The Bouncer Talks

I could tell what kind of night it would be by whether the football team won or lost. If the football team lost, I would throw them out for fighting. If the football team won, I would throw them out for vomiting. In the end, I would throw them all out because none of them wanted to leave when the Law said they had to leave.

That Sunday afternoon, the football team lost by four touchdowns and the running back, who wrenched his knee beneath the weight of half a dozen linebackers, would be worthless for the rest of the season. A dusting of snow lay across the top of a sheet of ice and the pedestrians fell heavily and slid like logs into the street.

As a minor league baseball player, I took jobs in the winter. Bouncing wasn’t so bad. I rented an apartment six blocks down the hill, in a third floor unit overlooking the Mississippi river, and took long walks to keep in prime baseball condition. I also wrote short poems about the changing seasons. When I say that the job was not so bad, I mean that Haiku might have led to a brawl in the dugout, but not in a bar.

I broke up five fights bouncing on the night of the ice. That is why I remember that Sunday. Five! It is like batting five for five in one game. I never managed to bat five for five in one game, but I did slide a man from the bar, out through the door, and on down the sidewalk like a curling stone. He caromed off a fire hydrant and did not move for a long time. I’m not proud of it but that is how it was for semi-professional baseball player.

After the 2AM close, with everyone bounced and the doors locked, I sat in the darkened room with a beer and a bartender with sad eyes. A television cast a dull white aura throughout the room. A sports channel aired repeated slow-motion replays of the running back’s knee turning inside out.