I want you to imagine a packed line of beautiful people waiting to get into a big fancy nightclub. It's hugely popular, and everybody wants to get in. Do you see it? Good. Keep imagining that, but now, look across the street from the club, and you're going to see something that is a little bit different. See it? The one guy in the hoodie with the biggest sign he could find, the sign that says "PRIVATE CLUBS SUCK"? That guy is me. Or rather it was me a couple of months ago. In hindsight, it was possibly the oddest and loneliest protest in the history of protests, but dammit, it was my protest, so I'm actually proud of it.

I started the protest after I got kicked out of what everyone refers to as HTDK, but was officially known as the Hall of the Drunken King. While it might have once been clever, the name was a bit of a mouthful and hard as hell to market to the hip young crowd ready to spend cash. This was before I started the support group I was telling you about. Every week on my day off of work, I'd head down to the club and make a pain in the ass of myself.

Sammy and Claude both shared the opinion that it was one hell of a way to waste my day off, but since I only did it for about an hour just to make the point, I could easily justify it to myself. After all, I still had the rest of the night to work with where I could make some pretence of being normal or whatever. For that one hour though, rubbing it in the face of the elite vampire pricks who attended the club that I was still alive, and there was nothing they could do about it, it was totally worth it.

It's my civic duty, really it is.

***

Claude came over one day while I was trying to make a new sign.

"I need a new slogan," I said as he entered the apartment. He gave it some thought and immediately grabbed the Xbox controller from the couch. He had brought it over the week before but honestly, he played it more than I did, but at least it gave him the pretext to come over and keep an eye on me even if we both pretended that that was clearly what he was not doing.

"Something obvious or sneakier, more subversive?" Claude asked.

"Subversive. I'm not looking to get my head ripped off by Harry for spilling any secrets."

Claude frowned at the mention of Harry's name. He didn't like Harry, but for completely different reasons than I did.

"How much can you really say on a sign anyway?" he asked. " I mean you only have so much space."

"I once saw a dude who had a whole page from the bible on the front of one sign. He had to use really small lettering, but he made it all fit. Kinda had to squeeze to fit the last bit, but he got it in."

Claude turned his attention to his game and scoffed at me.

"Like people even read anymore these days." He turned back to me with an amused look. "I can't believe you're actually doing this."

"I'm making a stand for the little man: me."

"What does Harry think of your little parlour trick?"

***

I could lie and say that Harry loved what I was doing, but I'm not that good of a liar. As a general rule, Harry hated everything that had to do with me.

"Bob, what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Harry himself had come outside the first night I had shown up with my sign.

I had watched the human bouncers watching me from across the street, and there had been a lot of talking into their walkie-talkies and lots of threatening looks thrown my way. Then a couple of the vampire bouncers had shown up, and the threatening looks had become promises of a sustained and brutal beating. I was beginning to rethink any life choices that had led me to think that this one man protest had ever been a good idea when Harry emerged from the club.

He had stared at me for a long moment, and I had somehow managed to resist the urge to run away very quickly. I had suddenly developed the urge to find the nearest bathroom, but that was just my body trying to take over and give me an excuse to run away. To say I was shitting bricks is an understatement. I somehow did a very good job of not showing it.

Harry had asked his question almost conversationally as if he already knew the answer but was still considering beating it out of me anyway. I tried to look as unpunchable as possible.

"I'm just standing here, minding my own business," I said as innocently as I could.

"You're standing here with a sign," Harry pointed out helpfully.

"Oh, this? Damn, is that what this is? How did that get there?"

The sign that night had read "THIS CLUB SUCKS!"

"You're protesting the club," Harry said, and I had nodded.

"I'm protesting the club. You caught me."

"You think you're being clever with your little protest don't you?"

"But not too clever. I still remember the rules, and I definitely don't want to break any of those. I know how you are about rules." I conceded. I grinned my best hopeful grin. "You know, if you let me back in, I won't have anything to protest..."

"Not a chance. You pissed off a lot of people, and now you're pissing off more of them with this stunt."

"I'm pissing off a lot of people just by living."

"That goes without saying."

"You gonna shut me down?"

"You kidding? You're the best warning to some of these new kids about what might happen when they screw up."

"I could come in and give a speech, grab a drink or three..."

Harry was already walking away from me by that point.

"Stay on your side of the street Bob."

 ***************************

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QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you think about killing a vampire with a gun?  If anything, it should slow that bastard down a lot, right?  Let me know in the comments below.