My New Bouncer Job

Wolf Redboy

In Plato's Republic, Socrates explains to Polymarchus the paradox of justice, by examining who has it and why and what its intentions can do when placed in the right or wrong hands.

He says, "The boxer who is most skilled in offense will also be most skilled in defense. The doctor who is most capable of protecting us from disease is also the one who is most capable of infecting us. The soldier who guards the fort well will also be good at raiding the enemy's camp."

I thought about this as I watched Michael, my Leader and Bouncer Coach, going to beat up the drunk guy. (Side note: the drunk guy deserved to be "escorted" out, because he was stealing wine bottles and picking fights with his whacko blonde girlfriend).

Mostly I just sit in the back of the bar with my Sylvia Plath, eating pea snaps and playing pocket chess. But then, on occasion, all those slow moments make up for an entanglement, and that's what I get paid the big bucks for.

"WOLF HOLD THE BITCH BACK!" he screams.

The Webster's dictionary defines aggression as behavior that is characterized by a physical or verbal attack. Aggression is defined by psychoanalysts as a manifestation of the will to have power over other people (Alfred Alder) or as a projection of the death impulse (Freud).

I don't hold the bitch back. I'm frozen in time. I don't know why. The girl runs past me. Some other bouncer smashes her in the face. Her boyfriend tries to say that this behavior is inappropriate by the liasons of the establishment.

The bouncer tears off his shirt and eggs the dude on.

Just like the doctor who is most capable of protecting us from disease is most capable of infecting us, or the teacher who gives us historical truths is also the most capable of telling us historical untruths, the bouncer who STOPS fights from happening is also, as I have learned, the most capable of starting them.

"We wait for fights to break out because we get bored of putting the black garbage bags in all day," one of the bouncers tells me, by the back door.

He's a nice guy. But I can tell he's trying to make me feel better. I just got yelled at for 10 minutes for not sequestering "the bitch."

And it's true - if I was in a school of ninjas, my ass-kicking ability would be called in to question. I don't know why. I'm just not used to this. So I was in pussy mode. All that Sylvia Plath and green pea snaps had turned my arms into liquid jello. I knew at this point that either I: 1. Had to admit that I wasn't made to be a bouncer, or 2. It was time to starting snorting speed and take up Jiu-Jitsu.

To add to this, after getting yelled at, I looked over and saw my ex-girlfriend staring at me. She had seen the whole thing.

I try to swallow this information, but before I can another fight is forming out of the rich alcoholic ether.

"I'm going to kick his ass," the same bouncer says in the face of some drunken idiot.

I see a tinge of a smile as he says this because no longer is he dumping the black garbage bags. No, he's manifesting his will to power and projecting his death impulse.

"This is your job," I thought. "Wow."

And so now that I fucked up, my aim has been to "prove myself."

I'm out there, throwing myself in front of cop cars, picking fights with punk rockers who have 12 inch mowhawks, and not letting anyone get past me.

"I'll fucking throw Sylvia Plath at you!" I scream. "Where's your wristband?"

Of course, she's not there, now.