Zakhar Prilepin - Sin

The barman Vadik extended him a lighter.

The poser took a few seconds to light up, looking at Vadik, and deliberately keeping the cigarette away from the flame. Vadik moved the lighter towards him, and the poser moved his head, mockingly moving his fat lips holding the filter.

It’s my conviction that people like this should be killed immediately, and that no one should ever regret it.

But I’m the bouncer here, I get paid for doing other things.

I’m not even obliged to protect Vadik. Barmen are crooks, at the end of the night there’s bound to be a scandal: one of the customers will discover that they have been charged for several dishes that nobody ordered.

I’m surprised that barmen don’t get beaten up: customers prefer to beat each other up, and break the dishes.

Although I feel sorry for Vadik now.

“Why aren’t there any girls here?” the poser asked, finally lighting up.

Vadik mumbled something in reply, to the effect that it was probably too early in the day.

“Maybe I should screw you, how about that?”

The barman rubbed the glasses, not replying.

The poser smiled, not taking his eyes off Vadik. I saw all of this from the store room, where I was tying my shoelaces.

It really gets me down to see men acting incapably like this: poor Vadik, how does he live if this is what he’s like. He’s taller than I am, and of average build. He’s a pale, quite charming guy.

He has a girlfriend, quite striking, she sometimes turns up before the club opens, and reads a textbook — she’s a student. Vadik pours her some coffee, and she drinks it neatly, not tearing her eyes away from the page. If she could hear this now, if only she could see it.

No one prohibits Vadik from saying something insulting to the poser, to call him a mud toad, a fatlipped scumbag.

And if the poser tries to hit the barman, then I will have to intervene.

But Vadik just keeps furiously rubbing the glasses.

I tied my shoelaces and came out, and sat on a stool at the bar, next to the poser.

And here I realized that he was not my enemy. His fingers were puffy and pink; his fist was feeble and soft, like a frog’s belly, he hadn’t hit anyone with this hand for a long time.

“What are you carrying on for?” I asked, looking at him.

He didn’t show any sign of alarm, of course — he reacted to me calmly.

“It’s all OK, we’re just talking. Right, Vadim?”

The barman had his name written on a tag attached to his shirt.

Vadik nodded.

“Can I get you a beer?” the poser offered.

“Sure,” I said.

I wasn’t allowed to drink at work, but the owner hadn’t turned up yet. Also, I drink a bit every night anyway, and pretend to hide this from the owner — and the owner, in his turn, pretends that he doesn’t notice how badly, without inspiration, I hide this from him.

Vadik poured me a beer, and with pleasure I drank almost the whole glass in one gulp.

Sometimes I swear not to drink at the customers’ expense, so as not to get close to them, but every time I break my word.

Now the poser will start talking to me. He’ll start probing with his fingernail, half-joking, half-insulting, and see what reaction he gets: it’s the usual habit of a lowlife — to find out who you’re dealing with.

“Where were you hiding when I came in?” he asked.

“I didn’t see you. You’re not noticeable,” I replied, got up, and pushing away the glass, went to my usual spot.

It’s a wooden counter by the entrance to the club; to the left is a glass door that leads outside, to the right is a glass door to the club. There are two tall stools by the counter. I sit at one of them, Zakhar is my name, and my partner sits on the other, he’s called Syoma, but I call him Molotok, Hammer, because he has the wonderful surname Molotilov.

Unlike me, he doesn’t smoke and never drinks alcohol. He’s also about forty kilograms heavier than me. He knows how to hit a person in the chest, say, or in the abdomen so that it makes a noise like hitting a pillow. A dull but juicy “boom!” I can’t do that.

I’m sure that Molotok is stronger than I am, but for some reason he considers me to be the one in charge.

He’s always in a good mood.

He came in with his usual smile, out of the evening cold after the rain, with his jacket swishing, stamping his boots, a great, reliable guy, with a handshake with a pressure of four atmospheres, and a bag of sandwiches over his shoulder. He needs constant nourishment.

And he himself is designed simply and honestly, like a good sandwich, without any distracting thoughts or any melancholy. The conversation will start with the fact that it’s gotten colder outside, then he’ll ask whether Lev Borisych, the owner of the club, has arrived, then he’ll tell me how much weight he lifted today in the bench press.

“Who’s that jerk sitting there?” Syoma asked, nodding towards the poser.

I shrugged. I didn’t feel like telling him about Vadik.

The first customers started to arrive. Businesslike young guys, stern pale girls: the usual night-time crowd, everyone still sober and quite respectable.

It’s unlikely that any one of them can seriously upset us. Young people wear too firm an expression of confidence on their faces — but this is what reassured us. To get the better of them, all you had to do was to make their confidence waver for a second.

In general, you need to work extremely quickly and aggressively here. A fight starts with an abrupt noise: something falls down loudly, a table, a chair, dishes, sometimes everything at once. We react to noise. Syoma always works silently, I may sometimes shout angrily, Everyone sit down! for example, although sitting is not necessary at all, and perhaps it’s even better to stand.

We single out the loudest — and throw them out the door.

These seconds on the way from the scene of the fight to the door are the most important in our job. Here a ferocious onslaught is indispensable. The person has to understand that he’s literally been carried out of the café — and hasn’t been hit once. He loses confidence, but doesn’t have time to get angry. If we hit him, then he will have the right to get angry, and try to hit us in response. Getting into a fight with the customers is vulgar dilettantism. We try not to do this, although we’re not always successful, of course.

I’ve heard that in neighboring clubs there have been situations when angry drunken groups beat up the security, and threw the bouncers out on the street with their faces smashed. I’d be very unhappy if something like that happened to me.

But you’ve got to admit that there’s nothing unusual about this: for every bouncer there’ll always be some animal that is stronger and more persistent; especially if there are several of these animals.

But there are just two of us, Molotok and I. For a club like this, four bouncers wouldn’t be enough, but Lev Borisych, who as I already said is the owner, is incomparably economical.

The young people showed us their tickets — blue strips of paper with a stamp and price on them. Syoma cocked a cheerful eye at the girls.

As always, Lev Borisych entered swiftly, carrying his enormous stomach past us lightly; he nodded to us, barely noticeably, without opening his mouth for a greeting.

Molotok greeted him, but without any sign of servility — he’s just friendly in general.

I didn’t say anything, I didn’t even nod in response. Lev Borisych passes by so quickly, that I could quite easily say hello to him when he can no longer see me, as he opens the door to the club. Let him think that that’s the way things are: the heavy glass door has long been swinging before me, barely dispelling the thick scent of the owner’s eau de cologne, and I’m still saying “…ello… ysovich!..”