...and Stay Out

In the interest of being interesting, I have another story to tell.

It happened a couple of months ago that I was bouncing one Saturday night. There were three of us working security at 10:00—I remember because I had just sent one of the other guys home for the night. By this hour on a summer night, we had three areas of the bar open Walking through the front door is what we wisely call the front bar, which is an elongated section with our front door on the short end. To walk straight back and take a sharp right turn puts one in the back bar, a square-ish room with lots of doors and windows. To enter the back bar from the front bar and continue onward will deposit you onto our patio. Bouncers who like to smoke like to work the patio because you can step over the low fence (only if you're employed there) and smoke on the sidewalk while keeping an eye on things. To do so creates a bit of awkwardness when telling a customer to stop smoking on the business side of the fence, but only if you care what a drunken smoker thinks of you. Most of us don't, but we appreciate the irony.

I had just stepped into the back bar when the bartender got my attention and pointed, urgently saying, "Blue hat, blue hat!" Bartenders urgently communicate to bouncers solely a physical description in exactly two circumstances. The first is a moderate-to-highly attractive woman calling attention to herself in ways that would cause her parents and pastor to disapprove. The second is a patron who's overstayed his welcome by a factor of 1+ drink or 1+ impolite comment to the staff. I turned to look. Wearing a blue hat (not an uncommon site in Wrigleyville, mind you) was a man in the 40-50 range.

Damn.

Because he was facing away from me, I put my hand on his shoulder to get his attention. He turned, and he and his buddies all groaned. Good, at least he knew he'd done something wrong. I didn't know what it was, but I didn't have to. This guy was being asked to leave, and he and his friends all knew it. There was a token protest, but it was half-hearted. I escorted the man to the door, made sure to point him out to the guy checking IDs, and went back to my post in the center of the bar.

After half an hour I stepped out to the fence for a smoke to find the fence guy had switched places with the door guy since Blue Hat had left. Thinking nothing of it, I sent him inside to take my place so I could light up. Five minutes later (less than the time it takes to smoke, mind you) one of the waitresses stepped outside and told me the bartender needed me.

Sure enough there was Blue Hat. Making the most of the changing of the guard, he'd come back past a bouncer who didn't know he wasn't supposed to come back. Standing at the bar he looked for all the world like he couldn't understand why he didn't have a drink in his hand. I grabbed his shoulder again and said, "No, see—you were asked to leave. That means you don't get to come back." He tried an argument with me this time, and started asking me what he had done. "You got asked to leave," I told him, made sure he went out again, and relit my smoke when I got back to watching the fence. Blue hat followed me.

He tried to continue his argument and proclaim his innocence, saying he didn't know what he'd done to get himself ejected. "I don't know either," I told him, "but when you're asked to leave I don't ask questions. You just leave."

"So I mouthed off to the guy, so what?" he said. "The guy's a fucking asshole," he said with such a slur I didn't understand him at first. I shrugged and tried to ignore him, but there are two certainties when someone gets booted. The first is that he'll always try to negotiate his way back into the bar, especially if his friends are still in there. The second is that a booted person's friends always stay to finish their drinks, proving there is no honor among inebriates. He spent the next 20 minutes making small talk, his speech so distorted that several times I had to ask him to repeat himself. With a hint of drool escaping the corner of what I'm sure was an attempt at a coy smile, he'd only say, "Yeah, you heard me," and nod a few times.

After a few minutes of this, he'd make his case. "Com'mon. Hey. Hey. I'm notta bad guy. Cancha jus' lemme back in? I'm harmless, I'm harmless." Short of wetting his jeans, there is no drunk stereotype this man had failed to fulfill.

"No," I'd say. Then he'd try getting angry.

"Fuck you. You're a fuckin' idiot. Asshole."

"See that?" I asked him. "That right there, that's why you don't get to come back." I indicated the 20-30 people enjoying themselves on the patio. "See all these people? There are a very few rules you have to follow, and all these people follow them. That's why they get to stay. You didn't follow the rules, so you don't get to stay." Not for the first time, I found a similarity between bouncing and they year I spent as a pre-school teacher.

My attention was needed at the opposite end of the patio for a moment, so I walked down. By the time I came back he was gone. I hoped he had moved on, but I hadn't in my heart accepted it was true. Full of hope I lit a cigarette anyway—and was on my second drag before the bartender stepped out and waved me in.

Sure enough, Blue Hat hopped the low fence and tried to rejoin his friends in the least sneaky way possible. It seems he rushed in, waved wildly to the bartender, and called out, "I'm Baaack!"

Not for long he wasn't, goddammit.

I admired his tenacity, but only a little. I don't know at what point he thought I was simply going to shrug and let him stay, and I let my anger at his audacity build in order to fuel the verbal torrent I was about to spew. Once we got outside, I channeled every wild-eyed, spittle-spraying high school football coach who'd ever given me a verbal thrashing, and I unleashed.

"You don't seem to understand. You were told to leave. That means you don't get to stay. You don't get to come back. You don't get to come in the front door, you don't get to come in the back door. You don't get to come in the side door. You don't get to come in at all. You are not welcome here. You have to go away. You have to be gone. You have to stay gone. If you don't understand that I will get the police here to explain it to you."

At the last minute I realized my mistake by threatening the police—never make a threat you aren't prepared to back up. Not that I wouldn't have done so if the circumstances warranted it, but I didn't want the police to make a special trip over this guy; they have more important things to do on a Saturday night in Chicago. Besides, every drunk thinks calling the police is a bluff no one is prepared to back up. My heart sank a bit as the fight drained from me; I had just played my King and promised an Ace, but had none up my sleeve. Worse, he called me out. "Go ahead," he said gaining confidence, "get the police." Shit. "There's their car," he said pointing to the street corner.

Eh? Sure enough, there was indeed a Chicago Police Car parked right on our corner. Rejuvenated, I instantly regained the ground I thought I'd lost. I wouldn't have to wait for them to show up, and—best news yet—this idiot is the one who pointed them out. Huzzah!

I approached the police with momentum and fervor. "Excuse me, Gentlemen," I said. "Would you please explain to this man that he isn't allowed back in my bar?" They looked annoyed, but it no longer mattered; one who had witnessed my tirade ran up and informed me that Blue Hat had jumped into a cab while I wasn't looking.

I admit I was a little disappointed at the flat ending to such a huge build, but that was okay. I've been involved in a few fights this year, and one of them included a $1,700 medical bill. All things considered, this ended as well as it should have.