A night with NYC’s ejected clubbers

I was ejected from my first club two weeks into my Freshman year of college.

The idea was to sneak me past the bouncer because I, as an underaged scoundrel, would not be allowed in without some sort of refugee-like entrance plan. So my friends herded together with their fake ID’s, trying to conceal me, the five foot eleven delinquent, behind flirtatious smiles and a cloud of over-sprayed perfume.

Everything seemed to be working out fine. The bouncer had nodded my “squad” in one by one, paying me no mind as I walked through the door of Bar 13 and into the promised land of neon lights and sweaty bodies.

It was too good to be true, too easy, too perfect. I was going to have the night of my life with my new college friends

“Hold it,” the bouncer said.

I looked around — surely he didn’t mean me. I was already in buy-me-a-drink-it’s-totally-not-illegal seductress mode. But surely enough, there he was, gesturing for me to come back over with a disapproving glare. I glanced back into the crowd for my friends, who were already primed and ready to coerce suckers into purchasing them mojitos at the bar.

I shifted uncomfortably in my skin tight dress, it appeared as though I had no other choice. So I pursed my lips and strutted back over to him in my way too tall heels.

“ID please,” he said.

I cocked my head to the side and furrowed my brow, “But I already gave it to you.”

The bouncer maintained the same stone cold countenance, “Nice try,” he said, “out.”

It was only later I learned that being kicked out of bars and clubs is a sort of right of passage in New York. Bearing that in mind, I thought it might be a good idea to stand outside of clubs and interview the over-zealous party rejects after the fact.

“Live hard, ball hard,” Eric drunkenly slurred outside of Le Bain on Washington Street.

Only minutes before, he and his group of friends, Carissa, Jordan and Pete were ejected by the club’s bouncer on the grounds of being too rowdy.

“So you don’t mind that you were kicked out?” I asked.

In response, a drunken Pete grabbed Eric’s shoulder’s, “Nah man, we’re just rollin’ past these uptight bouncers and flying into the wind,” Pete said, “then fate takes us the rest of the way.”

“And where is that?” I asked.

“Another club man.” Pete and Eric exchanged a number of sloppy bro shakes.

I spent quite a bit of time in front of Le Bain that night, watching as squads, fams and baes of all kinds walked in and out of the club’s glass doors. Occasionally, the bouncer would reject some right off the bat, scoffing at their IDs and nodding in the opposite direction. These, I found, were the most bitter of all those ejected from the club.

“This sucks,” one said in passing, “it’s the ID from Arizona, no one checks up on the West Coast.”

“Fucking asshole,” said another. Rolling her eyes at the bouncer before skulking away.

Not all reactions were so extreme. Some just gave a huff of annoyance and turned on their heels, gathering their friends to brainstorm a new plan for the night.

“It’s funny,” Patrick, the club’s bouncer, said. “It’s like they expect me not to do my job, you know? Like, this is the law, I didn’t make the rules.”

Patrick was a six foot five wall of muscle sporting a shaved head and a leather jacket. When I began talking to him, he told me he “didn’t have time for this shit”. But after I approached him two or three times between interviews, he began to open up, telling me some great stories about who he’s had to turn away.

“There was this one chick who thew up all over the the ground right there, right in front of me, and she still expected to go in the club. I don’t care how old you are, that shit’s nasty.” Patrick shook his head, “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you in after that.”

I told him some of the other stories I had accumulated over the course of the night, even sharing my own. When I got to Eric and Pete’s from earlier, Patrick stopped me.

“Was this the short kid with the crazy curly hair?” he asked.

I confirmed that that was, in fact, what the Eric had looked like.

“That kid told me his dad would sue me for kicking him out,” he laughed, “I get jerks like that all the time. I told them to get the fuck out, so they did, and one of the girls spit on my shoes on the way out.”

Patrick shook his head, “Like I wanna be doing this all night. I can’t stand those drunk assholes.”