Monday, July 23, 2007

प्रेत्तy इन पिंक



When you are a bartender you pray that certain things don’t happen during your shift. Like some drunken asshole deciding to do a striptease on the bar or a girl getting drugged and carried out by a raping sack of shit. The latter happened to me on Thursday.

I am careful with who handles drinks; I watch the crowd and point out losers to the bouncers. The waitresses are not allowed to chat when delivering drinks and when someone sends a drink to girl I walk it over. Somehow, I had missed the signs.

It’s Friday night and the regulars are buzzing. They are pointing fingers at who let the ball drop and every new face that walks in the door is a suspect. Michelle was just a neighborhood girl, she had a neighborhood job and this was her Cheers. Not particularly outgoing she would often leave after a couple of hours or if things got to rowdy.

Last night, she had decided to stay. This morning she woke up in a stranger’s bed, on automatic pilot she dressed called her roommate for help and hunkered in a coffee shop until she came.

The roommate being sensible had called the police despite Michelle’s protests. When I told Drew that I stopped by to see her at the counseling center, he told me that it was probably a bad idea but he was glad that I had.

The police had actually sent someone to the bar to question staff and test the booze that Michelle had been drinking. Giving up two bottles of Crown Royal was no big deal if it caught the bastard, nor was having our office searched.

We weren’t a high-roller hang out but anything is possible. In Vegas, LA, New York and even places in this city. Bartenders were kept on retainer to do the dirty work of rapists. No big deal, a little E to speed up the process, some GHB to make her forget and making that “special drink” taste like there was nothing it in it.

It all made for a handsome under-the-table business. Those men were just as guilty as the cowards who put them up to it and there was a special hell waiting just for them.

I can’t wait for my shift to be over. It’s 8:00PM.