Cowboy Ending - Overdrive: Book One Read Free Page B

it.
     
    Seriously, I’d
suck in a retail job.
     
    Being a good
bouncer is more about being a psychological people-reader than a
head thumper, though of course that is bound to happen. Given
enough time and experience you get a read on a crowd and can feel
it’s pulse like a hum of electricity. Determining hotspots and
anticipating danger. Do your job right and you’ll never have to
throw a single punch.
     
    Back on the
main floor, Skippy McGee and the Local Flunkies had vacated the
main stage after running out of songs to butcher for one night so I
resumed my usual perch; front and center stage. Lights flashed and
strobed behind me while the crowd ebbed and flowed before me.
     
    It was quite a
rush at times. All of that energy and enthusiasm from people
thrashing and gyrating in a big mash of humanity. Sending heat and
that musk of sweat and endorphins up into the air. From a high
vantage it got heady at times. Really made a guy feel alive.
     
    Which is why
this perch was mine instead of one of the younger boys.
     
    You see,
bouncers get into the game for a wide variety of reasons. But once
you get past the miscellany you can usually boil it down to two
main points.
     
    Cash and
pussy.
     
    Young guys
fresh outta high school are always looking for a way to capitalize
on all that piss and vinegar still in their systems. Since they
know that they’re no longer football stars or going to be scouted
by the NHL they need an outlet for all that built up testosterone.
No better place to continue to feel like the Big Man on Campus then
by working in nightclubs. Hell, when I was eighteen I started
pitching drunks outta clubs for the same reason.
     
    Since I was
gonna end up at the bars anyways, I figured I might as well get
paid to be there.
     
    Plus, you got
to meet girls in various states of inebriation and loosened morals.
That girl whose friends ditched her when she was drunk and lost in
the bathroom? I bet she could use a ride home, right boys? Or that
aging hottie in the red dress lounging against the speakers all by
herself? Once the hockey player she’s giving fuck-me-eyes to blows
her off in favour of a younger model she’ll be easy pickings for a
handsome young man willing to bolster her rejected morale.
     
    Bouncers do a
lot of bolstering.
     
    Just don’t ask
most of them to spell it.
     
    But if you stay
in the nightclub game long enough, you learn a lesson that no young
man will believe and few my age will admit to.
     
    Chicks won’t
pay your bills. Ever.
     
    You also learn
fairly quickly that nightclub owners are more than happy to take
advantage of the seemingly endless horde of dumb young men who are
more interested in getting their dicks wet than their palms
greased. Hello minimum wage to confront drunken hooligans looking
to fight and potentially put you in the hospital.
     
    Seriously, it’s
a bad deal.
     
    So why continue
to do it?
     
    Cash.
     
    Not a weekly
check that you have to pay taxes on. Straight up money-in-my-hand
cash. Untraceable and completely spendable.
     
    Any bouncer
worth his salt has a cash deal with the club. Aaron’s known me for
years and is quite generous with his nightly cut to me and a few
others. Plus if you’re good at making things easier for the
bartenders (like catching tip thieves for example) they’re usually
good to you at the end of their night with a cut of their
earnings.
     
    Don’t get the
wrong idea. No one gets rich bouncing at clubs in Winnipeg. But a
few hundred dollars in cash every weekend goes a long way to
keeping a guys’ apartment from having bright yellow eviction
notices pinned to the door.
     
    Which is why I
spent my weekends breathing in the heady and frankly sour aroma
wafting up from the dance floor.
     
    Yummy.
     
    It was a
good perch. With most of the lights behind me all the glare was
good for spotting trouble. Like over in the VIP section where off
duty Officers Parise and Miller were surrounded by a group of
people who –