He stood there holding up the tray. The bar was filled with people, it was a typical Friday night. He had been working as a porter for over a year now. He hustled there busing the tables watching the bartenders work the room. The female servers knew how to wheel them in but the boy bartenders had the know how, they knew how to get the ladies to cough up the cash. Everyone made money, except for him. His hands were tiered from carrying kegs. It was busy and two of the bouncers had called in sick, hence his help was padding down bottoms ensuring security, while he was left picking through the pieces of shrapnel left behind by all the the Jagar Bombs. He stood for moment and watched the dance floor. It was alive with light and color. He could see a woman amongst all the others, she was wearing a white dress. Her essence illuminated the room, all light reflected at her and back at you. "Alone again" he said to himself, watching the one woman spin.
Working the night shift had changed him a great deal. "I used to wake up in the early morning to jog." he said to himself, driving back several shot glass's into his bin. One of the women at the bar recognized a frustration. "Hey" she said, "you pissed off?" she asked energetically. She was older then him, she looked thirty, and he was only turning twenty three. She was a darling, behaving so kindly she observed him keenly and remarked "you should clean off that section of the bar." He could hear her arrogance, and the tone over the loud music and he liked it because she thrilled him. He stopped collecting the cups, and looked at her, openly. With a smirk on his face looking past her he said "Oh" stopping, scared thinking "Thank you!" she was arrogant, wearing a red dress and white high heel shoes. The type of woman the light seemed to find, but her reflection came from the sound of her walking and the change of her shape through her pace. He was stunned. "Fuck you!" he thought to himself. She looked alone. They looked at each other and he could see the women in the white dress spinning behind her. "Can you get me a glass of cranberry juice?" she asked. He was up to his knees in work, but he got her a clean glass. Then pressed himself through the line of bartenders and filled her cup with juice. "there's no ice in it" he said pointing at the edger of the glass. Laughing and looking through the liquid she said "There's nothing wrong with that!". He wanted to see past her again, but he couldn't, so he went back to work, fishing out the empty glassware off of the worn out, drunken clientele. He loved the music at the end of the night more then at any other time. Just past last call when the DJ was forced to relax, step down and change the mood.
The room always felt different toward the end of the night, in the early morning. And watching the devoted crowd wine down always brought a sigh of relief that the work was almost over. While picking up the pieces left behind by the night owls he found himself situated, again watching the women in white. She had again caught his eye dancing in that neon green florescent lazer, he happened to be standing in front of the woman in red. She watched him stare as she pushed herself up to him drunkenly. He was sweating from the work and the heat of the club, so was she. "It's hot in here" she whispered, pressing herself up against him from behind, pushing her cheek against his face hard so that her mouth was close to his ear. He could smell her perspiration, her rage and her fear. Turning he pressed his body closer to hers, after all the spilled drinks and all the spilled beer neither minded the smell of the other. She was drunk, "what was that?" he asked. He was looking down her dress, she was forcing her chest toward him. It made him laugh, "I'm lonely" he said so she could hear. She pushed herself closer and he backed off, she was beautiful, but sadly he was working. "I knew it" she cried out, loud over the music, yet still, no one heard her but him. "We thought you were gay" she laughed out, and turned to run at the woman wearing the white dress. She was with a group of men, bigger guys, boys who'd been buying drinks. There was six of them. The music was coming down to a closing, as he kept picking up the bottles and continued getting ready for the bars closing. He wasn't scared of the men, or of what she had told them. They stood and stared, all of them stopped dancing. The neon lights were quickly beginning to get switched to a tungsten yellow world, that no longer looked or felt right. It was the establishments means of chasing the drunken mobs out, to be on their way into the streets.
As he began clearing the tables in the back room, he noticed the six guys coming toward him. They were an aggressive looking bunch, and from what he knew of their bar tap, they spent money like a crew that pushed powder to the pigs in the zoo. There was six dudes coming at him, and they were six men with enough brute force to destroy him. He stood his ground looking over their shoulders, seeing and watching the white and red dresses spinning around and round in the yellow world. The biggest of the six stood up to him and asked
1 comment:
funny how you can be surrounded by hundreds of people and have hundreds of 'friends' but still end up being/feeling lonely.
guess that might have a little to do with karma.
don't worry, karma's kickin' my butt too! lol!
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