man, saturday night at THE WOLFHOUND was nuts . . . it was raining like hell outside and, for god’s sake, it really did hail for about twenty minutes. i actually had to stand in the doorway the entire time and tried to stay warm. and a whole bunch of people showed up to see me, just like i’d asked! it was cool!! that people did that!!
but then this tweaker on a motorcycle, who was wearing flipflops with socks, tried to god damn mow everyone down. probably he didn’t even consider that these people were people, or there at all. he ripped right down the sidewalk in front of the bar and nearly crashed into a whole group of people. and then, to my horror, he took off his fogged-up helmet and, now truly revealing himself to be a psychopath, began spitting and screaming at people. of course the next thing he wanted to do was come inside the bar, because that’s what they always want to do, but i rallied the bartenders and the off-duty doorman, all over six feet tall, and we barricaded the entryway with our bodies. basically we eventually got him to go away by completely ignoring his existence, which is what it takes, don’t you know. you cannot reason with someone who can neither see nor hear the real world!
last night there was more senseless chaos. a woman argued with the bartender, said he was “THE WORST BARTENDER IN EXISTENCE”, and then punched a seemingly random regular in the face, grabbed her head and threw her into a table that had two lit candles on it. this all happened so quickly i didn’t really know what was going on. my face was frozen from the cold outside and my mind was barely functioning. just then the bartender jumped over the bar and grabbed this psycho by the back of her shirt and drug her out of the bar. and jess, the regular who was pummeled for no obvious reason that i could see . . . well she sure did come outside and start whaling on this woman as she lay prone on the sidewalk! i stood by the door and let her get her revenge. i thought: “whoa baby . . . . whoa, baby!!” the bartender and an off-duty doorman and i blocked the doorway to keep her from coming back in while she screeched and kicked and foamed at the mouth. she got up and barked at us and walked away down san pablo. seeya later, jerk!
i also had to kick this junkie out of the place for i guess shooting up in the bathroom. yeah. he’s a nice guy and i see him around, and sometimes he comes in during the day and plays the piano in the back. it was real cold last night and he asked if he could come in and change into his warmer clothes in the men’s room, and i said ok. twenty minutes passed and there was still no sign of him, so i went and knocked on the men’s room door. he didn’t answer. i tried the handle and opened the door. he quickly hid something from me, and i saw blood in the toilet and some bloody gauze on the ground. i said, man, i’m sorry, you gotta go. he collected his stuff and i walked him to the door. the bartender told me a foul odor was, uh, coming from this very same bathroom, and sure enough, he had thrown away the clothes he had on when he came in, and they were stinking up the whole place most egregiously. i put on some latex gloves (the bartender had said: “be careful, man . . . you don’t want hep c”) and gave the restroom a good scrub-down, and took out the trash, and so on. there was a shot of tequila waiting for me on the bar when i got back from the trash cans outside.
what a night!
did i get hurt? i saw things that tore at the weaknesses and the scars in my heart . . . and my flesh was afraid, but i was not. no, i survived these particular onslaughts . . . survived and went home and made passion flower green tea and went the hell to sleep with a chunk of change in my pocket, and tax-free, baby.
sure as you were born, there will be pain in the future. but like my spirit-brother and doorman-mentor dalton from ROAD HOUSE once said:
“pain don’t hurt.”
see y’all at the hound~~
