Tuesday crazies.
Tuesdays are easily the weirdest night of the week. The bar tends to get really quiet after Victoria and Martinique leave, and they're always there on Tuesdays entertaining themselves and everyone. They play great music on the jukebox we don't get to hear ten times a day and everyone enjoys their presence (until, of course, Martinique turns her laser wit on them, bringing them down a notch or two). Meanwhile everyone on the streets outside is prowling for drugs.
Happened twice tonight that someone came in and said this or that person was bugging me on the way out of my car after I'd just checked the lot not three minutes before. We could sure use some cameras.
Like magic -- around one I go to stock the beer and we get really busy out of nowhere.
Midnight told a story about a customer who got messed up by bashers quite badly in the parking lot back in the seventies. The cops didn't just stand aside, they stepped on this guy's neck and let the straight guys have at him while holding the security guard at bay. Big lawsuit followed, and we won. The guy's a regular. Nice guy. Everyone likes him. But not many people know why. He fought his mistreatment and won, and we're all better off for his having done so. He's never been profiled in the Voice, never been grand marshall of the parade Pride seems to have become, never gotten any real appreciation outside the bars where he did make things better, if at tremendous personal expense.
What brought this up was that Midnight noticed we had the baseball bat behind the bar again where it used to reside but hadn't in a very long time.
One guy came in to be told I wouldn't let him in 'cause he was drunk. He said I was discriminating against persons with AIDS. I told him I didn't even know you had it 'til you told me just right now and your medical record is none of my business. Then he says I'm discriminating 'cause his skin is brown. (I get this one all the time, and if I felt like arguing I'd just say "look around the bar and tell me that you sad disgusting slob".) I tell him that he's drooling. He wipes away the saliva but won't let go of the discrimination thing despite the obvious fact. Maybe it's less humiliating for him that way, who knows. (Actually he was more foaming at the mouth than drooling, but I thought I'd be at least a little nice.)
Instead he's escalating it and now he wants to use the phone to call the cops on us for following the law. Feel free, but I won't let you in to use the bar phone to call the cops on me, because if I did I'd be breaking the law, so you'll have to make other arrangements. He gets lost on that one. He asks me why I won't let him in even though I've explained he is drunk and it's my call to make and if I let him in *then* I get into trouble. Just in case he wants something concrete, I tell him his eyes are glazed and bloodshot and his pupils are dilated because they are.
He shoots back saying he's gonna sue, he knows the owner, blah blah blah. At this point he's belligerent and obnoxious so I do something extremely rude which I have *never* done deliberately before. I blow smoke from my cigarette into his face as I tell him we at Foxes reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason and I'm not going to jail for violating Liquor Code so you can get more shitfaced than you are already. Come back anytime when you're sober, you'll be more than welcome. Good night. As usual in such situations his partner just sort of smiles as if to say "oh this again".
Joe from next door sees all of this. He tends the liquor store but because he drinks has trouble telling drunks and we were talking on that very subject when this guy came in. He got a big kick out of it. I felt like I was showing off, which wasn't my intent. But basically there you go, that's how it's done, just don't do the cigarette thing if you value your life or are a better person than I am.
I *really* shouldn't have done that, especially given his immune system. Don't want to kill the guy by breathing right on him, but then I smell so many peoples' nasty breath each night I figure why not pool the risk. Why did I? Honestly? Because he went very fast from being a very nice guy to being Mr. All-Important who was gonna fuck me up bigtime and I felt the need to show disdain proportional to his threats without forcing a physical confrontation.
Right or wrong that's what I did and it worked. Having done it just once, I'm permanently removing the cigarette thing from my repertoire of doorman's tricks. Maybe that's the reason I need to stop smoking, because now that I know I can do it, it sure is tempting!
Happened twice tonight that someone came in and said this or that person was bugging me on the way out of my car after I'd just checked the lot not three minutes before. We could sure use some cameras.
Like magic -- around one I go to stock the beer and we get really busy out of nowhere.
Midnight told a story about a customer who got messed up by bashers quite badly in the parking lot back in the seventies. The cops didn't just stand aside, they stepped on this guy's neck and let the straight guys have at him while holding the security guard at bay. Big lawsuit followed, and we won. The guy's a regular. Nice guy. Everyone likes him. But not many people know why. He fought his mistreatment and won, and we're all better off for his having done so. He's never been profiled in the Voice, never been grand marshall of the parade Pride seems to have become, never gotten any real appreciation outside the bars where he did make things better, if at tremendous personal expense.
What brought this up was that Midnight noticed we had the baseball bat behind the bar again where it used to reside but hadn't in a very long time.
One guy came in to be told I wouldn't let him in 'cause he was drunk. He said I was discriminating against persons with AIDS. I told him I didn't even know you had it 'til you told me just right now and your medical record is none of my business. Then he says I'm discriminating 'cause his skin is brown. (I get this one all the time, and if I felt like arguing I'd just say "look around the bar and tell me that you sad disgusting slob".) I tell him that he's drooling. He wipes away the saliva but won't let go of the discrimination thing despite the obvious fact. Maybe it's less humiliating for him that way, who knows. (Actually he was more foaming at the mouth than drooling, but I thought I'd be at least a little nice.)
Instead he's escalating it and now he wants to use the phone to call the cops on us for following the law. Feel free, but I won't let you in to use the bar phone to call the cops on me, because if I did I'd be breaking the law, so you'll have to make other arrangements. He gets lost on that one. He asks me why I won't let him in even though I've explained he is drunk and it's my call to make and if I let him in *then* I get into trouble. Just in case he wants something concrete, I tell him his eyes are glazed and bloodshot and his pupils are dilated because they are.
He shoots back saying he's gonna sue, he knows the owner, blah blah blah. At this point he's belligerent and obnoxious so I do something extremely rude which I have *never* done deliberately before. I blow smoke from my cigarette into his face as I tell him we at Foxes reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason and I'm not going to jail for violating Liquor Code so you can get more shitfaced than you are already. Come back anytime when you're sober, you'll be more than welcome. Good night. As usual in such situations his partner just sort of smiles as if to say "oh this again".
Joe from next door sees all of this. He tends the liquor store but because he drinks has trouble telling drunks and we were talking on that very subject when this guy came in. He got a big kick out of it. I felt like I was showing off, which wasn't my intent. But basically there you go, that's how it's done, just don't do the cigarette thing if you value your life or are a better person than I am.
I *really* shouldn't have done that, especially given his immune system. Don't want to kill the guy by breathing right on him, but then I smell so many peoples' nasty breath each night I figure why not pool the risk. Why did I? Honestly? Because he went very fast from being a very nice guy to being Mr. All-Important who was gonna fuck me up bigtime and I felt the need to show disdain proportional to his threats without forcing a physical confrontation.
Right or wrong that's what I did and it worked. Having done it just once, I'm permanently removing the cigarette thing from my repertoire of doorman's tricks. Maybe that's the reason I need to stop smoking, because now that I know I can do it, it sure is tempting!
posted by xeltifon at 4:32 AM
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