Bewere the Night

cobblestones.

He’d lain there blowing bloody bubbles into the air and as I hunched crouched over his crumpled I could see nothing in his hand—it’d been a bluff, there’d never been a gun—and I felt my chest constrict, the world spin. I’d gone too far. I’d be going to jail. My life was over. I dropped to my knees, feeling the shock burn through me.

Then someone had grabbed me: one of the Metropolis guys—Mikhaels, Lucs’ second—and started pulling me away up the street as two cops ran around the corner. They’d paused and looked at Mikhaels.

Then one had nodded, letting him lead me away—trembling as the adrenalin wore off and the delusions of power faded—as they went on to the barely-alive man.

“This is how it works,” Lucs had said when I fronted before him at the Metropolis. “The cops look after us. We look after them. Way of the world. Work for us we make sure nothing ever comes of it.”

I’d never seen them go this far until now. They must’ve been holding back the whole time, waiting until I’d proven myself enough to be accepted into the crew. Until they could trust me. Now they’re showing their true selves: the real way of the world.

And Gabe’s right: it’s not like I can throw stones. It’s not like what I did’s any different.

But I sometimes wonder now how convenient it is Mikhaels’d been there that night, remembering him looking at me from across the bar just before I’d beaten the man; as if he’d instigated it somehow, his presence drawing out the darkness in me.

Maybe I just can’t confront the truth: that I’d nearly beaten someone to death. It’d be much easier to blame anyone but myself—

Dammit. There’s always too much time in here to think: an endless stretching of seconds, minutes, hours into meaninglessness; aided by the curtains shut against the outside sky, encouraging timelessness and the rejection of reality. Fuck it. The guy deserved it. He killed that girl. Lucs was right to snap his neck. The prick would’ve just bought his way out of it before some bullshit judge in a bullshit courtroom under a bullshit legal system. Weaseled his way to leniency as criminals always did. The system didn’t work so what choice is left?

But what’s really scaring me—and why I should’ve run as soon as Lucs turned his back after killing the guy, why I should never have come here in the first place—is that seeing Lucs deal out such justice makes me think of her. Of Lisa and that fuck Paul. My hands shake. Sweat rises on my face and across my back. Because I should have fucking—

A drunk is dancing with a chair he has dragged onto the dancefloor as if it’s his partner. He clutches it in his arms and pirouettes, then throws it onto the ground and awkwardly leaps over the seat. The crowd around him seem to enjoy his absurd parody of some forties musical star—even the muscle-shirted Greek guy takes the hit in the shins good-humoredly—and I’m roundly booed as I jump off my podium and grab the chair, handing it to Raph who has appeared from across the Pit to back me up. But I need the distraction of work. I push the drunk past the bar to the front door and he gibbers at me: “I was pretty swish out there though wasn’t I?” Infectious humor that catches me off guard. His eyes are dilated, oversexed on E’s as well: he wants to touch me as I walk him out, feeling my shoulders through my shirt. I just shrug him off. He’s harmless.

Then he catches a glimpse of Raph behind me and starts pulling away, seeing something I don’t, some revelation his drugged-out brain throws up. “Keep him away from me! Don’t you see what he is?”

Raph, following a few feet behind, stares back stonily, eyes drilling into the patron. The drunk gets more and more agitated and I tell him not to worry, to just walk out, but he seems oblivious to me and then tries to run as we enter the foyer, dodging to his left and around a group milling outside the toilets. Raph is already blocking his way to slam him in the chest, and we drag the guy kicking and swearing out the front to dump him on the pavement. He rolls into a ball at Raph’s feet, wrapping his hands protectively around his head, and then there is a bark behind me: “That’s enough, get back inside.” I turn and Lucs stands glaring at us, two doormen behind like twin Cerberus statues at the gates of hell. There are people in line staring at us, elderly couples and families from surrounding cafes, theatergoers passing by. Too visible.

Raph slinks beside me as we head back to our posts, his bleach-blond hair and powerlifter-traps like talismans splitting the crowd before him. He leans in as we reach my post: “These sheep don’t understand anything else”, then leaves me staring after him.

I continue my watching, unnerved and searching for order in the madness, in the frenetic, restless movement; for some shifting code, some meaning in the faces that coalesce into momentary distinction only to become unformed clay when I look away—brown eyes, blue eyes, blond hair, black hair, blue hair, in an interchangeable melange. I search for joy, for revelation, for knowledge in the faces, for some reason why they come here to waste away their lives with drink and mindless primal movements. All I find is blankness, slack-eyed vapidness. I’m so sick of this.

A hole opens in the crowd and I wonder for a moment if the dancers are ducking someone’s vomit. I look closely at those ringing the gap to see if they have that coy disgusted fascination, like dogs trying to avoid their own shit in the backyard. Then I see the swinging arms and sudden surge of bodies across the space and even as I raise the two-way hear a voice, Gabe’s perhaps, rattle in my hand: “Security to Dancefloor, Security to Dancefloor,” and I jump off to push roughly through the crowd, chest and shoulders hard and unforgiving, distantly savoring the passing looks of dumb shock. I emerge into chaos and grab two of the fighting patrons, tearing apart their clutch by pushing one away, grabbing the other around the neck. The guy I’m holding starts lashing out instead with his feet. “Settle down,” I yell with a jabbed compression of his neck for emphasis and he subsides. I look around and Gabe, Mikhaels and Raph are also restraining fighters. We stand each with subdued patrons hanging in our arms searching for further threats, for something missed.

I’m about to turn and haul off my captive when from nowhere comes a fist swung wild and hard to smash into my temple. I hear the disembodied thump rather than feel it—having had much worse before—and swivel to focus in on the terrified tanned face. I drop my forgotten captive and like a berserker lost in fury pummel the face. On the edge of vision I see the other security react as if under fire, choking out their quarry and launching into the crowd with random punches, staining the beer-soaked floor with spatters of blood.

And then I’m sitting on my attacker’s chest, yelling at his dazed face: “Why the fuck did you do that? We were breaking it up!”

Spit splays into his mouth as he tries to speak, no air in his lungs. “Be— Because you … hit me.”

I grab his shirt: “Like fuck I did!” and bring his face up to mine.

He persists: “So—Someone hit me.”

I stare into his glazed, convincing eyes and then a hand lands on my shoulder; quick spin and armlock, bending the elbow back to breaking point, my fist cocked—and Lucs stares back at me, a hand raised instinctively to protect his face. I let him go.

He moves in close, goatee like a pointer: “Kill him.”

I step back though it’s hard to hear him above the music, above the screams of the crowd. “What?”

He surges in again: “Now, while there’s still confusion, while there’s justification.” I push him away, open- handed against the hard solidity of his pecs. “Damn you,” he says slit-eyed, “stop fighting it.”

I stand over the bleeding kid and, eyes still on Lucs, reach down to haul him up: “Get the fuck out of here.” The kid looks at me in disbelief so I slap him across the cheek, bringing sudden clarity to his eyes. I look back at Lucs as he watches the patron disappear into the crowd. Lucs glares at me and walks away, saying something to Mikhaels.

His second looks at me then heads towards the front doors, pushing past the doormen and disappearing outside. I wonder what the hell Mikhaels is doing, leaving the club halfway through the night. I don’t understand anything about this place any more.

I watch as Gabe and Raph drag away the injured. But the patrons soon start dancing again, the music an unstoppable Pied Piper-calling to their gyrating and fondling, to the slackening of the vague, drugged faces. Their shoes smear the forgotten blood into the polished floor.

I’m dismissed from my post at the Pit and sent upstairs as punishment. Danteis, who I’m relieving, passes me on the stairs with a nod, grateful to be heading down to the world of the big boys for a change. Heaven, the upstairs bar and club’s wasteland, looks much easier to patrol than downstairs: a bar and small dancefloor on one level, leading up to another small bar, some pool tables and a series of isolated grimy couches ringed around a balcony overlooking the Pit. I stand midway up the stairs that split the levels and look out over the sweaty, milling drinkers by the larger bar.