Aidan: The Cult
And so it’s getting late and there’s not fuck to do at Waves tonight, except for drink and watch Monday Night Football, an exhibition game, New York Giants versus last year’s champions the Chicago Bears. I could care less about either team. I’ve always been a Steelers fan.
August is winding down. All the boys of summer, and girls for that matter, are going back to college, whether in Baton Rouge, Hammond or just across the lake at U.N.O. or Tulane. The total effect is that Waves is like a ghost town tonight.
Charlie’s working the bar and Jason’s working the DJ booth, well sort of. He’s put in his “loop dub” tape, which is a techno conglomeration, a collage of sorts, of all the songs that were popular this summer.
Charlie’s still giving me grief about an incident that happened a month ago, when one of his bouncers saw me pull a Rambo knife out of my back pack. I was showing it to some guy with the hope of selling it, so I could score a few extra tabs of ecstasy that night. I didn’t mean anybody harm and certainly wasn’t threatening anyone with it, as the dumb fuck of a bouncer claimed I had been.
“What was really up that night?” Charlie asks me for the millionth time. “Tell the truth or I’ll pull your tab. That Guinness you like to drink isn’t cheap you know. I can get away with dropping a six-pack and getting a write-off or two from my distributor every now and then, but not all the time.”
Charlie’s an okay guy, a nice guy really. He comes from a good family and all. Not rich by a long shot but his folks had enough money to set up all their kids with businesses. Charlie wanted to run a bar.
Actually Charlie wanted to run a premier dance club but if I’ve told him once I’ve told him a million, this ain’t Miami, or Amsterdam or even Los Angeles. It’s fucking Louisiana for God’s sake. The dudes down in Chalmette still wear those white, rubber shrimp boots to social function and call it style. What the fuck can you do with that? We’re just not that progressive here and we never will be. For all intents and purposes it’s just a bar.
I light a smoke and tell him, “Quit moaning about your distributors. Whatever they nickel and dime you with on bottled cases you more than make up for it with draft beer and not to mention the damned hard liquor. Christ, what do you charge for a Jim Beam and Coke, like six bucks? How many drinks can you make out of a fifth? A fifth of Beam in a grocery is like twelve bucks.”
My friend Rob, who drove tonight, nodded excitedly in agreement with me.
“Do the math,” Rob mutters. “Sell two mixed drinks and the fifth is paid for. All the rest is fucking profit. It has to be what, 200, 300 percent profit you guys make off a single fifth? And then, to top it all off, the fucking bartenders water the shit down to make it stretch even further.”
Rob sneers, a disgusted look on his face as he downs his beer and belches.
“And then the beer’s hot to boot,” he says.
“Fuck off,” Charlie mutters. “You give them a few drinks and they become a couple of fucking Einsteins. They think they’re mathematicians. It’s not as simplistic as that. You have any idea what I pay a month for insurance in here, just on the off chance some drunken fool slips and tries to sue me? And let’s talk about electric. Do you have even the slightest, most miniscule idea how much it costs to keep this place nice and cool in the freaking Louisiana heat?”
“Don’t try to fucking kid a kidder,” I tell him. “I know better. You wouldn’t be doing this shit if there wasn’t any profit in it.”
“True that,” Charlie says, nodding. “But we’re off the point here, way off the point. Once again Aidan the Magnificent has managed to avoid the very pointed question. What was up with the knife that night?”
“I was going to sell it for tabs,” I tell him.
“I think that’s bullshit,” Charlie replies.
“Why,” I sputter, irritated as all get out. “because that fat useless bouncer of yours, who you yourself fired for grabbing from the till, hence dishonest, said I was harboring ill feelings and threatening Manny and his two buds, Jake and other little faggot. Nigger please.”
“First and foremost, Bobby, Trent and Brinkley were here that night, and I know for a fact that Brinkley’s always feeding you tabs. Dude’s weird. He’s like gay for you or something. It’s no big secret. I’m not saying something people aren’t already snickering about,” Charlie says.
I’m about to reply but I think better of it. Truth be told, my man Brinkley and I are intimate, but not in the way these jerk offs think we are. He and I were both dating this girl for a while, Clarissa, and, as a result, ended up having a few three-ways. Although she literally begged us to kiss one night when we were all out of our minds on ecstasy, the most physical contact Brinkley and I ever had while fucking her was the occasional arm brush and even those were followed up by manly, “my bad bro, sorry bout that.”
Contrary to popular belief, it’s fucking hard to have a two guy, one girl three-way without any male to male contact at all. But it still doesn’t make us gay by a long shot.
“Whatever,” I mutter. “Brinkley was out that night.”
“Brinkley and those boys are never out of ecstasy,” Charlie says. ‘But moving right along, that fat, useless bouncer of mine was my cousin,” Charlie begins.
This annoys me even further because Charlie is making excuses for the guy, who, by the way, isn’t his cousin. I point this out to him and he’s none too happy about it.
“If you’re going to tell it, tell it like it really is Charlie,” I tell him. “He’s not your fucking cousin, he’s your sister’s fucking fiancé. And the only reason he really even likes her is because he sees dollar signs. You practically, you do catch him red-handed pocketing money from the bank drop, and you’re going to go to bat for him like this.”
The thing about Charlie, one of the good things about the guy, one of the reasons I’ve stayed friends with him over the years even after many of my so-called friends sold me out or stabbed us in the back or dumped us because my ways became too steeped in partying, is because he always has gone out of his way to see the good in people.
He’s one of those few, rare people in the world who really and truly believe in the inherent goodness of his fellow man, or woman. And it’s this, I think, that boggle my mind and pisses me off so badly; that he’s willing to believe this fucking obvious scum bucket and make excuses for him, and think the worst of me; that I was lurking through his club with a Rambo knife, loaded out of my mind, ready to plunge it into these three jock ass pussies (ex buddies of mine from way back in the day).
The fact of the matter is that these cunts were there that night. And one of them did get in my face. And I did grab one of them with my forearm against his throat, shoving him against a wall. I admit to all of this.
But this is where truth becomes distorted, thanks to Charlie’s fat bastard of a brother-in-law to be. He claims he saw me pull the knife from my pants and raise it above his head. This, of course, was reinforced by Manny and Jake, the other two ex-friends of mine; who ran to the bouncer and told him they saw this.
The truth of the matter, though, was that Brinkley was holding on to my gym bag at that time. The truth of the matter was that about 15 minutes before this went down, Brinkley pulled the knife on some spic who owed him like five hundred bucks. This is what fat bastard bouncer actually saw. But, truth be told, Charlie hates fucking Brinkley because Brinkley once fucked one of his girlfriends, while they were still together. Plus, Brinkley was on probation and stuff for a DWI so he wasn’t about to jump in for ma, saying he was holding on to the knife.
It’s convoluted, for sure; but also too much for me to try to explain to Charlie so I just lie, “Yeah, okay you fucking have me. There were three of them, getting up in my shit, so I pulled the knife just to shut them down. I wasn’t really going to stab them, I was just trying to settle them down.”
“I knew it,” Charlie says, all excited and shit, like he’s inspector fucking Clouseau and he’s just solved the case of the century. “I knew my boy wasn’t lying, but what about you Aidan? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth instead of trying to be all mysterious and shit?”
“Because, truth be told, it wasn’t any of your fucking business really,” I say.
“You’re carrying Rambo knives on you threatening to stab my clientele. I think that is my fucking business,” Charlie says, all smug and shit. “Really man, why didn’t you just tell me? I hate Manny and those fuckers, I would have had your back.”
He looks at me, trying to be convincing, but realizing his error at the same time.
“Oh,” he mutters, finally getting it.
“You’ll excuse me if I say I don’t quite believe you this go round right,” I say.
He’s got this “deer caught in headlights” look in his eyes and flustered, he just mutters something under his breath and turns around, flustered and fumbles…finally opening the register to make it look like he’s really doing something.
He then wanders out from behind the bar, to the back storage room and Rob looks at me.
“What the fuck are you staring at?” I ask.
“You know what the fuck I’m thinking,” Rob says. “You just lied to this dick, and basically admitted to doing something you didn’t do. By this time tomorrow he’s going to have told half the world that you pulled a knife on three dudes in his bar.”
“Not a bad rep to have in this day and age is it?” I asked.
“Only bad thing about having a heavy rep is there’s always some moron who’ll want to challenge it,” Rob says. “What will you do if some bad ass mother fucker comes at you?”
“I guess I’ll have to really pull the Rambo knife then,” I mutter.
Charlie walks back over and, eventually, Jason does too.
“Whassup bro,” I ask him, shaking his hand.
“You’re looking at it, club land is closing up for the fall,” he says.
“Yeah but it’s a Monday night too,” Rob says. “No one out on a Monday.”
Jason has turned off the techno, dj mix shit and has something else blaring through the sound system.
“What is this?” I ask.
It sounds familiar. If pressed, you could dance to it, but it’s heavy with real drums and real guitar, not that Robocop synthesized club stuff.
“It’s the new Cult album,” Jason said.
“Oh yeah,” Rob says. “They sang that song Rain.”
I nod, remembering the group.
“And that Sanctuary song?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Jason says.
“Most of your shit’s on vinyl because of the sampling, right,” I say.
“Most of it,” Jason says, asking Charlie for a vodka and cranberry juice. “You need to carry Gatorade in here too fat boy,” Jason adds, grinning at Charlie. “I’m going to start putting it on my list of demands.”
“Hey man, can you do me a favor,” I ask Jason. “Make me a copy of this album.”
“I’ll do you one better, I’ll give you one of the tapes. The studio just sent me like twenty of them,” Jason said. “One of the perks, sometimes, of being a dj.”
“Cool,” I say.
Just about then, Scott, this wiry ole hippy guy comes barreling into the bar. He’s usually twisted, drunk as fuck, but tonight, he seems…Well, at least not drunk.
He clocks me headed to the bathroom and the follows me in.
“Hey man, you think you could talk your partner there into giving me a ride,” he asks.
“I don’t know man,” I say. “He’s not one for being a taxi cab.”
“Fuck,” Scott says. “I need to go meet this chick, but my ride got drunk and passed out. I’m supposed to be picking up an ounce from her. I’ll give you all a fat dime bag just for a fucking ride. Come on man. I’m begging you.”
I know Rob’s weakness for weed. I also know it’s been inordinately dry the past three weeks.
“Come on,” I say. “I’m pretty sure we can work something out.”
