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Physical Altercations


Brewster McCloud

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A few.

When I was around 19 or so, I used to have long, slightly scruffy dyed hair, and used to shove a load of product in it, resulting in me getting told I looked like Noel Fielding on an alarmingly regular basis. My fashion sense lent a bit more in the goth direction in those days, too. So it was an extremely regular occurrence for me to get some kind of verbal abuse shouted at me across the street, or from moving cars (despite TLC's repeated admonishments against hollering from the passenger side of one's best friend's ride), and the occasional drunken prick trying to start stuff. I usually ignored it, but after a while it starts to grate on you, and I started to think less of the "if you rise to it, you're as bad as them" argument, and think that actually someone needed to call these idiots out on their shit. More than anything, if I had a couple of drinks in me, I was more likely to at the very least say something back at them - generally I had the attitude that Jersey's a safe place, that none of these people hurling abuse at strangers have ever been in a fight or anything resembling one and wouldn't know what to do with themselves if someone answers back, and that if someone wants to hit you they just will, they won't tell you that they're going to. 

Anyway, I'm walking up a back alley with the then-girlfriend, having had a couple of drinks at her place and heading out to the pub. Group of teenagers walking up the other way, I overhear them insulting me to one another. One of them purposefully barges into my shoulder, knocking me back as they walk past. I ask him what he thinks he's doing, and he immediately clams up and meekly accuses me of having walked into him - I say that I heard what they were saying, and as I say this, I spot one of his mates emptying a beer bottle behind him, and become acutely aware that there's a lot more of them than of me. Eventually, the main lad just headbutts me across the bridge of the nose. Apparently I barely flinched, just turned to my girlfriend with blood pouring out of my nose, and calmly said, "I didn't really want that to happen", at which point they all fucked off. She was furious that I got myself in the situation, but was convinced that my complete lack of reaction to getting my nose broken freaked them out so much they didn't try anything else. 

The pub we were planning on going to had a bouncer on the door, so I went into my local, which is only about a two minute walk away, walked in covered in blood and apologising to the barman, walked into the toilets, cleaned myself up, and then continued on with my night. I didn't really realise how bad things were until the following morning, when I had a glass of water when I woke up, and the rim of the glass touching the bridge of my nose was agony. My nose is still a little crooked to this day as a result. Icing on the cake was that my girlfriend got off with my mate later the same night, and we broke up as a result.

 

Another, about 4-5 years ago took place, weirdly, in the same alley. I was in a club with friends, very messy night out, mid-week. One friend was a bit drunker than I was, and on her way outside for a fag, pushed into someone by mistake. The girl she nudged took offence, and started having a go at her. Her boyfriend joined in, getting up in the face of a woman literally half his size, being an absolute prick about it. I stepped in to play peacemaker, the bloke shoved me, bouncers stepped in and dragged them both outside, asked me to wait over by the bar. A few minutes later, they came back to me and asked if I could leave as well, as the pricks were saying I'd started it by shoving them.

I leave, and they're still on the doorstep of the club hurling abuse at me. One of the other bouncers recognises me from going there quite often, and lets me hang about for a few minutes, hoping they'll calm down. The bloke fucks off, but the woman stays there shouting and swearing, listing a bunch of names I don't recognise, saying she's "mates with all the bikers" and they'll "sort me out". I'm basically laughing it off, but I'm not going to leave until they're out of the way. The police happen to drive past as this is going on, get out of the car and ask what happened - I know one of them, and explain the situation to him. They move the woman along, and I say I'm just worried about my friend, because if they were prepared to be hurling abuse at and threatening me, they'd be equally unpleasant to the girl who they kicked off at in the first place. While I'm talking to the police, she comes outside, and we decide all's fine, and we'll head home.

We stop for chips, and are stood standing on the corner of this alley across the street, when I feel something clock me across the back of my head. The woman that had been moved on, at this point an hour or so earlier, jumped me from behind and punched me a couple of times in the back of the head. She's got a couple of friends with her, one of them egging her on and insulting me, the other one doing the old "he's not worth it luv". I don't fight back, because I don't want to give any of her mates ammunition by being seen to hit a woman, and I don't know if I could have brought myself to hit her in the first place. I put my arms up to protect myself, and managed to avoid getting hit again, but instead she grabs my arm and just fucking bites it. I don't really remember much of what happened after that, or how it all ended.
I end up leaving my friends to get home, and start walking off...the taxi queue is in the direction the woman and her mates went, so really don't want to head that way just in case, so I call my girlfriend and ask if I can stop at her place for the night, then start walking in that direction. As I'm about five minutes away, the same police car pulls up next to me, the same cop I spoke to earlier jumps out, asks what happened and if I'm okay. Turns out I've got a bit of a black eye, and a cut down the side of my head that I hadn't noticed it, he'd spotted it and obviously remembered our conversation from earlier. I explained what had happened, and he insisted that I go to A&E to get the bite checked out, and then to the police station. At this point it's gone 3am, I've already told my girlfriend I'm coming back to hers, and she has work in the morning, so I say I'll do it the next day.

Following day I do end up giving a statement at the police station, which takes the better part of two hours, including having photos taken of every cut and bruise, and them taking my shirt (which was torn from the collar during the scuffle) as evidence. About a week or so later, I get a phonecall saying that the woman had claimed I'd started it, that I had hit her and wrenched her arm, and that while the policeman I spoke to believed me, and that they had no physical evidence that the woman had been hit, there was no CCTV, so the most likely end result was a court case that could well result in both of us being charged with affray, so he advised I drop it. I've still got a slight scar on my arm from that fucking bite.

 

Finally, about three years ago, I'm in a club chatting to a mate, and this prick starts getting up in my face. He's not saying anything, just gurning at me, then mock blowing kisses and shit. First couple of times I just do a "do you mind?", then when he keeps coming I give him a slight push, then he gets right up in my face nose-to-nose, so I just instinctively butted my head forward, just catching him across the nose. Not enough to do any damage, but enough to knock him back. I immediately felt bad about it - it's really not my style at all - but my mate said he had it coming, and it was probably the best thing I could have done under the circumstances.

About half an hour passes, I'm chatting to a different friend at the bar, and this guy (who I thought had left the club) comes out of nowhere and tackles me to the ground. He punches me a couple of times, though manages to avoid doing any actual damage - I had a bruised lip for a day or two, and that was about all. His mate drags him off, and he gets kicked out, I get back to my feet and go about the rest of my night - I think my friends were more shaken by it all than I was, I just wanted to put it behind me and have another drink. The barman calls me over, he's spoken to his manager, who's really apologetic that the bouncer didn't catch anything, and offers me a free drink. He says he'll fully support me if I want to press charges or anything, but I say I can't be bothered and just want to get on with my night. The main thing going through my head as it was all happening was that I was refereeing a show the next day and that I would have been really pissed off if I ended up with a black eye or anything. 

 

Think that's the lot!

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Yeah. The main things to take away from this thread if you want to avoid getting a smack on a night out seems to be 1) don’t dress as a cowboy and 2) absolutely stay the fuck away from the alley by BomberPat. And if you go into that particular alley whilst dressed as a cowboy, well, you deserve everything that happens to you. 

I did think I was going to have to get into something late one night a few months back though. It must’ve been about 1:30am and I was in bed. My wife and daughter were asleep and my son, who must’ve been about 2 or 3 weeks old, was conked out. Our bedroom is at the front of the house, overlooking the driveway and path to the front door. I heard what sounded like someone fucking about with the door. My wife could sleep through a St Paddy’s Day parade but I’ve always been a really light sleeper. A cat can fart 4 houses away and I’ll wake up. So with this I was obviously wide awake. I thought I’m not having this. 1:30 in the bastard morning. Who’s this dickhead and what’s he playing at? I got up, put my best mean mug on and went downstairs as the Biggie lyric from ‘Warning’ popped into my head - “There’s gonna be a lot of slow singing and flower bringing if my burglar alarm starts ringing”. I meant business. Right until I got to the hallway and saw that there actually was someone standing by my front door. Then my arse started going and I imagine my Anthony Joshua game face quickly turned into a look of distressed gormlessness reminiscent of Karl Pilkington that time the ‘terrorists’ kidnapped him on An Idiot Abroad.

Anyway, I shouted ‘Who is it?’ Like a twat. Like he’s going to say ‘I’m a burglar’ or ‘I’ve come to abduct your kids’. Or worse ‘We’re Jehovas Witnesses’. No answer. I said again, ‘Who is it?’ Fuck all. But they were mumbling something I couldn’t make out. Then I realised they were fucking about with a key. A sense of relief hit me as I thought it must just be a neighbour who’s been out on the piss and they’ve come home drunk and got the wrong house. Thank fuck. I was relieved but still pissed off at the inconvenience. I moved to open the door. Bracing myself with the nearest hard object to hand - in this case a tin of Febreze air freshener. Pathetic. I opened the door and to my surprise it was the lad from next door. Not drunk. As I was later to find out he was sleepwalking. He’s only 15 but he’s a big lad and he was just standing there blankly staring at me. I asked what he was doing and quickly realised he wasn’t with it and tried to guide him back round to his house. He wasn’t having any of it. Anyway, long fuck-about but from the tiny bit of speech I caught he must’ve thought it was me who was in his house and he got aggressive and tried to force his way in. Looking back it would’ve looked comical if any of the neighbours saw it. A 5’6” 33 year old wrestling with a much bigger zombie kid on the door step. But at the time, even mid-wrestling match, I was thinking what do I do here? I’ve got to defend myself but he’s a child. In the scuffle he somehow gave me a dead leg of all things (a fucking dead leg!) and dropped the nut on me while I just tried to keep him at bay and minimise the damage. Then he suddenly just seemed to snap out of it and stopped. I was on edge not knowing if he was going to kick off again, with a lump growing on my head where he nutted me and a leg which now had that horrible fizzy feeling that you get when your dead leg is wearing off. Luckily the commotion woke his sister up and she ran and got their mum. She couldn’t apologise enough and she came round again with the lad the next day to apologise again. He had no recollection of it and was really embarrassed. Apparently he’s been sleepwalking for years but never to that extreme. Freaked me right out at the time. Thank fuck I didn’t whack him with the deadly foreign object that was the can of Febreze. I’d be a headline on Chat magazine - ‘Neighbour callously murdered my son with air freshener’. We all laugh about it now but I admit I was jumpy the next few nights. Maybe he just fancied headbutting me and had the sleepwalking alibi in his back pocket. The whole thing was weird as fuck though and definitely didn’t do my street cred any good when, for the next week or so, my wife proceeded to tell the story to every cunt we’d ever met. 

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