I’ve been in a rough business for a long time, working in bars, nightclubs and strip clubs as a security (I don’t like to use the term bouncer) barback and bartender. I’ve done most of my adult life as a full time job or side gig, in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Texas and mainly South Louisiana, New Orleans 20 plus years. Probably been in 5000 altercations, mano el mano fights, group scuffles, standoffs and out and out brawls/riots. Shit went down! I’m still in it at 56 years old. I often get the question: What’s the WORST fight I’ve ever been in?
Got to be the following, that Didn’t Involve, knives, cudgels and fowling pieces, where no one was killed or seriously maimed?
The following is my personal eyewitness and participant account. The name of the club has been omitted, and some names redacted so no one is butthurt.
It was New Years Eve on Bourbon Street. Streets were packed with people, Carnival season about to officially kick off, Sugar Bowl was the next day, LSU and Illinois playing and there had just been NFL game at The Superdome. Heavy Police and security presence, tension was high. 9/11 had ocurred several months before and New Orleans is about to host Mardi Gras and the Superbowl.
I was posted in a key position at the center door, myself and another security protecting manager taking cover behind the horseshoe stage, alpha and beta doors were exit only.
KxxNxxxxd, a large man at 6’8 and 375 pounds, was controlling access to the center door, it’s a rough job, people giving you attitude about cover, trying to bum rush the club etc. We had 20 guys working at the time, smallest guy 6’ft 200 lbs. I was 6’4 and 270 at the time. Several guys bigger than me. All of us tough, hard bitten street soldiers.
This was the notorious red shirt era, security wore black pants, red polos with club logo. If you’re familiar with old Star Trek, (“Red shirt”) was expendable security guard. They rarely survived an episode. Cue ominous foreboding.
Temp was in the low 30s at time, I was wearing regulation uniform, long sleeve black t shirt under polo, elbow pads under that, black bather gloves, skater kneepads under baggy black BDU pants, steel toed Doc Martins, I often had to hit the floor wrestling some unruly knuckleheads and breaking up fights. It was basically gladiator school in those days. These days? People scared to throw hands or take a punch?! They pull guns, spray and run! We had a copule of incidents in days leading up to New Years Eve, some idiot arrested, bottles and beads thrown etc.
I’d clocked in at 6 p.m., we started doing cover at 8 p.m., it was up to $20 a head and people were paying it!? It’d been strangely calm, no incidents or harsh words with exception of a 30 yr old jackass with a bullhorn, superfan of New York team, kept wanting climb on the furniture with a bullhorn and rile up the crowd, really obnoxious and annoying AF!! We’d had to chill him out twice and you could hear the bullhorn over our powerful sound system and street club noise. Very chaotic atmosphere. Radios basically silent all night, no one getting escorted out of the alley, zero pushing shoving incidents at the door, everyting going smoothly. Until…
The ball dropped at midnight, much yelling, cheering and excitement and the DeeJay started playing Auld Lang Syne… About 20 seconds into the song everyone’s radios at cover started blowing up?! (“Security to patio! Security to beta bar!”) Deejay over the PA, (“Blue crew to dance floor!” – club code for shits going down) and more ominously (“security, garbled screaming and mic cuts off”!?) not good. From my position I could see a half dozen fights and scuffles breaking out! On the dance floor, beta and alpha bars both! Our emcee MxE on the stage behind us fighting with some fratboy wearing 20 lbs of beads and a stupid hat, trying to snatch the mic from him?! Me and my partner DxxxK, a large jacked up dude, grabbed the kid from back of stage and shoved him out door, he started ripping beads off his neck and firing them into the club. A common douchebag tactic. Beware the jackass, usually white dude by himself, drunk AF and wearing 20 lbs of beads! Sunlasses at night and stupid Mardi Gras hat! I deal with several of these every year!
Or they’re passed out in street, pissed themselves! I’m hit three times in the face with beads at ten foot range! It hurts! I pick up a garbage can full of beer bottles etc, probably 80 lbs? I fire it at him! Crowd parts around him and I nailed him perfect!
Our GM Exxl, who was taking cover tells Kxxxxxd, who is on cover door to lock it down, tells me and 3 other security to get it under control now! We roll over back of stage into one of the worst melees I’ve been involved in my long bloody career!? Radio still blowing up in my ear, seemed like every employee there was fighting someone?! Security, barbacks, shotgirls, bartenders, everyone was-fighting!
Saw a bartender jump on the bar and kick someone in the face, saw a shotgirl smash a tray of shots into a bitch’s head, saw two managers, both small wiry guys, riding a huge dude to the floor! It was like something out of Roadhouse?! A real Brannigan! Patrick Swayze and John Wayne would have been proud!! I was punched, kicked, slapped, scratched, had drinks thrown in my face etc.
I personally dragged, full-nelsoned, arm bar, etc. at least 30 idiots out myself! We were launching them out all 3 doors, and dragging them through the 30 ft. alley knee deep in ripped open trash bags!
The head of security Cxxy and myself gave this treatment to the jackass with the bullhorn! Facedown through garbage and promptly gassed and cuffed by the NOPD the at gate! He deserved it! There was a stack of dazed, bleeding and cursing jackasses on sidewalk, some in cuffs, reeking of pepper spray! A squad of NOPD had joined in, joined by a phalanx of a dozen state troopers, shoving through crowd! It went on continuously for a good 40 minutes! That’s a long time for a bar fight!? It was more of a small riot! Not my first rodeo by any means but halfway through it I had a burning stitch up both sides of my chest, sweats and breathing hard?
After police got there, batons, tasers, pepper spray deployed. We got it under control! Order to the Chaos! Cops shut down the whole block for an hour, skirmishing breaking out perimeter. Aside from bumps, bruises, scratches and a nose, black eye or 3 our crew was OK. Same for all the random Kyles and Karens, fratboys and football fans we were fighting. They were fighting each other as much as us. You NEVER lose control of the club! But it was close… At least 35+ people were arrested, 25 taking ambulance rides.
I spent the next 2 hours doing paperwork. My GF at the time worked down street. She came up around 3:30 with a couple of friends and the first thing she says: “I Heard y’all had a fight?” I’m like, “Yeah, it escalated quickly…” This story is dedicated to men and women of the service industry: Kyle Quin, Clay Montz, Johny Robards, Eric Johnson, James Baird, Derek Anderson, Victor Pastor, Sidney Martinez, Amy Constanza, Para Manzi, Tina Bencke, if I left anyone out I apologize! Traumatic brain injury! Lol. Love all y’all. Sincerely, Jay.
In Memoriam
Roland Turner, a gentleman and gangsta, THE REALEST! REST IN POWER! Fly high! We’re all gonna miss you my friend! See you on the other side! -Jay Slusher Dec. 28, 2022