Working the Bar in Beautiful Downtown Sodom & Gomorra (chapter 2)

Chapter        2

    JAMBOREE COUNTRY (1986) was a country bar. This bar was more of a shot and a beer joint. A biker bar & pool hall with bands on the weekends, (it used to be a huge barn), instead of the up-scale Restaurant & Lounge I had previously worked at. The drinks were the same, but the clientele was a completely different breed of animal, an entirely separate species. My job at this bar was babysitter, waitress, barmaid & occasionally be a bouncer. I had to baby-sit loads of people who should have been home with their families, and sometimes I would waitress on the weekends. Most of the time I would bartend, order everything that the bar needed to stay in business, (beer, chips, nuts, etc.) and throw out anybody who interfered with the harmony of the bar. 

    The owner was a real weasel. He was not a very good businessperson, but he was an exceptional womanizer. He and his brothers bought the bar together. One of them became a serious alcoholic, and was banned from the bar. We were all forbidden to serve him in our bar, not - even - coffee. One brother was a very kind & decent family man who almost never set foot in the bar. Then there was the one who was suppose to run the place. 
    In the beginning, the owner always handled the money, paid the bands, paid the employees, closed down the bar and locked up. However, after a few months the owner could see that I could I could handle my self, I rarely saw him. He would come in to start the day, but as soon as one of us barmaids would show up for our shift, he would leave. He would say I’m going home for a few hours, and then I’ll be back before closing. But, he rarely went home, and even more rarely, came back before closing. If he came back, he would walk around as if he was checking everything out, take most of the money out of the register, and leave again. He was using this bar to support his habit for hookers (or otherwise loose women) & booze at other bars.
Eventually he began to leave well before closing on a Saturday nights also. After everyone was gone and we were ready to close the doors, we could not fine the owner anywhere. We called his home, but his wife told us that we see more of him than she does.
    
    Bouncing is a job better left to a much larger person, of the opposite gender. However, since there was no one else there to do it, I would automatically jump in. One such person became unruly, and I was going to throw him out. He went to the bathroom, and ripped off the men’s room sink from the wall. He looked shocked when I went marching into the men’s room and said, “Make no mistake; I am responsible for everything that happens in my bar during my shift.” That guy left the bathroom, and went back to the bar. I turned the water off below the sink, and went straight up to the person who caused the problem. He stood with his back to me, (ignoring me). I grabbed both of his arms with mine, pulled both of his elbows behind him, and he elbowed me in the ribs. That pissed me off! I grabbed his shoulders with one arm, and at the same time pushed one foot behind his knee. He was quite stunned when he went down. I told him to get out of my bar, and never come back on my shift. Of course, I turned his name into the owner, but that soon proved useless. 
    I had to physically man handle only a small number of customers. I guess all those years of wrestling & fighting with all my brothers (3 older & 1 younger) proved to be good training for me. I learned very quickly that MOST men would not hit a woman. If I stood my ground, got in their face, and told them to leave, and they usually did. 

    Except for one, let us call him Frank. Frank was verbally abusive, both in sexual & in other derogatory terms and gestures. He acted as though he owned the bar. I had spoken to the owner about him, and the owner told me to take very good care of Frank. This was the opposite of my agenda! Frank had an enormous Bar Tab (way over two hundred dollars). One day I discretely asked Frank to pay his tab. He of course refused. I asked him why he thought that he did not have to pay. He told me that the owner owed him about $1,200 and that he was going to sit and drink until the debt was paid. I should have encouraged him to do just that.
    I was not the only barmaid that he harassed. One day when I came to work, Frank was on the inside of the bar, sexually harassing the barmaid who was about to get off work. She was very relieved to see me. Frank was standing on the inside of the bar giving out drinks to the customers. I told frank to get out from behind the bar, and get back to the other side. Frank told me to shut up, and leave him alone. (I noticed that nobody ever confronted Frank.) Working on the premise that men don’t hit women; I said to him, “And what if I don’t shut up?” Frank looked me straight in the eye and said, “If you don’t shut up and leave me alone, I will pick you up and throw you outside into the gravel!” At this point, you could hear a pin drop. Nobody EVER stood up to Frank!!! I stood toe to toe with Frank and said,”You wouldn’t dare.” That’s when Frank picked me up, I was about 125 lbs. and Frank was about 375 lbs, walked me over to the door, threw me out into the gravel, and slammed the door behind him. 
    I was not pissed off until I hit the gravel, but at that point, I could feel my blood boil! I went right back into the bar. Frank was a lot nicer now, I think that he got it all out of his system, and I think that he respected me for standing my ground, because he never caused me any trouble again. Rumors travel fast; and I don’t know if I had the reputation for being brave or just crazy, but I didn’t have many problems with customers again. I think that they were a little scared of me. 

    This bar had a huge reputation for trouble. Many times the police would come, (over the years), and if they had to come more than once in a night, they would shut you down for the rest of that night. Shutting us down completely only happened once while I worked there. I saw that the owner would wait until there was so much trouble that either property was being damaged, or many people were being hurt before he would call the police. This stupid policy guaranteed that his bar would always be filled with idiots. 
    Hey, with my low-tolerance of idiots, this was not an option for me. However, I did not quit. I have never been a quitter! I began a policy during my shifts, and especially on weekends of zero tolerance to all idiots. They got one warning at the beginning of their trouble making. Before they could strike the first blow, I would tell them to take it out side. I always told them, “I didn’t care if they killed each other, as long as they did it out side, but they were not allowed to fight in the bar.” VERY quickly, I got the reputation of calling the police with the first punch. They got one warning to take it outside; if they started to punch in the bar, I called the police. This policy cleaned up the bar very quickly. Troublemakers don’t like to get in trouble, they just like to cause it, but since most of them were idiots, they frequently got caught. 
    One time this guy came back in the bar for a towel after fighting, so that he could clean up the blood all over him. I told him that he was an idiot to fight, and that I did not allow idiots in the bar, then I told him to get out. I don’t know if this kind of discipline made people scared of me, respect me, or just make it easier for them to go somewhere else to cause trouble. But after that, there was no doubt that I did not put up with crap in my bar. 

    This leads me to the only time that we were shut down completely by the police. It was of all things, that rare and obscure occurrence, “The Girl Fight”. For those who don’t know or have never seen it, the girl fight is not a fair fight. They kick, scratch, spit, pull hair and yes they even throw punches. I cannot intervene in one of these fights because, they will both gang up on you to kick your butt, and then continue their fight with each other.
     I had given them their warning to stop but they ignored me. I could not get assistance from any of the guys to help me break this up the fight, because for some reason it turns men on to watch girls fight. So, I called the police. They came out, broke up the fight, and left. Not less than a half an hour later those girls were fighting again. So again, I called the police. These two girls were so hell bent on killing each other that it took five officers to separate them. The sheriff looked at me and said, “Shut it down!” I made sure that that was the only time we were ever closed down, by the police, while I worked there!

    My work ethics got me the respect & assistance of the customers. Many times when I had trouble, I would only have to ask a few of my larger customers to throw them out and it was done. The fact that I had cleaned up the bar’s clientele let in more business. We had a good sized bar downstairs, with a pool table, stage for a band, dance area, and room for tables too. But, upstairs was a huge gymnasium, large enough for parties of possibly 200 people, plus the staff and band with plenty of room to dance. Occasionally in the summer, we would have two bands at the same time. We would charge a bigger cover charge so the clients could see both bands. This was very hectic and much harder to control so we didn’t do it very often. 

    About six months after I started (in September) the owner was taking the money out of the drawer so often that we didn’t have enough money to buy all the beer we needed, pop, chips, or pay the employees either. It was difficult to stay in business. So I began to hide the money every night. I would make sure that I had enough money to start the week. I would not allow the owner to come in during a shift and take money that I knew I was going to need to buy beer with the next day. I also told the other employees the same thing. At the end of the week, I would make a moneybag for myself to start out the week with, and gave the rest to the owner. 
    There was an Air traffic Controller working with us who was about five years older than me who agreed to help me keep this looser in business. Soon two of the cocktail waitresses came to me and said that our boss hadn’t paid them for three weekends. They told me that if they weren’t paid that they were going to quit. I needed them; I couldn’t serve the entire bar by my self. The Air Traffic Controller was usually the doorman, he was big and I’m pretty sure that he always got paid. I always was paid but I felt sorry for these girls, I couldn’t take money out of the cash register to pay them. I did not want to be arrested for robbery. So, I set the two girls up with a Bar Tab for the amount that they were owed. They drank their pay. They were happy for today but it was hard to find help because of the owner. 

    I was approached by a non-profit organization to donate our building for a fundraiser. The girl told me that if we donate the cost of the building for the fundraiser, the organization would provide:
1.    A name star, (Alic Bevin, he had albums out in the seventies), 
2.    All publicity : news papers, radio spots, television ads, and any flyer that they and we would pass out. 
3.    They would do most of the decorations.
    So I agreed, even though I did not have the authority to book the entire building. We hosted “The Alic Bevin Haunted Halloween Benefit Bash!” I got two other bands to play (both upstairs & downstairs) when the starring band is not playing. In addition, I got an entire staff to work both bars, plenty of waitresses, and bouncers. Nobody wanted to work for the owner because of his paying history, so I said that I could not pay any of them but that they would all get in free and could drink as much as they wanted as long as they didn’t get drunk. This was the party of the year! For this night, they all worked for me.
    I worked with the beer distributors to get free plastic Halloween glow-in-the-dark beer mugs so that everyone that wore a costume would get a gift, and free knick-knacks like key chains, bumper stickers, etc.
    A few days before the big concert, the owner tells me that he thinks that he is being screwed. He told me that he wants $1.00 per head at the door. I told him that the deal has been made, and that this point is non-negotiable.
    He was too much of an alcoholic to see that we made a lot more money per person by raising the drink prices 50 cents. Even a moderate drinker of one drink per hour would be paying a minimum of $2.50 per drink for five hours inside, which includes non-alcoholic drinks too! Make no mistake about it; we had very few moderate drinkers. When you add more expensive drinks and shots to that, you have the makings of one hell of a good night, averaging 
    With all the bitching and complaining that the owner was doing, I did not give him any money that week. I wanted to make sure that we would have enough to stock the bar. I sent the Air traffic controller to buy all the state liquor we needed to stock two bars. Because this was last minute, I could not get a beer truck to come on a Saturday after noon, so I drove to the local store to buy beer (several hundred dollars worth).
    The entire night was a huge success. All the staff was happy. All the customers were happy. All the bands were happy. The charity raised a ton of money, and when it was all said and done the owner made a lot of money too!
    The bad part about that night was at closing time, when everybody else was gone, and the owner was nowhere to be found, the doors were not locked, and I had no keys to the building. Most people would have left. They would have either assumed that someone else would come later to lock up or maybe that there must be someone else still there who could lock up and they would leave. I could not leave with a clear conscience. 
    When I realized that the doors were still unlocked, I made one of the customers (Biker Bob) stay with me to check the building. The owner had a secret room upstairs with a mattress in it, where he would take drunk, stupid horny women. I decided that if I found the owner, or anybody else with a set of keys in the building, I would just leave them to do the right thing.
    Biker Bob and I the searched upstairs thoroughly, we searched the downstairs thoroughly, and we even split up and went around the building to search the parking lot thoroughly. There was no one in sight with a set of keys. 
    Bob said to me, “Well we did our best, let’s go.” I said, “I can’t leave the building wide open like this, and I don’t want to stay here alone.” I asked Bob to stay until daylight, and then I would stay there by myself until someone came. We played a game or two of pool, after that when we were extremely tired, we decided to sleep on top of the pool table. 
    We had just laid down, when we heard footsteps upstairs. Then we heard the upstairs jukebox playing. I told Bob to go up and see who it was. He said, “I’m not going up there!” I told him, “Then he will have to go up with me.” I admit I was a little scared, but we went upstairs to investigate it anyway. Very quietly, we went upstairs. Just before we got to the top of the stairs, the music stopped. We peeked around the corner of the doorway, and we saw that the jukebox was unplugged; the band had shoved it back out of the way, so that nobody could play it. There was no one upstairs, and there were no footsteps leaving the upstairs. Even though this scared us, we slept cautiously, for a few hours on the pool table until morning. 

    A week or two later, the roads had a dewy glaze to them. As I rode my motorcycle to work, my bike slipped out from under me. It scared me more than anything did. Nevertheless, when I slid a crossed the damp pavement, I scraped the palm of my hand right through my glove, my elbow a little through my coat & shirt, & one of my knees through the jeans, got banged down on the pavement. Make no mistake it could have been a lot worse, I was a little sore, but I was still alive.
    I went to work anyway. I told my boss about the motorcycle accident. I asked him if I could go home early, that I was pretty shaken up but not seriously injured. He told me of course I could go home early but he had a few errands to do and then he would come back and close up for me. Well…. He never came back. At first, I cried, and then I got mad! I was limping, sore swollen, and probably should have gone to the emergency room, but I stayed.
    At closing time, after the last person left, I wrote a huge note, and scotch taped it to the cash register:
I  QUIT!
YOU ARE A SELFISH BASTARD  !!!
    The next day, the owner called me to see how I was, as if nothing had happened. He had never called me before. I told him that I was finished with all of his crap and that I quit. “Didn’t you read my note?” I yelled. He told me that he never saw the note. (He was such a liar) Well… he talked me into coming back, though I had secretly decided to get out of town as soon as possible, and was now going save enough money to get out of state. 
    I had arranged a going away party that was a big bash of its own. A few weeks before I was to leave the owner started not paying me. He told me repeatedly that he would pay me in full before I left. 
    On my last night, after the going away party, the owner still had not showed up to pay me (roughly $460.00). It was closing time, so I gave the Air traffic controller my set of keys. I asked him to lock me in the building, and we said our goodbyes. By locking me in the building, I could get out, but nobody could get in. 
    I had already told the Air traffic controller what I was going to do, so at this point I took every penny, nickel & dime out of the cash register. A little over $295. and some odd change. The owner still owed me about $165.00, but I was just happy to get what I got. 
    I moved to Texas for a while, but I could not get a job bartending. Many people told me that they would rather see their sister in a whorehouse, than a Yankee in a U-haul.