COCKTAILS AND SCREAMS BY BARTENDER X

September, 2005

          Way past your bedtime I’m cleaning up your crap. I’m picking up tab ends from damp wooden floors. Sweeping up pools of booze and sometimes blood. Long after you’re passed out I’m cleaning your carnage with the sounds of your music still ringing in my ears. The mess that you’ve created…I get to tidy up after you like your fucking mother used to do. While you’re having drink-fuelled dreams, I’m still here, wiping away the memories that you spent extortionate amounts of cash to create. Now your memories are just past events being swept into large blue bins by an anonymous person you may or may not have seen tonight.

          I’m a professional barman. I work the nights. The long nights filled witnessing just how fucking stupid and desperate you can get. I see it all through sober eyes, and you can look pretty lonesome, out there in your groups, clamming together, making the noises of pack-animals and letting every sordid little thought you’ve ever had come to the surface, right before my eyes. I’m the witness to all the crimes and misdemeanours of your soul. If you own one.

          I make you cocktails. I make you Raspberry Ripples and Vodka-Redbulls. Pitchers of beer. Baby Guinness. White Russians, Black Russians. Shooters. Irish car bombs, B-52’s, Olympic flags, Brain Haemorrhages. White wine spritzers. Tequila Slammers. Jack Daniels, Bacardi, Courvoisier, with or without coke. Gin and tonics. Vodka slings. Absinthe and Aftershocks. I make whatever you tell me to make and if you don’t know what you want…I’ll decide for you.

          I see you cause fights; argue and attack from the substances that infuse with your bloodstream. I see you dance and fall down and lose clothing and complain to me about a situation which you created that now you’ve decided you don’t like. I’m the bartender; the hero of society. I’m a fucking social psychiatrist: you come to me with your problems and I prescribe drugs.

          I’ve been in this game for years, working faceless and nameless and penniless for years, but I always come back for more. Maybe it’s because you can get addicted to seeing the shameless side of humanity. Maybe it’s because I’m fucking good at my job. Maybe I do it to get you women drunk so I can take advantage of you. You don’t know why I do it and neither do I. But we stand on opposite ends of the bar, you and I.

          When the bar empties and it’s gone four in the a.m. and you’re passed out, breathing out those sticky lungfuls, I’m here, erasing your very presence like a crime scene cleaner for minimum wage profit.

          I was still a teenager when I pulled my first pint. I’m now looking at my late twenties. That gives me nearly ten years of seeing you make fools of yourselves, thinking that you’re the first I’ve seen doing what you do. Now I work the student nights, the gay nights, the fancy-dress nights, the special occasions and the run-of-the-mill weekend mad-nights. Your actions I’ve seen repeated a thousand times in a thousand different ways. Show me something different and I’ll buy you a drink myself.

          I put up with your ghastly anthems: the YMCA, the fucking monkees, the electro-pop, the hardcore dance, the house, the slow songs that see you cling together in unknown and shortly forgotten embraces at the end of the night. Come on Eileen? Fuck you Eileen!

          The place I work at now is a major player in the structure of nocturnal activities. Major. I work with another twenty barmen, each with their own small reasons for doing what we do. The tips, the music, the lifestyle, the company, the women, the men, the thrill of being out after the sun goes down. Vampires that serve society. That’s what we are.

          There’s the management who tell us what to do and how to operate, while they peruse the club, seeking out new lays. There’s a lot of different people, with a lot of different motives.

          There’s gay James who’s aiming to rise through the ranks. He likes to write his name and number – with kisses – in complimentary matchbooks and hand them out to other queers on the dance floor. Straight James who’s aiming to get jiggy with every teenager he can get his hands on, including the barmaids. He’s doing pretty well. There’s Enrique and Joe, who share joints outside every twenty minutes. There’s Jon who’s the most unassuming character you could find, who makes explosives and deals very exotic cocktails of his own, including base, rocket-powered coke and fuck-you-over acid. There’s Ian, the head-barman, who practises his bottle skills constantly and fucks like a champ and helps himself to magnums of champagne. We’re all here. The characters you deal with in your life…we have them here too. Tenfold.

          You think you know what you get up to when you’re out here, throwing money at me? Na. Think again. Let me tell you what I see. On the flipside.

          Here’s a normal night for me:

          It’s six p.m. I stand and talk to the bouncers at the door for a few minutes before I walk into the bar. It’s getting busy and you glance at me as I walk behind the bar while you’re stood waiting for your drink and you instantly, secretly, thank me because here’s another helper; another Agent of the Alcohol so you can get your fill quicker. I take my jacket off and take my till key from the wall and clip it to my belt-loop. I look at the rota on the wall to see who’s with me tonight. Which brothers are standing with me to fight you off. Then I’m ready. I take a deep breathe and head into the fray.

          You’re on me like vultures waiting for fresh dead flesh. A hundred wobbly eyes vying for my attention. I’m your hero. For the hours I’m here, I’m your god, delivering you sustenance and escape. Eye contact is crucial and every barman worth his own shit knows it. The moment I make eye contact with you, you think a contract has been signed and my main priority in life is getting your order to you quicker than I can actually get it to you.

          I avoid any eye contact until I’m stood in my place, raise my eyes and shout ‘WHO’S NEXT?’ And that’s it; for the next eight hours I’m stuck in this circle of servitude.

          It’s early and the orders come in thick and fast. It’s like the battle of Rorke’s Drift, fighting the fucking Zulus off – DON’T SERVE ‘EM TIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES!

          Four double Vodka-Redbulls, two JD’s and coke, four pints of Fosters, three blue WKD’s and thirteen shots of Sambuca. A typical order. You take it all away and in five minutes you’re back in the queue, gagging for more, like seeing your favourite whore.

          You flash your tits at me, lay them on the bar, hoping my eyes will filter you out and you’ll get your booze in a more rapid fashion. I see bundles of women checking the men and hordes of men checking the skirts and cleavages and the sea of long blonde hair. A barely contained orgy.

          When the club opens upstairs I go up to work off the rest of my night. This is where you really let your hair down. You let it down so far that it gets trampled on and in the convenience of the crowd you loose both your identity and your mind. In the loud darkness you gleam low and ineffectual. Now we’re rockin’-and-a-rollin’ together. I’m flat out like a squid on speed; my arms instinctively reaching for the shelf of a bottle fridge or a shot glass or into the waist high fridges under the bar to top your vodka up with orange juice. I spin bottles and glasses and pour spirits faster than your drunken eyes can focus on, BANG, it’s on the bar and my hand is out, shouting the damage count at you. You’re amazed at the forty-plus cocktails I can push your way, like it’s my first language. I’m a socially accepted drug dealer.

Two pint jug, add ice
75ml Vodka
75ml Archers
Fill with orange & cranberry juice.
One Sex on the Beach for your swilling pleasure.
Add straws and hand it to the whores.

          I’m the gatekeeper to your fantasies, your desires, your fears. Without my kind, you get sweet fuck all. You abuse me at the bar, you complain that you’re not getting your swill quickly enough, you wave money in my face?…you’re at the back of the queue my friend. I remember all of your faces. I remember each action, good or bad, that you perform. You shout something about ‘…been here for fuckin’ half an hour,’ and I’ll stop serving and single you out and make you look like the biggest cunt you’ve ever heard of, in front of all your friends and fellow drinkers. I’ll flip the tables and let everyone know that it’s people like YOU who get served reserved. I reserve you until the last person. Until your mouth is dry and you’re wishing you’d just kept your fucking mouth shut and gone with the flow. The secret rules of the bar. The unwritten conduct. The rules that you abuse, but I operate by.

          You’re patient and have a sense of humour and are appreciative of my talents and maybe tip me?...The next time you hit the bar, you’re on the top of my priorities. Swings and roundabouts baby, swings and roundabouts.

          It’s all there in front of you and it’d make your liver-swelling career much easier if you’d take note of these social undercurrents. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. That’s straight from the horse’s mouth. I’m giving you a gift and you shouldn’t look me in the mouth.

          The night’s in full sway. Mob psychology is being propelled by dangerously high levels of booze. Your blood is being diluted by a foreign substance and the goodness that once ran through your body, a few hours ago, is now just a tsunami of guilt, false love, uncoordinated actions and maladjusted loneliness.

          You’re screaming at me for champagne. For more Vodka, for something, for…you don’t even know what, but for something that will take you away and make you feel like everything’s going to be fine and dandy. To give you the biggest high and best night of your life. But without illegal chemicals, you’re stuck with the overpriced products I push your way.

          I stop for a cigarette. Me and one of my buddies go out the back of the bar, into the cold air punctuated by the dull bass sounds of your anthems oozing through the walls. You’re in there, making memories and temporary happiness and we’re out here, discussing that blonde with the black dress and legs we’d like to chew on. The luscious tits that sparkle the atmosphere. The drunken whore who fell over, flashing gash in our path. How much money we’ve made from your feel-good nature, passing fives and tens over the bar to gently line our pockets. We rape you and you can’t even remember it. We like you in our own little way. Your lack of pride and levels of never ending dumbness make you seem like harmless pets at times. We finish our cigarette and he tells me to watch out for a tall blonde who doesn’t get on with her guy, who he’s going to make a move on. He tells me that she looks like she’d try anything twice. Anything. That’s what bartenders talk about. Men always talk about how women talk in secret. Well, that’s what we talk about in secret. Women, stupid drunk fuck-heads and how we’re going to get high after the glass gymnastics stop.

          I walk back into the club and someone grabs me in the darkness and pulls me onto the dance floor. I hope it’s the tall blonde, but I turn and it’s not. It’s a small drunk who’s talking in pigeon-human and after filling in the blanks I make out that someone’s been mutilated in some dark corner. He pushes me through the blondes and brunettes and sickly smelling beauty products that coat the air like chocolate humidity.

          The victim has vanished and my informant shrugs his shoulders and gets back to making a cock out of himself to one of your anthems. I fight my way back through the exultation; the strobes highlighting you, accentuating your movements in slow, beautifully paused moments in time and I’m the only one moving with purpose. The whole crowd looks like an animation flip-book. Each flip of the strobe captures you in sequence in disorganised motion. You’re stuck in time-spliced drink-history.

          I get to the edge of the dance floor and I see some kind of scuffle at the door. I wander through you and talk to a bouncer. He’s laughing and points to the corridor, through a set of double blue doors and says that someone got nailed on the dance floor. One of you got head butted, punched and when they hit the floor, people were dancing on his head to the sounds of Queen’s ‘We are the Champions’. The bouncer and I, we stand there and laugh at the imagery.

          The bouncer curls into the corner and presses his earpiece into his ear. There’s another drink-rage downstairs and he accelerates off into the crowd waiting at the door to come in. Waiting to join this madness. To be surrounded by this mass-denied negative energy. To be laughing and full of gladness. To be one instant away from damage and violence, an instant away from breaking glass and ripped faces. Your version of civilisation kills me. It really does.

          I’m stood in the corridor, between club and crowd, looking left and right. Left is heaving crowd. Right is dark, loud club.

          The manager asks me to stay and provide some kind of presence whilst the bouncers are absent, dealing with blood and crime.

          Opposite me, through the double blue doors, is a scene that highlights your version of civilisation. A man, the guy who got nailed to Queen, is down and out. Laying on his back, the innards of his face exposed to the cold, grey elements and the warmth of his wounds creates steam that can be seen exiting in hot plumes from his new-look. He’s surrounded by a few people, presumably friends and also by two paramedics, three policemen and one policewoman. She’s small, blonde and chews gum like a Texas sheriff. On her nights off she’s probably dressed like the people who are on my left, waiting to gain entry to some bar or other. People are pretty much the same, despite their station in life: They all like a bit of carnage and petty violence. No matter how they deny it, women love a good, long, hard look at fresh blood pumping from the wounded.

          The manager is counting the ins and outs of the club. With his right hand he clicks a counter as someone leaves and with his left he clicks as he lets someone in.

          A girl comes over to me, with a drink in her hand, casual as you like, and says ‘I bet you see this stuff all the time,’ and for the first time I don’t have to lie or puff out my chest and say in a deep voice ‘yeah, all the time’. I just turn to her and say ‘yeah, I do see this all the time’. She stands next to me and we both watch the paramedics working on the guy on the floor. There’s a rush of nervousness as another girl comes out of the club, awash with fresh tears and black make-up trails and she’s crying and her hands shake like a crazy child.

          “WHERE IS HE?” she shouts at me.

          I instinctively point to the double doors and as she turns the screaming begins. Mad, uncontrolled. Like a banshee she squeals at the sight of blood and unconsciousness.

          A fuss starts and people are coming at me like warmongers, shouting ‘WHERE THE FUCK’S THE CUNT THAT DID IT?’

          How sad, I’m thinking.

          Drunken flies buzzing around me. Guess that makes me shit.

          The police come over and give me a description of the ‘…CUNT THAT DID IT,’ and tell me to relay it to my people. I leave the manager on his own, looking rabbit-like in the on-coming traffic. I get downstairs and give the description to the guys on the door. For minimum wage I become the drink-police.

          The manager is tending the animals, pulling velvet ropes across the entrance to the club, like crime-scene tape. I laugh at the amount of similarities between here and a crime scene. I stand around for a while and then the manager tells me he can handle it from here. Sure you can champ.

          I take a last look at the guy being repaired on the floor. His girlfriend on her knees at his side, baying and howling.

          A guy grabs me by the arm and asks me if I work here. I nod. He’s lost his coat and wants it now. The cloakroom staff have lost his coat and he wants me to retrieve it. I ask him what it looks like and what ticket number he was given. He gives me his ticket and I fight through the club to the cloakroom. I open the stable door and start to sift through jackets. Fur coats, scarves, hats, expensive suit jackets, cheap, stained jackets. Hundreds of them. And I’m searching for one. One of the assistant managers is telling me he’s looking for a jacket for some guy who’s not happy. I tell him I think I’m looking for the same item. We spend five minutes looking, but nothing turns up. I have the job of telling him we can’t find it. When I tell him he starts shouting about his father being a lawyer and I NEED to find it, if I don’t want to be sued. Right, I tell him. That’s going to make it appear. He’s got his swarm of friends surrounding me. The manager comes over and asks if everything’s OK. They tell him the story and he starts to say that they’ll either have to wait until the end of the night or they can have the jacket sent on when they find it. I tell him that shouting isn’t going to solve his problem, it’s only going to make me hate him even more and my will to find it will diminish heavily. My will might get dissipated and lost in the deafening hum of the club. He tells me what the jacket looks like and I ask him to name something that’s in the pockets, something specific, so I know it’s his and so I know he’s not pulling my pisser.

          Once again my hands are hovering over hundreds of jackets in the cloakroom and I find something that looks like what he wants. I put my hand in the inside pocket and pull out the contents. It’s his jacket, with the said items in it, a mobile phone and a pair of gloves. When I hand it to him I’m bombarded with assurances that I’m the king and that I’m the best bartender that ever stalked the Earth. My face stretches with a false smile and I bid them good evening.

          I glance at my watch. It’s gone eleven pm and you only have three measly hours to throw as much junk down your throat as you can handle. I head back behind the bar and it’s still swelling and heaving with your orders. The Vodka-Redbulls still flow like water.

          The unmistakeable chimes of the grease soundtrack kick in. I look at a few of the barmen and they look at me and we shake our heads and say ‘fucking hell’ and laugh at you as we push more overpriced crap in your direction. How we long for real music, to keep us animated, to stop us waning and turning into flaccid servile geeks. But we struggle on. That’s our job: to struggle on, listening to your garbage, commercial bullshit, with a smile and helpful demeanour.

          The women are still going strong. They’re still there. The young, barely legal, monosyllabic pig-women. The professional. The posh. The older women. You’re all still coming at me with wads of cash, trying to fly higher than Ben Franklin’s kite. You lean over to me and splutter spit and incoherent sentences at the side of my face, the sticky residue of aftershocks sliding down my face from your breath. Your breath stinks, your eyeballs are shot to bits and you spill drinks and throw up right in front of me. No shame. But it’s OK, this is fun. This is the pinnacle of human fun. You slander drug takers and pot heads. But your drug is OK. Drinking has always been the accepted drug. If you want to hide something, the best place is in public view.

          I always find it ironic and extremely interesting when ‘Water-Time’ arrives. You aware of this phenomenon? When water becomes some kind of God on which you pin all your hopes of atonement. It creeps on slowly, like the introduction of a new idea. After half an hour or so, the place is flooded with people drinking pints of tap water. It amazes me, it really does.

          You’ve spent since maybe six pm or earlier emptying your wallets and purses onto the bar in the hopes of breaking your liver, and now you cower in the face of adversity. Order after order you require pints of tap water. Some times you don’t even get tap water. I won’t tell you what you do get; that’d be spoiling all of my fun, now wouldn’t it?

          As the bar population slows and recedes into (possibly) water-drinking weaklings, I stand there and throw judgement upon you. Your hopes and dreams haven’t happened, have they? And now you’re desperately trying for repentance. They say we, as a race, get the most fun out of watching people come to harm or personal injury. This is pretty funny. Watching you fall flat on your face or fall down stairs or beat seven shades of shit out of each other. All in the name of…well…The God of Overpriced Drinks. Why don’t you just empty your wallet or purse down the toilet, piss on it, flush it, throw yourself down your stairs and stick a broken glass in your face. Things would be much easier for you. I guess some people are just slow learners. And I guess some people just don’t learn at all.

          When the last song finishes it’s all over. You don’t realise it, in your state, but we just want you the fuck out of the building, so we can get high and back to our own little reality, instead of whoring ourselves out to fulfill yours.

          Legally, according to the official rules of drinking, you have twenty minutes to casually finish your drink and make your way to an exit, before you’re thrown out. But when do you ever see that happen? When do the bouncers ever allow you time to finish your tap water in your own time? You don’t. Take it from the horse’s mouth again: we want you the fuck out, NOW. We’re sick of you.

          When the last drunken warrior is escorted out, the doors are locked. Then it’s like a pause in battle; smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. Then it’s back to hacking away at the social cleansing. Mercenaries of alcoholic genocide. There are the hundreds of glasses to collect and wash and put back. The floor to be swept of glass, lipsticks, money you’ve thrown away and recently those gelatinous pads that you women put in your shoes to stop your little trotters hurting when you dance – poor little poopsies. The first night I found one of those I wiggled it in the air and wondered what the fuck it was. I thought someone’s fake tits had spilled out on the dance floor. There’s the hundreds of bottles to replace in the fridges, the damage count is monumental. There’s the huge blue bottle-bins to waddle out the back with to dump in the other huge, yellow bins that are taken away and replaced, awaiting their stinking, rancid nourishment the next night, every night, one after the other until the end of humanity. There’s the avid cleansing and wiping of the bar. There’s the stacking of stools and tables. And there’s the eight hours worth of misused spirits and beer and bad music that has pooled on the rubber floor behind the bar.

          So, that’s it. An average night in the presence of a professional bartender. Your friendly bartender that sees everything you do.

          The next time you feel like abusing a bartender, or getting above your station waiting for service, think about what that person has to go through to keep your squalid and grimy little blood stream filled with your poison of choice.

          Think about it. Because I do.

          As I push on the door into reality again, the sun is rising and the fresh wind gusts in off the coast and I walk, appreciating the cool, calm air.

          My ears are filled with the sound of nature; a vast contrast, replacing the screams, the music, the sound of breaking glass and liquids being poured.

          I think of the irony, knowing that it will all begin again tomorrow night.

          And the next night.

          Bottoms up.