Unfamiliar Territory

Chapter 4: Rebel

I got to the bar fifteen minutes before my shift was supposed to start and it looked and smelled worse than earlier. I parked my truck furthest from the door for safety reasons but also because of the pile up of motorcycles by the door. I walked around the bikes trying my hardest to ignore the large men standing around them eyeing me. Rolling my eyes I walked inside the bar and got hit by that same scent that had attracted me before. Lovely.

I walked to the bar and the same bartender greeted me with a half smile, but it looked more weird than inviting.

"Milla," he said his raspy voice coating the letters of my name. "Catch", he said tossing me a black waitress apron. "Now go." He turned back around leaving me with my mouth wide open at the bar.

"Come with me," said an older waitress taking me to the back room behind the bar, her name tag said her name was Kathy. "Leave your stuff here and listen carefully. Your tables are 1-13, they are all numbered, the other tables are managed by the other girls, there's a chart somewhere at the bar if James didn't get rid of it. He's the bartender. Basically, you take their order for drinks and bring it out, or food, doesn't matter. Keep track of what they get so you can charge them correctly. These people love to steal remember that. Don't trust the customers and don't talk back to them. It's fairly simple. If you have questions you can ask me not James, he's useless."

I nodded and put the apron on and in the corner it had a little snake logo and it spelled out Tipsy Snake.

After about thirty minutes I had solidified that everyone in this place was disgusting. The men drenched with sweat and immorality lined the chairs of the bar, staring up at the dancers like they were objects. Their eyes canvasing their mature bodies. The dancers were grown women, all in their mid thirties except one girl who didn't look older than I. Over the course of learning the table structure here, I learned about the different gangs and where they sat in accordance to your rank. Mostly because Kathy would whisper to me every time we were close.

"Those are the Sons of Silence, big group but their leader was killed a few months back and they are dealing with a lot of inner turmoil. They sit in the back, I assume they are plotting their rise, but they could also be jerking each other off. Who knows?"

I wouldn't answer her but I would nod and absorb all the information anyway, not knowing what was useless and what wasn't.

People constantly came in and out of the bar, but from what I could tell they were always busy and there was never a dull moment. Fights broke out as quickly as they would end, because James had a strict rule to leave the shit for the outside according to Kathy.

As I cleaned off one of the tables by the bar, I heard the door open for what seemed like the 800th time,and a group of men, younger than the usual suspects, walked in and made a beeline for the empty table in the middle of the room. My table.

James raised an eyebrow at me as I didn't move from my spot by the table I was cleaning, as if asking why I wasn't moving. I turned away from him and walked over to the middle table.

"Welcome to the Tipsy Snake, what can I get for you?" I asked ready for another wave of disgusting catcalls.

"8 beers on tap, James knows the drill," said one of the guys without looking up at me.

None of them really paid much attention to me as I walked away exhaling the breathe stuck in my lungs. They were... decent.

The door opened again and I internally sighed. But walking in I saw Ignacio followed by a group of Hispanic men with him as they placed themselves in the back, another of my tables, but bared their teeth at the group in the middle.