Chapter #1
The Bouncer
Blood poured from his nose and mouth making the extent of the damage difficult to comprehend. I knew his jaw was broken, I’d felt it dislocate and heard that familiar bone-on-bone sound. His head had been pushed up against the wall with nowhere else to go, I took a small step back to fire a combination of both kicks and punches, all of which hit their mark. Now he lay unconscious in the doorway, still clutching the broken bottle which was intended for my face. I am a bouncer. I'll say that once again. I am a bouncer. ‘I am’ are the most powerful words you can ever say out loud, and followed with an absolute intention, is how affirmation manifests itself. It's how I became the person I wanted to be. I never wanted to be a bouncer but it was a means by which I became the strong, confident man that I'd always desired. The man who was showing my past bullies that I wasn't someone to be fucked with. As a bouncer I was a hard fucker and still to this day refuse to be someone who can be bullied or taken advantage of. I'm also a very compassionate and caring man, a fiercely loyal person who isn't afraid when the going gets tough. Throughout my journey of becoming a bouncer, a bouncer who didn't shy away or run when chips were down, I quickly discovered that "I am" became my friend, nurturing a new mindset and subsequently new actions and behaviour. Until then I used "I am" mostly to reinforce negative manifestations. ‘I am not good enough’, ‘I am going to lose’, ‘I am shy’ and ‘I am scared’. Telling myself these things as a young child had had an effect on the young man I was becoming. I had no idea that telling myself these things was ultimately ordering my fate. I had sat in life's restaurant picking negativity from the menu and then I was disappointed when my order was served up in abundance, along with a side of self pity. It was a Saturday night in a once thriving industrial city, the 70’s and 80’s in Coventry saw high unemployment after the collapse of British motorcycle production, and later, the motor industry. The cathedral ruins in the heart of Coventry were a stark and haunting reminder of the relentless air raids of November 1940, courtesy of Hitler’s boys during the Second World War and was only a stone’s throw from a hugely popular pub/nightclub of the early 90’s. The Dog and Trumpet, affectionately known as The Dog, was primarily a student, alternative-scene venue but Saturday nights at the Dog welcomed all comers.
In those days, once the club was full the main doors were closed. After pub closing time, student punters would make their way to their nightclub of choice and generally stay there until closing time unlike today’s drinkers who drift from one venue to another, owing to the late-licence drinking culture of late. Once the front doors of The Dog were closed the only way in or out was via a long and sloping passageway to the rear, leading to security doors which brought you to the concrete spiral that was the Barracks car park. Nobody was allowed to loiter in the passageway except for the staff but given that this area was quiet and relatively cooler, handfuls of people would make their way here to escape the hustle and bustle or just cool off, especially those feeling a bit worse for wear. A blind eye was turned as long as long as no one took the piss. The bouncers would often stand at the top of the passageway to take advantage of the quiet space and chat, from here we could still see pretty much most of the floor area so it was a great spot to escape the crowds whilst keeping a watchful eye on things. Most evenings you would find me walking around amongst the clubbers, mixing and chatting with the crowd. Being a bouncer isn't just about stopping people coming in, breaking up fights and chatting up women (although all of these are included in the job description), spotting and stopping trouble before it starts is a massive part of the job but to be able to do this you need to be on the ball and be able to de-escalate a situation before a full blown kick-off begins. This particular Saturday night was like any other, I’d been walking around the standing area of the club when I noticed a commotion at the bar, around 20 feet away, involving one of the bar staff. I made my way through the crowd and was soon in the thick of it trying to quickly understand what was going on. At the very least it was an argument between the barmaid and two lads over one of them being short-changed but it had escalated into insults and threats.
One lad was insistent that he’d handed over a twenty pound note but the barmaid was adamant it was a tenner. Stale-mate. Waiting for the till to be cashed up at the end of the night was the only solution, but the lad didn’t want to wait that long and the situation grew more tense. As it happened, I had chatted to both lads before on a previous night, not on a personal level but I’d seen them in the club many times. Both were decent lads who had never been involved in any trouble but I also knew the barmaid was trustworthy and it was most likely just a mistake. I made a suggestion. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tenner, offering it to the lad. I told him I would either get my money back from the till when it was cashed up, or, if not he’d owe it to me. He looked a bit worried and made it clear that even though he was 100% sure he also didn’t want me looking for him next time he was in town. “Well”, I said, “it’s your call. You can take the cash or wait ‘till 3am”. He took the money, I got my tenner back later when the till was actually up.
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A short while later I was doing my usual circuit through the crowds when I was approached by a lad and his girlfriend who warned me that a group of people on the raised area were tipping drinks over those below them and generally causing trouble, I made my way over to check it out. By now the place was rammed, getting over to where these guys were would take a while. One of the glass collectors collared me, ‘It’s about to kick off over there, some wanker just threw a drink over me and he just slapped some bird”. I pretty much recall exactly what he said because I remember thinking, ‘slapped some bird ? Who the fuck talks like that?! With each step towards the situation which I could now see rumbling in the crowd ahead of me, it was becoming more obvious that this wasn’t going to be resolved with just a little chat, people were starting to distance themselves from the area and as they did so I could hear mumbles predicting the outcome. I asked someone to tell the DJ to get on the mic to ask for more doormen but no sooner had I finished speaking, when I realised I was only feet away from three pissed up bullies who looked like they didn’t give a flying fuck about anything. Everyone knows the type, cocky, arrogant and most likely fuelled by a line of coke; a combination that convinced them they were invincible. This is something that most people don’t understand about the job of a bouncer, it isn’t just dealing with normal, rational people who will respond to a quiet chat about their behaviour. Quite often, like this situation, I wasn’t going to be dealing with just a person, I was going to be dealing with a behavior that was being controlled by whatever substances had been ingested. As I approached them on the raised area I quickly realised that any effort towards meaningful and calm conversation would be futile, they were in full swing, sabotaging everyone’s night out who was standing around them and my mind quickly turned to which of them I would need to dystroy first. Every experienced doorman will tell you that although talking someone down off the ledge is the ideal and preferable approach, quite often with the presence of drugs or alcohol, sometimes both, there is simply no hope for a non-violent resolution. All three lads were now trading insults with a few girls who instead of wisely leaving the area, had decided to hang around and throw fuel onto a fire which was spiraling more and more out of control by the second. And just to add more tension, I was now being egged on to throw the three out by the infuriated bystanders. Hearing all of this, the lads who had now seen me approaching, turned their full attention to me with a familiar stance which screamed 'if I’m leaving you’d better fucking well make me’. One of the lads was cockily leaning against a horizontal wooden handrail that ran the length of the raised platform that we all stood on, he gave me that all-familiar head nod that screamed ‘now, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?’ With both of his hands tucked neatly into his front pockets he looked straight at me and mumbled something that I couldn’t hear above the music but I didn’t actually need to, his body language was loud and clear.
He nudged his mate stood to his right hand side and they both nodded back at me and smiled, chuckling to themselves. The sidekick leaned in to say something in his ear, their two heads bumped together, these two were now holding each other up, spilling beer as they laughed deliriously. There was no mistake these lads were there for violence, they may have been drunk, but they knew exactly what they were doing. I started scanning my surroundings, realizing that no other doorman had yet turned up and I’d not even heard the DJ put out the call to arms. I was on my own for now, my heart was now racing and my mouth was getting drier by the second, mother nature once again doing her thing. I’d been here so many times before but each time is different and never loses any of its impact, each instance just makes you feel sick to the stomach.
As I moved closer and positioned myself for the inevitable, I spotted weapons in the guise of bottles and beer mugs everywhere. This needed to be quick and it needed to be brutal. It was obvious now what they were up to and I’d found myself smack bang in the middle of it. The hardest part of any altercation are the moments just before and just after, the altercation itself is what you train for, or at least it should be, but there’s no real training for the pre-fight and post-fight emotions, these are the moments that fuck your head up. I was now in pre-fight mode and I needed to get into position. As a doorman I had a tried and tested method of getting physically close to potential aggressors whilst not making them too alarmed. The ‘I’m clueless and ignorant to what’s going on’ approach kept these lads in my line of vision. I focused on the crowd behind them and made reference to what someone else was doing, asking an imaginary bystander behind them to get off the table. The ploy worked and the lads were momentarily distracted and disarmed, handing me just the window of opportunity I needed. Boom! My forehead crashed into the face of hands-in-pockets lad sending him backwards and almost over the guardrail, followed by a sharp right cross landing cleanly on the jaw of number two. He was out cold the second it landed. Number three looked on stunned, scared and thought better of getting involved, but it was too late to change my mind now. He raised his hands, “OK, OK, stop, stop”, as I grabbed the front of his jacket with both hands and pulled his face onto my forehead. The thud was sickening and was heard amongst the bystanders as the music fell silent like some saloon bar brawl in the old westerns. Hands-in-pockets guy who was still upright but with no fight left in him, appeared right in front of me but a short left hook put him on the floor next to his mate. All three were now out cold. By now my fellow bouncers had arrived and we all proceeded to haul the three down the passageway to be kicked out the back doors. But ‘hands in pockets’ lad discovered a second wind and grabbed a broken bottle from the floor on his way out. Spotting this, I pushed him up against the wall and fired a brutal head butt into his face, hearing and feeling his jaw crack. I stepped back and fired a combination of shots that pushed him outside the doors and onto the floor, blood pissing out of everywhere. As he tried to get up I fired a steel-toe capped kick into his ribs, he wasn’t going anywhere now.
We closed the door and it was over, or at least that moment was over, but is it ever really over? Rumours now started to do the rounds that these were Leicester lads and part of what was called the ‘Baby Squad’, a notorious group of football hooligans whose weapons of choice were small, plastic handled Stanley blades™ (craft knives) that they carried in a front jacket or shirt pocket. They had the reputation of walking around clubs slashing people’s backs and walking on, leaving their victim puzzled as to why their back was stinging and their shirts soaked with blood. This was now the aftermath, the rumour mill kicking into gear. You have just dealt with the immediate threat, only now to be contemplating the comebacks. Revenge has no statute of limitations and as with every altercation enemies are formed and often return. Sure enough, once the club had closed that night we found two Stanley blades on the floor where they had been mingling so we had good cause to believe they would return. Only next time, they may be mob-handed. The club had now closed and people were leaving in droves, I walked to my car that was parked just a few feet away from the Dog's back doors and reached for my kit bag that was always sat on the front passenger seat. This bag contained everything I needed for training, including what I may need at the end of a shift on the door. As a karate instructor it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to have a bag in the car which contained a karate gi, a belt and sparring gloves. It would also be reasonable to see pain spray, bandages, plasters and a mouth guard, and given that I also taught practical self defense classes, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to explain why my bag contained a pair of knuckle dusters, a baseball bat and a set of nunchucks. Did I use these weapons as props for class? Yes I did and not because I needed to but because if I was ever questioned in court about this collection of items in my car I would have plenty of people who could give evidence about their legitimacy. Reaching into my bag That evening I pulled out a pair of knuckle-dusters, slid them onto my hands and made my way back to the club where there was still a small crowd taking their time to drink up. There was no sign of anything about to kick off but the back doors were now open with groups of malingerers all over the place. If the lads from earlier were coming back tonight it would be around now. Kick-offs can and do happen at any time but closing time is known to spring the odd nasty surprise. I had put both my hands in my trouser pockets and the dusters were just at the end of my fingers, should I need to slip them on. As I walked through the club asking people to finish off their drinks and to make their way outside my attention was drawn to a small group of lads who still had full pints left, they appeared to have no intention of knocking them back anytime soon. "Can you see your beers off please lads and make your way outside". One of the lads lifted his glass to his mouth, sipped the tiniest bit of his beer, smiled at me then put his glass back down. "It's going to take you a long time to finish, drinking like that". He picked up his glass and took another little sip, " I can take as long as I fucking want, I paid for it so no rush". This type of drinker is not uncommon and every bouncer has come face to face with the ‘I will leave when I am ready’ twat. Often, walking away and giving them time can be the best solution in many cases, normally it's just the drink talking and they are not looking for any trouble and I would have done exactly that if I hadn't heard him tell his mates that he was going to keep taking sips just to piss me off. I picked up his beer glass and put it on a table a few feet away and then told him that he needed to leave right now, this was either going to make him leave or push his buttons and create a violent outcome. I had already positioned myself for a quick knockout and was just waiting for his response. All dialogue was now over, I wasn't going to get into a debate with this wanker, he was either going to turn and make his way out or he was going to open his mouth and spout more bollocks, and bollocks was exactly what he chose. BOOM! My forehead met his face with a ferocity that not only broke his nose but split his lip and cracked his orbital bone leaving him unconscious where he fell, his mates stood back and declared themselves as conscientious objectors and then promptly left the club, leaving sippy-drink guy laying there.
Wait, what, you hit someone just because he said, "Go fuck yourself"? It has been well documented that communication is 93% non-verbal, the words ‘go fuck yourself’ communicated only 7% of his intentions. Him leaning in and grinding his forehead on my cheek whilst reaching for his beer glass communicated the rest. Have you ever seen a glass pushed into someone's face? I eliminated the threat based on the information that he'd communicated to me. As a bouncer, as in life; split second decisions are made; decisions that you then spend the rest of your life questioning, because action and inaction both have consequences.
It was now 3am, and I was home sitting by my three year old son’s bed, just watching him sleep. I’d always go in to kiss him good night when I got home from work having missed his bedtime and story time. He was fast asleep and looked so peaceful and beautiful, simply perfect. He was safe in his bed, wrapped tightly in his Disney quilt, his arms clutching one of his favorite cuddly toys. ‘Figment’ was a stuffed animal, a character from Epcot in Orlando. “If you can dream it, you can do it", was the well-known Epcot motto and as I’d watch my precious boy dreaming I too dreamt of a better, safer life for him. I’d often sit at his bedside, listen to his breathing and whilst doing so, relive the night’s earlier encounters. Tonight was no exception. I’d sit and contemplate what I would do to anyone who would hurt my child as I had someone else’s child that evening.
Some might call it self-torture, to me it was cathartic. It kept me in touch with humanity, it kept my feet firmly on the ground and the overwhelming empathy that I’d fought to hold back earlier in the night came flooding back with a vengeance as I sat sobbing like a baby. I then saw his eyes open and a big smile appear on his face, I’d dry my eyes, once again. ‘Daddy’s home’, and he reached out for a hug. I squeezed him so tight and swore on my life that I’d never let anyone hurt him.
Total bollocks, bullshit! Nobody knocks out three men in a matter of seconds and who the fuck walks around with knuckle dusters in their pocket in anticipation of a kick off? I can still recall at the age of 16 years I had been involved in karate for about a year when I found myself in the company of a few older gentlemen who were friends with the lads I train with. One of these old-timers was talking about his time in prison and how he had knocked out two prison guards. He'd served a hefty prison sentence for armed robbery, he just laughed and said "I got a few more years for that". I just listened and thought ‘bollocks, this is just a billy bullshit making up stories’! It was incomprehensible to me that these older, family-men were not only career criminals but also hard as fucking nails. Every seasoned bouncer will read about my encounters on the door, nod their head and say, "yep, been there!” But just like my 16 year old self, many people will find it hard to imagine that this type of world really exists and just like I had, will choose to see fiction, a true story embellished to make a good story. Welcome to "Fighting With Myself", a story about finding strength and courage by creating alter-egos that took charge when the real me wanted to run and hide.