The Other Side of the Couch

The three of them, sure, I’d get relatively bloody but I still had a good chance at banging them up pretty good as well. After all, they were drinking and I was sober.

As time quickly ticked its way to closing, I had to start help clear the tables near the booth which also happened to be the tables near the gang members. They spent more time staring at me than they did the girls. I almost told them if they kept staring they’d have to start tipping me. The more the crowd started to thin out, the more I felt the pressure in my bladder increasing. The last thing I wanted to do was get caught in the bathroom with one or more of these guys, after all, I was pretty sure they were used to prison bathrooms and the goings on in them. Okay, so that’s a stereotype maybe not far off, but a stereotype nonetheless. Am I sorry for stating it? No, I’m not. I mean why should I be? These guys were out to skin me alive for lack of a better term so, what’s the harm in a little trash talking between victim and attacker?

Anyway, as the last of the crowd exited the club, I could either stick around inside and give the place a real cleaning or go outside to the waiting gang ready to kick my ass. Yeah, that choice was a no brainer. I must have cleaned every table and picked lint off the pool tables at least twice. The manager was in the back counting out all the cash drawers and counting out the dancers while I was spot cleaning the club. I could hear the gang members and their friends trying to taunt me from the parking lot, grooving to a music all their own.

I did everything I could think of to keep myself busy while I waited them out. The D.J. and the manager who was left both knew what had happened and both assured me that the gang members were just mouthing off and wouldn’t really do anything to harm me. And I suppose the believed I would swallow that? Hey, while I’m at it, I’ll buy that deed to the Statue of Liberty off you too. After an hour of waiting in the club I stopped pressing my ear to the door listening for them, carefully cracking the doors open to peek out to see if they were still there. Another hour later and the manager was ready to leave for the night.

She came out of the back and couldn’t believe how good the club look and then couldn’t believe I was still hanging out, well waiting out. When I reminded her what had transpired earlier she just said I had over-reacted to the whole thing. Nothing happened on the way through the parking lot likewise no bullets slammed into me or my truck as I approached it, unlocked and even more to my surprise didn’t blow up when I started it. (Okay, I have to admit, the blowing up part just occurred to me as I was typing that last part. But, it’s something that could’ve happened.)

As I was about to exit the club parking lot, looked both ways (my driver’s education teacher would’ve been so proud) made my right turn I couldn’t have been more than a half mile away from the club when I noticed a pair of headlights come to life in my rearview mirror. Paranoia? Maybe, but then again, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I made an unsafe lane change and caught the freeway. Logically this was a sound move if indeed the headlights belonged to the gang members then I would be able to loose them in freeway traffic. However, since it was 3 o’clock in the morning there was no freeway traffic. It’s little things like that, that we forget under stress that always end up being the difference between remaining alive and unharmed as opposed to being six feet under. So, if I were not being paranoid then that pair of headlights wouldn’t have followed me onto the freeway, right? I suppose it could have been someone leaving to put in some extra time at work.

I let this little bout of paranoia control my driving. The last thing I wanted was for these guys to know where I lived, so I recalled every television show I could think of that had stunt driving. Since I wasn’t in a black T-top Firebird with a flashing red light across the grill, there was no point in searching my dashboard for a “Turbo Boost” button, so I thought of “The Dukes of Hazard.” After seeing the stuff they did with Uncle Jesse’s truck . . . I thought, if I could do even a little bit of that, I just might get away. I’ll put your fears to rest I didn’t do any heart stopping stunt driving to get away. I took my mother’s advice for once, while driving just a little over the speed limit I drove past my exit and right to the California Highway Patrol and parked facing the street. It turns out it wasn’t paranoia after all it was the gang members following me. I jotted down as much of their license plate as I could as they drove past. I exited my truck with every intension of walking up to the desk sergeant and explaining why I was there, but it suddenly sounded too far-fetched. Too outrageous to be true. So, I climbed back into my truck and quickly drove off in the opposite direction before the gang members could turn around and follow me again.