Street Fight!

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:31:46

So I’m coming back from Cafe Mondegar, 2nd most famous place on the Causeway, with a skinful on board, which has taken the edge off spending the entire day roasting my balls trying to get the phone to work.Some of you will recognize this is becoming something of a trend. No matter, I’m on my way home looking forward to a cold shower, a drink of warm water and a typically sleepless night – thats how it is, them’s the breaks.
I step onto the junction corner at Leopold’s that is the only happening spot at kicking-out time, and this teenage punk who has just turned the key on his Bhajaj Bullet (nice gastank, pseudo-Harley affair) is getting ready to pull away from the kerb. ‘Get outta my way’ he says, adding that subtle little lift of the nose and jaw (feel free to practise in the mirror) that says ‘ I have more coolth than you, I recognise you as food for my ego and may command you as I wish’…..or something.

Maybe he’s riding high because he’s scored, maybe he’s showing off his new girlfriend to his pud-pulling footsoldiers….maybe he’s just delusional….all i can tell you is that the impeccably correct response is to look him square in the eye, and simultaneously give him the sublimely disrespectful nose snub back, whilst saying “I’m not in your fucking way!”

He squawks and bleats, the way that teenage punkage does the world over, leaving me amused and thinking shit, boyo – did you EVER choose the wrong day to piss me off. He turns the key back to off…….oooohhh, thats emphatic – and everybody knows it…….No, don’t get off the bike…don’t get off the bike i say, but not too loudly because by this time what I want him to do is….get off the bike. Oh alright then, get off the bike methinks altho this is already turning into typical after-pub ‘verbals’. He wants to fight….i mumble some platitudes to remind him i wasnt in his way, but designed to not sway him from his course of action, and place my cowboy hat on the roof of the taxi, my diary on the bonnet. Let him know I’m taking him seriously – its not in my nature to humiliate one of the lower lifeforms in public…..think of who i would have to answer to for that….(cue scary music)
It could be that I ridiculed him by laughing derisively when i saw him at his full stretch, but I was distracted by the screeching harridan girlfriend, clearly gearing up for some volume 11 verbals of her own. My, but she’s feisty – and the last thing i need is a wannabe amazon I’m not allowed to hit, when i’m squaring up to Johnny Hardcore #1. The usual pitiful micro-drama ensues, i again remind the injured party that i was fully 10 yards away when he hadnt even pulled away, but this is of course merely an adrenalin-gathering exercise. The noise from the idiot harpy is approaching a scream, but this is filtered out because we have arrived at the point where the signals need to be prioritised, and focus on the visual.
Enter stage left Freddy Sixpack and he’s setting off the radar – because he’s sidling up the left flank and he’s more worrying – he has muscles. I remain focussed on the main offender and give him a half-hearted ‘pseudo-bruce’, knowing that he’s already committed, then i incense him with the ‘Morpheus invite’ *, take 2 sidesteps to the left so he’s on my right, and in he comes.Bit like an ambush.
Never learned to fight…not properly, so I really only have one shot. Can see an upper cut with the right in my mind’s eye – but thats never going to happen so the left hook it is. Don’t take your eye off the ball. He hit my fist with the underside of his jaw, went all flexible-like at the knees and bit the pavement harder than Chinese algebra. No time to celebrate – although the girlfriend is satisfyingly muted. Sixpack on my left, incoming, turn and face, breath deeply……..
“you want fight me?…you want fight me?” – more verbals, like he thinks he wants to, but isn’t sure…fortunately he seems to have come from the ‘gutbarging’ school of close combat, so he can be fended off with 4 fingers to the chest as I look him in the eye sayng “Who are you?” repeatedly….it becomes apparent that he’s no friend really of our fallen hero, he just fancied having a crack at….rubbing his belly up against mine.
Johnny hardcore is up and pulling his belt out through its loops, giving it the standard issue “you think you fuck me I fuck you I fuck you real good” blah yawn drone woof woof……the police have turned up complete with paddy wagon and what was farce could turn serious. They push me towards the wagon and ask the assemblage of locals, who have been thoroughly enjoying themselves, for the story. Freddy sixpack seems to think he has been deputised – starts trying to push me into the open backdoor of the paddywagon! – full marks for chutzpah, but really! – what a cunt!
Its time to slip into the night so whilst Mumbai’s finest dig for the truth, thats what i do. All I have to worry about now is whether Johnny fuckup has 29 biker friends who can fight better than he.

Next morning I head to Leopold for breakfast, keep my head down. The guy selling coconut and sweetcorn on the corner recognises me, smiles, and starts shadow-boxing like I was Sylvester Stallone. Oh Shit…….any reputation better than none, I suppose!

Adam x

*from the ‘Neo’s fighting Morpheus!’ scene in ‘The Matrix’

‘this is where the teenage punks face meets the road!’