Proximity

One of the fucked up things about being a bouncer is the sheer volume of people streaming past me into the club on any given night. There are so many people coming in, and since I'm a jaded asshole who's been doing this shit way too long, I don't even look at their faces anymore.

Go. Go. Go. Get the fuck away from me. Go. Go. Go.

The thing I don't stop to think about very often is whether I know any of them. Whether, in this great, big giant throng of idiots, there could be someone I know in there. Someone I've slept with. Someone who doesn't know I work at this club. Who doesn't know what the past five years have been like, or that I've had to resort to being a damned bouncer in the first place.

Fuck, I've been doing this blog for two-and-a-half years now. This site gets a lot of hits. I've probably checked a lot of your IDs, and you haven't even known it.

I spoke to an ex-girlfriend the other day. She wanted to know where I worked.

"I went there!"

"You did?"

"Yeah!" she said. "On the night (Performer) was there! Were you there that night?"

"Yeah, I was there. I was with (Performer) most of the time, though. I was part of the crew that was walking him around."

"I thought you said you were at the door."

"I usually am," I said, "but when they have a big act, they usually call me in to help walk them around because I'm pretty good at that shit."

"I don't know if I would have come up to you if I'd seen you."

"Yeah you would."

"I would?" she asked. "How do you know that?"

"Because I had long hair back then."

"You did?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I grew it out for a while."

"What happened?"

"I looked like a retard, so I shaved it all off again."

"I wish I would've seen that. I've never seen you with hair."

"You don't want to," I said.

"Probably not."

"Damn. I can't believe we were in the same place at the same time like that. I wonder how often that happens in real life. You ever wonder about that?"

"Not when I'm in a club," she said.

"Figures. You're probably too busy slutting it up."

"Jesus. No wonder we broke up."