‘Untitled’ Prologue sample

So this is from the prologue of the new writing project I’m working on.

It’s first-person POV, which is a bit unusual for me but something I’m experimenting with more. I like the intimacy it gives of being right in the protagonists head and I think it helps me with giving the piece an authentic voice or tone, but there are obviously limitations that it brings and particularly with a protagonist like Brian who’s unlikely to wax lyrical or engage in much deep philosophical reflection. We’ll see how I manage the tight focus of first-person I suppose, but so far at least I’m finding it works to give Brian his voice and let him tell his story in his own way. Let me know if you agree (or if you don’t).

Prologue

It was Saturday night and I was working the door when it happened. I’d been working the venue long enough that I had seniority so I didn’t really have to do door shifts anymore if I didn’t want, but I kinda liked having fifteen or twenty minute stints outside where the air was fresher and there weren’t so many people.

Used to be the sort of place where Saturday nights you’d need four guys inside and two on the door. That was before they fixed up the old pub near the railway line into a club. It weren’t so busy any more since then and we were only running two inside and one doorman that night. It was an easy job. The pub was on the edge of an industrial area, not too far from the waterfront but a bit away from the main roads and the railway. You didn’t people coming out here except to come here.

The regulars here were mostly oldies putting their money into the pokies or across the bar. There was a DJ but he was pretty crap and no one came this far out of their way for the music. Other than that it was pretty standard really: a bistro which did about enough business to pay the kitchen staff; a couple of pool tables and some TVs cycling between footy, rugby and music videos; fake plants against the walls.

What I liked about it was that there was rarely any trouble.

One of the regulars, Jimmy, used to be in with the Painters-and-Dockers and would get around telling stories of how he’d known Lewis Moran in the early 90s and stuff like that. Most people who were likely to cause trouble were probably too young to be scared off by the Painters-and-Dockers but if I ever had to kick anyone out  Jimmy’d give me a wink and afterwards he’d always say ‘want me to sort ‘em out for ya?’ and we’d laugh. He drank rum and coke. Always rum and coke.

The bloke behind the bar was a kiwi. Nice enough bloke but he’d had his two front teeth knocked right out of his head and he could give you a grin that made him look hard as fuck. When he cut drunk blokes off they’d see that grin on him and then I’d give them the tap on the shoulder and they’d figure it wasn’t worth the effort.

So it came as a bit of a surprise this Saturday night when a little trouble came my way.

There was about half-a-dozen of them. A couple of girls and four young guys. They were pretty dressed up, came walking from the direction of the railway lines with the girls carrying their high-heels and laughing at the sky. I figured that meant they either got put out of the other club or they never got in. Either way I figured we wouldn’t want them either. I got on my radio while they were still a way up the street and by the time they were at the door there was me and Rangi waiting for them. Rangi was barely nineteen but he was already a strapping kid. He stood a couple inches taller than I did and looked as tough as they come. He reckoned his uncle had played Rugby internationally for Samoa against Jonah Lomu. When I looked at Rangi I believed it.

The first kid tried to go past us without looking, like he could pretend we weren’t there. I put my hand on his chest.

‘Hold up mate. We’ll need some IDs.’ I said. The girls started fumbling their purses and the kid at the front went into his pocket but there was one of them up the back just trying to hang in the shadows. ‘Your mate too,’ I said, loud enough that they could all hear.

‘Just get your ID out,’ one of the girls said to her friends. She showed me hers and I made a show of looking at it, but really my eyes were on the kid at the back. Something wasn’t right with him. I gave the girl her licence back.

‘Hey mate,’ I said. ‘Come up here and give us a look at you.’ He was slow to react, but he stepped forward. Straight away I knew he was trouble. He stared right at me with wide eyes and pupils so big his whole eye looked black, like there was no colour in it at all. He swayed a little, and his shoulders shook. His whole body was bulging and tense, with drugs, with gym-weights, with the frustration of not having his own girl…

‘Don’t reckon we’ll be able to help you guys tonight I’m afraid,’ I said. There was a chorus of disappointment and complaint. ‘What the fuck?’ and shit like that, and the girls pleading, ‘oh he’s alright, he just needs a place to sit down.’ I never took my eyes off him though. I’d been in enough fights to know when someone wanted to start one. He glared at me.

‘Fuck you you racist fuck!’ He spat at my feet. In my younger days that probably would’ve been enough but I’d mellowed a bit post-thirty. I was too old to be tangling with drug-fucked kids in the streets.

‘Don’t reckon insulting me’s doing you any favours either mate,’ I said. I smiled, sweet and innocent and ugly. ‘Probably best you move on. There’s others waiting.’ There was too. One of the regulars, a bloke about my age, name of Tom, with a young tart on his arm who he’d probably paid for and now wanted to show off to his mates at the pub. He spoke up now.

‘Hey Brian, Rangi. No trouble is there?’

‘Nah mate, no trouble.’ I said it to the young kid with the black eyes.

‘Just as well,’ turned to one of the other kids who weren’t getting in. ‘Hate to see you have to hurt these young-uns.’ It was a joke meant for me. It found the wrong audience – had the wrong effect.

The kid Tom’d spoke to said ‘Fuck you old man’, but the kid I was watching didn’t say a word. The knife came out of nowhere.

{to be continued…}