Stress

I’ve found another difference between us and them. Or me and them. Or the entire free motherfucking world and them.

The difference is, we’re happy when we’re out in New York on a Saturday night. I know I would’ve been if I hadn’t handcuffed myself to the door of some garlic-infused seizure-thon on the West Side of Manhattan for the past three years. I’d be overjoyed. I mean, fuck, you’re drinking for chrissakes. To be perfectly honest, the only thing that ever meant anything to me when I did go out regularly was that feeling I’d get after a few drinks. Fuck everything else – the buzz was the only thing that mattered. For my money, there’s nothing better than walking the streets of Manhattan with half a bag on. Those moments, those nights, are all about possibility. “Into Bolivia” fade your inhibitions and your debts, and out of mothballs comes your personality.

Call it alcoholism, but as long as I’m drinking, I’m fine.

As for them, they’re miserable. You see them, Guido after Guido, walking around the club, heads hung low, muttering to themselves about how they wished they hadn’t come out. They look at me and roll their eyes and shake their heads as though I’m some sympathetic fellow traveler who’s hip to the Guido plight.

And I do comprehend things to a point. I know what a pain in the ass it is to make my way into the city from the hinterlands, because that’s what I have to do. I have to do this because the money makes it worth my while. Guidos don’t have to do this. They don’t have to make a ninety minute commute into West Chelsea in order to get shitfaced. They don’t have to change trains three times to dance like retards. It’s not necessary to pile into an IROC and pay $9 in tolls to snort coke in dirty bathrooms. All this, I’m assuming, is readily available right around the corner – on Long Island or Staten Island or in Queens.

So what the fuck is the problem?

I’ve wondered about all this, so I did what any sensible bouncer would do: I asked the nearest depressed Guido. I pulled him aside the other night and asked him what the problem was.

“Why are you always in a bad mood when you come here?” I asked. “You always seem like you’re under a lot of stress.”

I’m friendly with this one. His name is Chris and he’s from Howard Beach. I helped him out in a nasty fight once. We say hello. We “hug.” Sometimes he hands me an extra twenty when his “boy” rolls in with an expired license. Sometimes it’s more.

“Yo, it’s because I am in a bad mood.”

“Why, though? Is it this place that gets you like that? Do you have problems at work? Why are you always walking around looking like the world’s about to end?”

“Yo,” he said, “you don’t understand, bro.”

“I’m trying. I mean, we’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, man. You’re my boy!”

“So?” I asked. “Do I ever ask you any questions? Tell me what the problem is.”

“The problem is that I just got engaged, and my girl don’t know I’m here, and I got like four bitches that wanna come home with me right now.”

“That’s your problem?”

“That’s always my problem.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “You always look like you wanna kill someone because you’re worried about the women you could take home?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s that easy for you in here?”

“Yo,” he said, “I can always take someone home outta this place.”

“So why get engaged?”

“Because my girl’s a fuckin’ sweetheart, bro. I could take all these girls home and fuck ‘em in the ear and it don’t mean shit, but I can’t lose my girl.”

I shrugged. “So that’s really why you always look like that? You got no other problems pissing you off?”

“Nah, man. You know me. I got two G’s in my pocket right now. It’s always bitches makes you crazy.”

“I heard that.”