Next to Nothing Clark Handlebar Chapter 1 The decision to leave northern Virginia was a rash one.  I knew almost immediately after saying that I would give it some thought, I was already gone. It was early March, 2004. At the time I was the bar manager of a Cajun/Tex-Mex restaurant called the Border Café in Centreville, Virginia. No offense to the idiots that live there, but Centreville was a shit hole. A dreary, strip mall hell that bordered the city of Manassas. For all of you not familiar with Northern Virginia, Manassas is where the Confederate Army won their first major battle of the Civil War. I remember driving to Alexandria one day looking for a restaurant to take my ex-girlfriend to. The directions that I printed from the website read, “When you see a statue of a Confederate soldier in the middle of the road, turn left.” When I saw the statue in the road, I made two lefts and went home. There were some residential neighborhoods in Centreville, but not the kind of neighborhoods you see in places like New Jersey or New York. For the most part it was full of town house communities. Fairfax County was supposed to be one of the most affluent counties in America. A safe place for stupid suburban brats to watch MTV, listen to gangsta rap, and grow up into wanna be gangsters. I had started working for the Border Café as a server in Woodbridge, New Jersey in November, 2003. I had gone broke in San Francisco and was forced to move back “home”. When I got back to the Garden State, my brother gave me his wife’s dead grandfather’s car. It was a blue 89 Dodge spirit. I lived in it for a while, until moving in with Dan. Dan and I grew up together. He was a long time friend and eventually he moved to San Francisco. We became roommates. We had a good run that lasted a few years, but when we lost our jobs we cut our losses and reluctantly moved back to Jersey. When his mom found out I was living in my Dodge, she told him that I could come stay there. I slept on the floor of the laundry room that winter, but it beat the hell out of the back seat of my dodge. I’m eternally grateful to her for that floor. After a few months of waiting tables at the Border Café, the General Manager, Maria, approached me one afternoon and quite matter-of-factly asked me if I wanted to go down to Virginia to open the new store. I was quite surprised at the invitation to be honest.  A few weeks earlier I had asked her how someone gets to do a store open.  I had been jumped in the bathroom of JJ Biddings by five New Jersey rednecks two days earlier, and my face was still pretty fucked up. "First of all, you can't have a black eye," she answered.  "You can start by not getting drunk and fighting at the bar." "I was jumped," I answered.  "Wasn't much I could do about it." She walked away without saying anything. "Shit!" I thought.  "That didn't go so well." It was the truth.  I was jumped. Wasn’t much I could do about it. J.J. Biddings was a bar and grill that we frequented regularly. In fact, it was where I parked my car when I slept. It was quite convenient at the time. We knew the bartenders there. This usually meant fast service and the occasional free drink. The food was a little pricey, but during happy hour they put out some free slop for the drunks to eat. It was usually some kind of chicken pasta or potatoes. It didn’t much matter though. It was free and we were usually quite drunk so we usually ate it. Sometimes J.J. Biddings’ happy hour food was all I would eat for days. They also had one of those digital internet juke boxes there. Over time, my buddies and I loaded it up with all types of songs that we liked. If we could get there before some dirt ass put in $20 worth of Guns and Roses and Metallica, we would put as much money as we could spare in there and play tons of obscure punk, new wave and other random songs that we liked. Shit the locals hated. Not that we weren’t locals. We were. We just weren’t the kind of locals you’d expect to see in a place like Woodbridge, New Jersey. We had grown up listening to punk. And although we weren’t teenagers anymore and we didn’t wear spiked jackets or dye our hair, we were still noticeably different from the average local set. There were the Guidos with their slick backed hair and gold chains. Listening to horrible remixes of terrible songs. Bass blaring from the trunks of their Mustangs as they cruised Main St. No doubt in search of some high school girls to buy beer for and violate. Not that I have anything against buying beer for and/or violating high school girls. I just hate bad music. Besides Guidos, our particular corner of New Jersey was home to your typical dirtbags, rednecks, Puerto Ricans (like myself), crack heads, heroin and oxy cotton attics, and wannabe gang bangers both black and white. No real dangerous types in these parts. Just bored drunks looking for the occasional fight. But I don’t want to talk about this anymore. As far as I’m concerned most small and medium sized towns are the same everywhere. Mine isn’t so special. It’s just as ugly and boring as yours. I’m sure of it. On the night in question, I walked into Biddings and was recognized by someone I had met once before.  He was the ex-boyfriend of my best friend’s brother’s wife.  I think his name was Bobby. Yeah. Sure. Bobby. I bullshitted with Bobby for a bit.  He had a few bucks and wanted to buy me a beer and a shot. Not one to turn down a free drink, I pulled up a stool and sat down.  Shortly thereafter, Roy, my best friend of about 18 years came in with Jeff, the guitar player of a band I used to be in. Roy was out of his damned mind, but we were great friends and had been getting drunk together for most of the years that we knew each other.  He was three years younger than me, but a couple of inches taller.  He was a good looking Irish kid and could be quite charismatic and damned funny when he wanted to be. He walked in wearing a tan corduroy Jacket, blue jeans, a zip-up hooded sweat shirt and the usual black Atticus t-shirt that he always wore. In fairness, I don’t think he even heard of “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, but he wore that t-shirt just about everyday. Jeff, as I said earlier, was the guitar player in a band I once filled in on bass for. He was also a good friend of mine.  He was about an inch shorter than Roy at six foot or so.  Black with long dreads that he usually kept up in one of those hats that people with dreads tend to wear.  The band we played in did a three week tour and then pretty much imploded.  Somehow through all the madness of that tour Jeff and I had become good friends while everyone else tried their best not to kill each other. Back at the bar, I got up to go the bathroom and walked passed a group of Jersey white trash.   You know the types.  If you don’t, just picture the white trash that live in your town and give them Jersey accents.  You won’t be too far off. As I said earlier, these towns are pretty much all the same.   They made a comment to me, but I wasn’t drunk yet and I was in no mood for a fight. I ignored them and went into the bathroom.  I was pissing at the urinal when one of the guys came in and stood behind me. "You and your boy got a problem?" he said. "Excuse me?" I replied. "I said do you and your boy got a problem?" he repeated, trying his best to sound tough. He was a little guy in a red and black flannel coat. His hair was greasy and stringy and just passed his ears. He was drunk and I knew I could take him easily.   Apparently he and his friends had a problem with Bobby.  There was a small exchange before I had arrived at the bar.  The rednecks where throwing pretzels at Bobby, trying to get a rise out of him, but he was quite the hippy pacifist.  A white guy with dreads who smoked a lot of weed and didn't really want any trouble off anyone. I looked over my shoulder at the little prick and smirked. "Can you take a step back?” I asked him. “You're standing on my dick." This shocked him.  I zipped my pants up and turned to face him.  Just then Bobby came into the bathroom and headed for the other urinal. "Hey, Bobby, do you know this little prick?" I asked Before he could answer, the other four came in and the trouble began.  They were all just about average size except for one, and the big fucker seemed to be the angriest.  Ugly words were being exchanged. I was trying to keep the situation calm without sounding like I was scared to fight.  One guy pushed on the door to keep people from coming in.  Folks were banging on the door.  Someone said they were going to call the police.  More ugly words, and when I realized there wasn't any good way out of this, I lunged at the big fellow pushing him through the stall in the hopes that he would crack his head on the toilet and be knocked out.   He missed the toilet by inches, and here I was on top of this fuck.  I knew I wouldn't be able to throw any punches because his two his friends were raining blows on the sides of my face and one of them could grab my arm if I drew it back.  Bobby had ran out of the bathroom and was chased down quickly and thrown headfirst into the old style jukebox near the women’s bathroom.  Jeff and Roy had no idea what was happening. I found out later that they were outside smoking when all the ugliness started. I jammed my thumb into the big fuckers left eye.  He let out a scream. "Tell your friends to stop kicking me or you're gonna lose your fucking eye!" I yelled. "Stop!" he screamed, but they didn't listen. It was around this time that the guy who had thrown Bobby into the jukebox came running back in.  He jumped on my back and began to choke me with his forearm. Things were going bad for me, but not as bad as they could have been.  I mean, at least I wasn't lying on the floor with my head in a jukebox. When I started to realize this guy was planning on choking me to death, I jumped backwards into the wall and the guy let go.  I was on one knee at that point and I watched the choker run out of the bathroom. The two who were kicking me had already run out of the bar.  Knowing that the police station was right across the street, they made the smart play and got out before the cops showed up. I got to me feet and yelled to the one who’d been chocking me.  "Where the fuck do you think you're going, mother fucker!?" He ran out the back door of the bar as Roy opened it. Roy watched him run by, confused. He and Jeff saw me and started to walk over to me just as a cop grabbed my arm. "They jumped me, Goddamnit! And they're getting away!" "Settle down," the cop said. Roy and Jeff realized the severity of the situation and hurried to reach me. "What the fuck is happening?" Roy asked "There's still one more in the bathroom." I answered. "I pushed him through the fucking stall.   The whole damned thing collapsed.  He's lying on the floor.  Probably holding the eye that I almost ripped out of his fucking head!" "Shit!" Roy said. “I can't believe we missed it!  Fuck!" "Just stay right here," the cop said.   “As if I’m gonna go some fucking place,” I muttered.   The cop glared at me and then headed to the bathroom.  Three other cops took a look around.  Two of them attended to Bobby who was sitting up now.  Dave, the bartender, was holding a towel against his head. The cop came back with the big fucker.  He was trying to convince the cop that I attacked him, but the cop wasn’t buying it.  Sure, I did attack him, but it was purely for survival.  I’m not the type to stand there and let a group of five get the first hit.  After taking names and such, the cops asked me if I wanted to press charges. "Will I have to go to court and shit?" "Yes." "Nah.  Fuck all that.  Thanks for your help, officer." "Sure.  But you can't drink here tonight." "I figured as much,” I replied. "Have a good night,” he said as he turned towards the door. "You do the same, officer.” You do the same.