The Bouncer

Vapuors of morphine - Flash fiction

This story is part of a collection of dark and noir stories called
Vapours of morphine
Click on the link for the full collection.

The Bouncer

It was a quiet night, and nothing was guaranteed with Marko absent. Two bouncers aren’t essential, but when we worked together it was different. The fact that dawn hits right around five, when the shift ends, makes me breathe a sigh of relief: I can get on with the drug trafficking and then go home.

Here she is, the nerd. After a night of battle she looks like she’s ready to go shopping downtown: tight jeans, sneakers, black lipstick, ponytail. Here we go, we can start. I speak with a heavy Russian accent, trying to sound like a villain from a James Bond movie. I just sound like an idiot: it’s fine.

— So, what you want? What you bring Boris tonight?

— I bring load of pure amphetamine, straight cut like Walter White.

— And then I answer with gigadollars.

The nerd pulls a book out of her bag and hands it to me. “Orpheus Reborn in Love”, by Gregorie Vieru. I hand her “Uzumaki” by Ito. She’s already returned all the Berserk volumes and liked them, so we’re stepping on the accelerator a bit. And to think that in here there’s a bunch of assholes acting like drug dealers just to swap a couple of shitty coke pellets.

I remember Marko the first time he saw us. A bit embarrassed, he came up to me and said: ah, so you’re one of those guys who reads books? I burst out laughing. I answered something like: yeah, they actually taught me to read in school. What about you? He realized he’d said something stupid, turned around, a bit pissed off.

— You know next week is my last?

I wasn’t expecting that. I open my mouth, then run my hands over my thighs.

— So you made it?

— Yeah. I already sent the down payment to my cousin in Cahul. We’re getting my grandfather’s house back, and there’s enough left to open whatever we want. We were thinking of some small business. They’re still profitable.

I want to tell her I’m happy for her, but nothing comes out. So she continues.

— Want a ride home?

Her smile is unmistakable, but I think: 52 years old. She’s 26. I’m twice her age and she could be my daughter. Boolean logic: she’s the one who taught it to me. She has a degree in engineering and came all the way up here, inside the Arctic Circle, to sell her body.

So I say no, thanks.

We say goodbye. Maybe she expects something more from me, but I just can’t tell her I’m glad she’s leaving. Something inside me says I should be, but I’m too old and my answer is only this: I’m not.

I walk home because I never wanted to get a driver’s license. I don’t even know why. Well, like so many things: I went to the other side of the world to fight, in Thailand. It wasn’t like now with the internet. You took a phone number from a magazine and left. What can I say: I was young.

Cars whip past me as I cross streets with no sidewalks. Accidents, randomness. One day the nerd explained it to me: you start thinking about the probability that a light bulb burns out, Poisson distribution. It’s the same with a job like mine: tonight went well. But then? End up like Marko?

This is how it went: these assholes show up and start bothering him. It’s incredible how losers always go after him, the biggest and youngest of the two. Anyway, this guy gets right in his face, yelling at him, but then he makes some weird move, and BANG: Marko smashes his jaw. Then his friends stuffed him in the car, and when we saw what kind of car it was we thought: fuck. These are rich kids. The lawyer told him: this is going to cost up to three hundred thousand crowns.

I walk along the ring road. There’s never much traffic at this hour. No sidewalks. I pull out my phone. Open Tinder: zero matches.

Eh.

I text the nerd: I’m glad you made it. Don’t forget about us who are still here, okay?

She replies with a heart emoji.

Why didn’t I go home with her? Because I’m completely fucked in the head, that’s why.

Well, she smiled at me, we can file that away too.

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