Show No Fear Redux: Bouncers Diary

by Bill Carson

  ***

  It had been raining for most of the day and it was steadily getting worse by the evening. Outside it was black, cold, damp and miserable. I went through a series of strenuous karate exercises before I left home that night and psyched myself up for the potential battle. I got into my old Ford Sierra and drove through the wet streets at a slow, sedate pace thinking of what the night could possibly bring.

  I wouldn’t say that I was feeling scared: if I had been, I would have stayed at home, I think my mind was quite clear and calm, but I was definitely feeling a little uneasy. What if these two actually turned up? I’d have to live with the consequences of my actions if it all went pear-shaped. Were they a couple of bullshitters or were they up for it? At the end of the day, they were the ones who threatened me and so whatever fate befell them would be of their own making.

  I parked the car in the multi-storey car park which was a few minutes’ walk away from the club. I knew the guy in the security box at the car park so he used to let me park there for free, which was handy because there was absolutely nowhere to park in that area. I never parked in the same place twice, and I would also vary my times of arrival as well. You’ve got to stay one jump ahead of your potential ambushers, and if you stay in this line of work for any length of time you will make quite a few enemies.

  I would sometimes sit in the car for a good five minutes to watch and wait for a while before deciding to get out. I always reversed the car into the parking space as well, so if I ever had to make a quick getaway it would be much easier if the car was facing in the right direction. Jump in and just put your foot down and you’re away. Why make it easy for them? It may sound a bit strange or possibly bordering on paranoia to go through such precautions. Well, I am here to tell my story. I know of at least two people who are no longer around and there are many others. Maybe if they had varied their routine a little, they would still be alive... it’s called survival.

  I left the car park and approached the club. I decided to go in through the beer garden, which had tall surrounding walls and a high wooden gate which was always locked. When no one was looking I jumped over the top and climbed down into the beer garden, and now I could enter the club through the back of the conservatory. The reason being was that the fellas who were coming back to sort me out could already be inside, possibly turning up before the lads had arrived on the front doors as the small bar was open to the public during the day. The door to the conservatory wasn’t locked: it never was. It was a little stiff though and so you had to give it a good shove in the right place to get it to open. I opened the door and entered the club unseen. The place was virtually empty.

  About ten minutes later the other two lads arrived and I asked them to work inside tonight. I explained that I wanted to be on the front door all night. They thought it was a little strange but they knew it must have been for a good reason and did as I asked. I didn’t want to get them involved in this one, so I told them nothing. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.

  The rain was still falling, adding to the already unpleasant nature of the evening. I wore a three-quarter length waterproof coat for obvious reasons, and also for concealment purposes. I must have looked like Blakey from On The Buses. The body armour was on and the bruising irons were in place. Now it was just a matter of waiting and staying switched on. Cold and wet, I didn’t move. I stayed put in a position that gave a good all-round view for any attempted attack upon me. My adrenaline was now pumping good style: I was ready.

  I hardly acknowledged the people rushing along through the rain. I was concentrating on looking out for my would-be assailants. I never forgot a face, so as soon as they appeared I’d take the fight to them, bash them up and disappear…

  I was there for five hours that night and they decided not to show.

  The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is.

  Get him as soon as you can.

  Strike him as hard as you can and as often as you can.

  Ulysses S Grant

  I feel that at this particular time it was becoming easier to settle problems with violence or to resolve the arguments I had on the door with a right-hander, and I wasn’t too bothered about it either. You have got to be able to switch into Mr Nasty, and then just as quickly switch him off. I was finding it increasingly difficult to switch him off: the job does that to you after a while.

  I was in danger of becoming the same as the violent idiots that I had been fighting against.

  I didn’t really need the job any more – my wife had gone back to work ages ago and I still had my day job, so why was I still here? I’d got nothing to stay for really. Was it through some form of misplaced loyalty? To whom? I didn’t know. So what was it then? Was it a bit of a power trip? I was the head doorman; the lads would carry out my instructions without question. If I said someone was not coming in then that was that, absolutely no argument about it. If I said someone was leaving, out they would go, one way or the other. The camaraderie was another thing. Sometimes it was like a night out with a few pals and it didn’t seem like I was at work. So there were aspects of the job which are agreeable. The nightlife, the lively music scene and the regular punters who were genuinely pleased to see you felt good sometimes. I didn’t really have a clear answer but I knew it wouldn’t be long before I turned it in though.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  END GAME

  A few months on

  This weekend was to be my last. I had a feeling there was going to be a few problems. I don’t know why, but after a while it seems you can sense the negative vibes in the air.

  The club was full of Welsh rugby supporters and they had all made the long journey down to London to watch their team take on the English at Twickenham. I’d only been there half an hour or so and my instincts were proved right. I noticed that three lads were involved in a bit of a scuffle at the bar, which was five deep with thirsty rugby supporters. The negativity came in the shape of a local hard man. I had seen the guy before: he fancied himself as a bit of a hard nut and I remembered that he’d had a bit of an attitude problem the last time he was here.

  I went in with Simon and calmed the situation. This guy was six two, wide shouldered and lean and mean. He’d had been involved in some sort of altercation earlier on before I arrived so I just gave him and his two mates the benefit of the doubt.

  We went back to the front doors while still keeping the occasional eye on the three troublemakers. As I looked over towards the bar area, the taller of the three gave one of the rugby supporters a punch in the side of the jaw. He went down on the floor then scrambled up to his feet and ran outside. Who did this geezer think he was? Once again Simon and I went in, leaving the other two lads on the front doors, but it was a different attitude from us this time.

  “You three are leaving,” I told them.

  They ignored what I said, or they may not have heard me say it, owing to the noise.

  Then the tallest one of the three punched another guy who was standing at the bar waiting to be served, right in front of us. This bloke’s a bit of a nutter, I thought to myself. He was an arrogant drunk, a big bloke who was used to throwing his weight around. That old familiar adrenaline rush was making its presence felt. By now I knew how and, more importantly, when to use it. We both stepped in and a scuffle began. The guy had a face full of scars which told me that he’d probably had a fight or two. Well, so have I and I’m better at it than you, I thought and I knew exactly what was going to happen. He’d had the friendly warning: this time we were going straight to stage two.

  He quickly turned around and all the signs indicated that he was about to throw his tried and tested right hand punch. After a few of these types of confrontations, you can sometimes anticipate what is about to happen which affords you the opportunity to try and counter your attacker.

  I’d just seen him throw two right handers, so my guess was he’d be throwing another one, but you have to look for the signs: that’s where your train
ing comes in. His predictability was his downfall. His shoulder moved back slightly and he cocked his right hand. He also carried his left real low. I moved off quickly to the right, away from his right hander which was now on its way. I smashed him with a right cross. The blow knocked him backward and he stumbled back four or five feet and crashed into a table and then onto the deck. He picked himself up out of the debris and groggily stood his ground. I then remembered something that Sean had told me when he was in a similar situation: to get the guy out of the place he rolled up the guy’s jacket and threw it toward the door to get him moving. I did the same. I grabbed the guy’s leather jacket from the back of the bar stool, rolled it up and threw it over toward the door. It didn’t work as he was too dazed to see the bloody thing as it flew past.

  I said to Simon to get him around the neck and take him outside, but he couldn’t manage it, the problem being that when the guy stood up straight he was too tall for Simon to get a good hold on him. I didn’t want to move forward because I’d got his two mates either side of me and they were biding their time. I had them both in my peripheral vision and I knew that the moment my back was turned they’d attack me. It was a bit of a balls up. Where are the other two lads? I thought

  My guess was that they couldn’t see what was going on due to the crowds, and we didn’t have any radio communication. For the moment they were deaf and blind to the situation. Meanwhile Simon and this fella become engaged in a scuffle. Simon was actually pretty useless if you took away his ability to nut someone. He didn’t have a clue, so against my better judgement I decided to go in and give him a hand. I had an idea what was going to happen so I was ready for them. As soon as I went forward, one of them jumped on my back.

  I began to lose all rational thought, and as the guy started to strangle me I slipped into fight mode. These guys had clearly arrived here with one thing on their minds: trouble. They thought they could come here to bully, frighten and intimidate. They’d probably done it before in other clubs and pubs and had gotten away with it. Well, tonight there’re all gonna be on the receiving end for a change.

  I grabbed the guy’s arm which was crushing my neck; I twisted, dropped my shoulder, leant forward and executed a really good judo throw on him. He went right over my shoulder, and for a moment I thought he was going through the huge window that overlooked the street.

  Luckily he landed on a table with crash, scattering and smashing the bottles and glasses as he landed. He must have knocked himself out as he hit the table because I didn’t see him get up. The thick wall of punters’ bodies was blocking the access to the front doors and I was left on my own. This was all happening extremely fast, you understand, and only about ten seconds had passed since I clouted the tall fella.

  The other guy decided to have ago and he also jumped on my back and started to strangle me. He was quite strong and wasn’t doing a bad job either. He had a really good grip around my neck and he was slowly choking me out. I was becoming light-headed and my vision was starting to fade out. I started to stagger around like Frankenstein’s monster. This little shit was attached to me like a fucking limpet and in a matter of seconds I’d be going down and out on the floor. I managed to force my hand up the inside the crook of his elbow and grab the sleeve of his jacket. I then had some purchase and managed to swing him around violently, which thankfully dislodged him from my back. He was now right in front of me. I quickly stepped in and delivered a hard jolting left upper cut under his jaw. Yeah, ‘ave some that, I thought.

  It was an excellent punch; you know when you have delivered one just right because you don’t even feel it. You only see the impact. I grabbed him by the hair to hold him still. My fingers were now clamped tight around his greasy locks and I gave him two more short sharp left hooks on the chin. I let go of his hair and he fell to the floor unconscious, where he got the order of the boot. Actually, I think the first punch had knocked him out and it was only because I was holding him by his hair that he’d remained upright. One of the other lads finally pushed his way through the crowd and he dragged the fella along the floor and out toward the doors. The whole thing had lasted no more than thirty seconds.

  I didn’t have a clue what else had been happening, but as I started to regain some form of normality I moved toward the front doors where I heard some hysterical screaming. It was coming from one of the young barmaids. She was looking down at the floor where a crowd had now gathered. I pushed my way through and saw the guy who Simon was scuffling with earlier lying flat on his back.

  The guy was unconscious and his face was covered in thick gooey blood. I knelt down beside him and I could hear that his breathing was very shallow and he was gurgling with each breath. The music suddenly went off and the lights came on. Under the bright white lights his face presented a horrible spectacle: it was just a red mask. His lips were turning blue: I had to do something and fast. I was on my own and it was down to me save the guy, as the punters were standing and staring wide-eyed in shock. The blood from his injuries had run down into the back of his throat and it was slowly choking him to death. I suddenly remembered what to do and some basic first aid kicked in. A B C – airway, breathing and circulation, I kept repeating to myself.

  I turned the lanky lump on his side into the recovery position, firstly checking that he hadn’t swallowed his tongue. I then took hold of his head to put it into position but it was so slippery with all the blood that it slipped from my hands and banged into the hard wooden floor with a sickening thud. I tried again and this time I managed to get him into the recovery position. Thankfully that seemed to do the trick and all of the blood that was restricting his breathing was suddenly vomited out. A few seconds later his breathing started to return to normal, but he was still unconscious. The police and ambulance crew arrived and I left them to it and slipped away, I had blood all over me.

  I disappeared into the gents’ toilet. I looked down at the thick, sticky blood covering my leather gloves and sleeves of my jacket. I ran them under the cold tap and rubbed my hands together, grabbed some paper towels and wiped away the blood. The water turned red as it spiralled its way down into the waste pipe; a few minutes ago it had been quite happily pumping around inside the guy’s veins. I looked at myself in the mirror and that was the moment when I decided that it was time to quit.

  A punch up was one thing, but this was stupidly dangerous and unnecessary.

  Ten minutes later, I went back into the bar. The blood had been mopped up, the D J had started up again and the lights had been dimmed and the punters were laughing, drinking and dancing as if nothing had happened. It was all quite surreal. I asked the lads what had happened and apparently psycho Simon had knocked the guy out and then, whilst the bloke was on his back, he smashed his face to a pulp. Those sovereign-encrusted fists had really chopped him up good style. On the scale of one to ten of stupidity, that must rate an eleven. The guy could have died, and for what? I know for a fact that we would all have gone down for that one.

  EPILOUGE

  I went back the next night for the last time, and that was that. I had spoken to Pete and told him that it was going to be my last night at the club. He came down later on that evening for our last nostalgic drink at the place. The music had now faded and the DJ had packed away his kit. The noisy revellers had all dispersed into the night and the club was silent and dark inside. I stepped outside into the cold, wet, deserted high street and as the bolt was drawn across the nightclub door, I stopped and took a glance back at the place for the last time. I was now just a fading memory as I walked away.

  It always feels a little odd leaving a place you have worked in for years. However, to be honest I felt the timing was right, and I also felt a measure of relief in getting out of the game in one piece. Let’s face it, this is a dangerous game. Imagine going to work wearing body armour and knife-proof gloves and carrying a few other ‘protective items’. A mate of mine even used to bring a gum shield with him when he came to work with us. There’s got to be some
thing wrong here, and there must be an easier, better and far less hazardous way to earn a few quid.

  I made my way to the car park alone and climbed into my car and sat for a moment before starting the engine. It would be ironic to get a good hiding on my last night, wouldn’t it? So, not wanting to tempt fate I stayed switched on and was alert right to the end.

  ***

  And so my journey into this strange and risky occupation has come to an end. What conclusions can I draw from the experience? I can’t say that I’m proud of anything except maybe the way I handled my fears and the way that I stood up to certain individuals. All I can say is that I genuinely tried to keep the decent people safe from the drug dealers, drunks, bullies and scumbags. I took all the crap so the genuine decent punter didn’t have to and that’s what the job is all about.