Roy Sonnier Jr. parked his Jeep in the lot and looked across at the building. The windows were covered over with wood, painted black, with the words, “The Rack” in red gothic lettering. Underneath were the hours. “Sunset to midnight week nights. Sunset to 2 a.m. week ends and holidays.”
He got out of the Jeep. He checked himself in the mirror – brown eyes, dirty blond hair, and shoulders as big as a doorframe. He wore his only suit, the one for job interviews and funerals. He didn’t know if it was good or bad to be dressed like this for a job interview as a bouncer.
A friend of a friend that he met at a keg party a couple of weeks ago told him that this place was hiring. “There’s this great drug there, Kiss, and it’s unbelievable.” Roy didn’t care much for drugs, or the people that took them. However, it was a job, and in this economy, he was happy to take anything he could get.
He called for an interview and after telling a pleasant woman his height and weight and how much he could press, he was told to come down any time after sunset. Roy approached the door. A huge knocker in the shape of a fanged demon glared out at him. He took its hinge and let it drop onto the demon’s face.
It was louder than he expected. He did this twice more and then waited. The door opened. A small, but stunningly pretty dark haired woman dressed in a black t-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots stood in the doorway. “Can I help you?”
“I called yesterday about a job for a bouncer.”
“Six-eight, 270?”
He chuckled, “Yeah, that’d be me.”
She smiled. “Come on in. Sorry I didn’t catch your name.”
“Roy Sonnier.”
“You have a resume?”
He pulled out his folded resume and handed it to her. They walked into the club itself while she put her nose into the resume and began to read.
It smelled of new wood and paint. To his right was the bar, and his left was a stage for live bands. A DJ booth was above that, and to the left were private areas. A VIP room, blocked off from the crowd, was across from where he stood.
A few people were rigging up lights, and he turned to follow the woman. A bald man was putting spouts on different bottles of liquor. Before they approached, the man pulled his head up and watched them. The woman smiled at him. “Roy, this is the owner, Mr. Michaelaine.”
“Mickey,” he said and held out his hand. The man was a little pale, but when he took Roy’s hand, it was strong and firm. “Applying for the bouncer’s position?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you ever done that kind of work before?”
“Honestly, no, sir.”
Said the woman, “His resume says he was a construction worker.”
Roy nodded. “My uncle had a lot of construction contracts and they’d hire me as an independent contractor. He and my dad had a falling out two years ago.”
Mickey nodded. “You’ve been out of high school for a year. Going to college?”
“My parents can’t afford it.”
“We have tuition assistance here,” Mickey said.
“For bouncers?”
Mickey smiled, “For special people.”
Roy read it as, Fuck the boss, you get tuition reimbursement. He frowned. He only wanted a job, he didn’t want a career. Mickey realized how that came across because he said, “It’s not what you think.” Then Mickey looked him over and got very serious.
“There’s a few rules. What happens here stays here. You see someone you know, don’t spread it around. Don’t try to get your friends to come in here for free. You see anything going on that’s illegal, see me. And if anyone tries to exact violence against one of the kids wearing the white shirts with the fang tats on their neck, you come and get me before engaging.”
“Uh, okay…” The man made it seem like he’d better go along, or things would get really uncomfortable for him.
“And not only will you be fired if you blab about what goes on here, but you’ll be blacklisted in this town for any further work.”
“How do you know I’m not a cop?”
“Because we paid them.”
“What about a hero?”
Mickey smiled and leaned forward slightly. When he did, Roy stared at him, almost enraptured, and thought he could hear in his head: I have your best interests at heart. I will protect and take care of you. You will remain loyal to me until death.
Normally, this would bother him. Part of him wanted to bend a knee to him, to beg him to take him on. It just seemed natural that he should do this. Instead, he squirmed in his seat.
The man leaned back and the feeling went away, leaving him with both a feeling of confusion and a sense of This is an offer you can’t refuse.
“So,” said MIckey, “Would you be interested? We could hire you now to do some construction work, since you’re familiar with it.”
“I can start tomorrow,” Roy said.
“Good. I’ll let Aydab know. You don’t mind working with tile, do you?”
“Not at all,” Roy said. If the man said he’d have to use his own blood to make cement, he’d consider it.
“See you tomorrow, then.”
Roy shook hands with Mickey, then the woman, and went outside. As he got back into the Jeep, he realized he forgot to ask how much he was going to be paid.