Buddy just quietly held his bleeding nose with a shaking hand and Mullet stared straight ahead, afraid to look at either of us.  Good reason.  When Junior is tickled pink, he's only half as pretty as a rhino's ass and not nearly as fragrant.  Junior wasn't tickled pink at that moment. 

            I stood on the truck's runner with my fist cocked to drill him again, if necessary.  Mullet held his hands high and open.  "Listen, I..." was all I let him get out.

            I lowered my fist.  "Give me your wallet," I said.

            "Wh... What?"

            "Now!"  I hollered into his ear.  Both men jumped like they'd been goosed.

            "Alright, man."  They didn't ask why or hesitate.  Buddy handed his wallet to Mullet and he gave both to me.  I opened them and took out their ID's and cash.

             "Appreciate the donation, assholes," I said.  "Junior?"

            "What?"  He never took his eyes off of the side of Buddy's head.  Buddy still hadn't even peeked back.

            "How much were your boots?"

            "A hundred-fifty." he growled.

            "Mine were only sixty."  I looked at the cash.  "Problem is, between these two dickheads, we only got eighty-two dollars."

            "Give me your shoes."  Junior said.

            "Huh?"  Buddy picked the wrong time to talk.  Junior was way too keyed up for a discussion.   

            "Don't you say another word, corpse!"  Junior yelled at him like a drill instructor on meth.  "Give me your fuckin' shoes!"  Junior punctuated the words ‘give' and ‘shoes' by jabbing his finger sharply into Buddy's ear. 

            Cowed, they pulled off their shoes and tossed them out the window.  Junior picked them up and walked over to the wall behind him.  He dropped the shoes and undid his fly.  The rain starting falling in bigger drops but I could still hear Junior's piss splashing off shoe leather.  Both Mullet and Buddy just stared, mouths open.

            "I'm gonna keep these," I said, waving their licenses under Mullet's nose.  "If either of you want to call the cops about this, feel free.  But I swear, if you do, we're gonna show up at your trailer homes.  You see that guy?"  I pointed at Junior.  "The guy making lemonade on your Buster Browns?"

            Both nodded sickly.

            "He's gonna kill your family, then fuck them.  He's not gay, he just likes to fuck dead things."

            I think Buddy puked in his mouth a little bit.

            "Repercussions and consequences," Junior yelled over his shoulder. 

            "Are you hearing me?"  I smacked Mullet across the cheek with my fingertips.

            Neither of them responded, but spastically shook their heads.  Mullet looked like he didn't know whether to vomit or piss.  I hoped for both.

            Junior gave himself a drip dry wiggle.  He gingerly picked up the shoes by the laces and whipped them back through the passenger window.  The urine soaked shoes bounced around the cab, smacking them in the head.  Buddy spit and gagged hoarsely.  Must have gotten himself a little taste.  Finally, he let loose and puked onto his socks.

            As Junior walked back around the car to my side, he slid the blade out of his box cutter and viciously slashed the two expensive looking tires on my side.  The tires blew with a powerful whumph and the truck listed pathetically.  Mullet and Buddy both screamed in comically girlish pitches. 

            Higher voices cried out from the cab as two small faces in Red Sox caps smacked into the tinted glass.  "Daddy!"  One of the two boys in the back cried in terror.

            Bang.

            The world exploded red and somehow Mullet's windpipe got in the middle of my squeezing fingers. 

            "Are you fucking nuts?  Were you going to drive drunk with your fucking kids in the back?  Spittle flew from my lips onto Mullet's reddening face.  "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

            "Please don't hurt my Daddy!"  Little fingers clasped at mine, trying to pry them open.  Something deep inside was telling me to let go, but the rest of me wasn't hearing it.

            "Boo."  Junior sounded a mile away.  I saw his hands on my arms, pulling me, but I couldn't feel him there.

            Mullet's lips went blue and his eyes started to roll up white. 

            Buddy was also trying frantically to loosen my grip.  "Jesus Christ, you're killing him!  Let him go."  Buddy's blood-slicked fingers kept slipping off of mine.

            The world snapped back to normal as Junior planted his feet and yanked me off.  Fucker nearly suplexed me onto the concrete, he pulled so hard.  Mullet wheezed deeply and coughed up a gob of bloody spittle.

            "You're out of your fucking minds!"  I yelled one more time as Junior pulled me away.  He was also lucky that his throat hadn't torn off in my hands.

            Junior and I took the long way around to the entrance of The Cellar so no inclined butt-in-ski's could tell the cops where to find us.  As we passed the cars making up our blockade and audience, every driver made sure something else occupied their attention. 

            Junior walked at my side as we passed around the lot.  I could feel his eyes on me.  Without looking at him, I said, "You got something to say?"

            "Nothing specific.  You okay?"

            "Finer than Carolina.  We just performed a public service, if you ask me."

            He didn't ask me.  "Fair enough," he said.  "You want a soda big guy?"

            "Fuck off."

            Towards the front of the car jam, an old lady in a beat up Dodge Omni and a Red Sox cap gave me a big thumbs up. 

            For some reason, that bothered me, too.

            Consequences and repercussions.