A month or more ago I was speaking with Big Ron about his doorman gig when he told me about breaking up a fight between two idiots in their fifties who were punching each other in the face, only to have one of them buy a bottle of whiskey and try and use it as a club on the other. Ron checked the biceps of the bottle man, if I recall correctly, but we were doing some drinking of our own.

When I called Ron to set up a podcast session with Lynn he had had an adventurous weekend.

“What a night I had on Saturday. The place was packed for a young cover band, who were very good. But they were loud and the barmaid was having a hard time taking orders from customers, so she asked them to turn it down a little and in true, ‘Fuck you’ rock ‘n roll fashion they cranked it up louder.

“I barred one guy for selling dope—he was just too obvious that even the owner knew what was up. You still have a redneck pulling up and selling dope out of his pickup on the lot, but at least he’s discrete and isn’t doing this shit in the bar.

“Then these two guys get in an argument. The one guy is there with his wife en owns the sub shop down the street, so when I got between them and put them at arm’s length he returned to his wife. But the other guy is not having it. He’s about my age, early forties, stands maybe six foot tall and 200 pounds. I could see he wants to hit me and I’ve got to get him to the door. I don’t want no trouble. My neck is still sore from the car accident, my shoulder muscle still torn.

“First of all, unless the guy was a boxer he doesn’t have anything to offer with the left hand, so I take a stance to his right, I’m on the outside of his right foot and his right hand and I flexed my right hand like I was getting ready to punch with it, giving him a show. I just knew this idiot wasn’t going easy. So, while his dumbass is fixating on my right hand I hit him in the back rib right above the kidney with a short shovel hook. I was planning on then taking that hand and using it to push his hips forward and then do a come along with his right, but this guy goes down!

[laughter]

“They sure don’t make em like they used ta. This guy goes to his knees and I say ‘It’s time to go,’ and pick him up and lead him out the door by his right arm. And he’s alright with it. He was real drunk and I helped him get his bearings, didn’t open the door with his face or throw him down or anything.

“Then later in the night, when it’s just me and the wait staff, a bartender and barmaid, this retarded customer, a regular, comes in he doesn’t drink—doesn’t have to. He’s already there. He plays these poker machines…

[The author lost track of the many nuances and recriminations concerning this retard playing the poker machines. The long and short of it is he thinks somehow he is being ripped off and begins getting threatening.]

“Well, I can’t very well hit this guy, so I tell him he has to go and offer to take a picture of the poker screen and leave it with the owner and he can come up during the day to speak with the owner. He’s almost I tears telling me that he has a gambling problem and now he’s calmed down, and jest as I get him to the door the barmaid screams, ‘Fuck him!’

“I just told her to shut the fuck up. I had this guy calmed down and now she’s got to poor gasoline on the fire. Women have no tactical sense. They always make things worse in a touchy situation. What this woman doesn’t realize is there are only two cars on that lot. It’s one a.m. and there is all kind of stuff on that lot that could be used to break a car window and one of those cars is mine. So I eventually get him calmed down and he’s out of there. I can’t help but feel sorry for a guy like that. And I told the wait staff that since his sister and mother have already come to the bar asking that we don’t let him play on the poker machines, they shouldn’t have let him play in the first place?”

“The other night I’ve got this forty-year old man, maybe 5’ 10” 200 pounds, looks fit, is tanned, wearing a landscaping shirt. I get the word to watch out for him, that he’s been barred from down the street for sucker punching some guy. And sure enough he’s trying to pick a fight with a nice 65-year-old man. I get him by the right arm in the come-along and start walking him towards the door and he says, ‘You’re a big guy, but I think I can take you.”

“So I tell him, “Maybe so, but you are leaving this bar, the easy way or the hard way.”

“He says, ‘So you’re barring me?’

“I said, ‘No, I’m not the owner. You’re just out for the night. Right this way sir, watch your step.’

“Of course, when we get outside and it’s just me and him on the parking lot the tough talking stops and he’s one his way. I never have no cause for disrespecting or demeaning the customers. It serves no purpose, I’m nice all the way to the point of contact and then some.

Big Ron's Baltimore: A Working Man's View of Urban Blight