I’m not a big fan of this joint. I’m not saying that I’m too good for this place, not at all. But I like the places that have fewer bloodstains on the dance floor. Less bullet holes filled with plaster on Monday morning. Less cocaine residue on the bathroom counters. I like to take a piss in the urinal without stepping over the spent latex penis casings left by hookers working the drunks.

Tequila, what a name, loves this joint. And since she pays very well, and I drink too much for a straight job, I watch her back. She floats through the fake smoke and colored beams of light like a sinister butterfly, stopping to talk or conduct business at her whimsy. Me, I don’t drift through the crowds so graceful. Where she slips through the people like water through gravel, I plow into meat walls like a lineman. I don’t make a lot of friends among the dancing drunks trying to keep up with her.

“Hey, fatass, why don’t you watch where the fuck you’re going?” a gangsta says, trying to look bad in sagging pants.