By Sam Smith
Published: February 21, 2008
Updated: October 27, 2008 PrintEmail
15) Fighting
Paul's drink is finished. He goes to the bar for another. A man steps jarring into Paul. The man is drunk. Paul waits for him to move himself.
The man looks up at Paul, at this tall big-nosed man. Paul has on his moving-through-a-crowd face. The man below Paul has bloodshot eyes. He sees on Paul the expression of amused tolerance that many tall men wear. The man's knuckles jolt off the rounded side of Paul's ribs.
In the thick of the crowd near the bar Paul has nowhere to go. Nor does that thought initially cross his mind. First comes the realisation that this man has purposefully hit him.
Part-smile fixed he tries to think why this man should want to hit him, was it him he meant to hit? He doesn't recognise him from anywhere, nor has he just now bumped into him. Next he sees the man pulling back his arm to try to punch him in the face. The arm pulled back jostles the men around him. They begin to turn to see what all the bumping's about and Paul realises that it really is him the man wants to hit.
Years of Bridgwater training now lead him to come in close and grapple the man to him until he can find out why. And he thinks it had to happen while Julie was here.
Having bear-hugged him, Paul can't now keep his balance. The two of them topple through the crowd towards the bar. Drinks spill. The crowd shouts and shoves back. The barman screams, "Out!"
Julie, sitting at the round table with its clean ashtray, sees Paul come tottering out of the crowd with the shorter man held to him. The man is older than Paul. He is pale and red-eyed. His face contorts with effort as he tries to free his arms. Paul, though, has him so tightly held that all the man can do is try to butt him. He can't: Paul has his head pressed down against the man's, so all that is happening as the man furiously jerks his head back and forth is that they are rubbing heads.
The joined pair of them have come to a standstill by the flickering fruit machine, have set it rocking back and forth. The fruit machine's pattern of lights stays the same.
Some of the men in the bar are now laughing at the spectacle.
"Stop them!" Julie feels the shriek open her face.
The barman has come busily from behind the wet bar. He is skinny and, feeling himself watched, is red in the face.
"Stop them!" Julie commands him.
"The two of you," he officiously shoves Paul in the back, "Out!" An incoming customer has opened the door.
The flat-handed shove is enough to send Paul and the man tottering towards the open door. The man jerks and writhes. He is now trying to knee Paul in the groin, to kick his shins, to grind his heels on Paul's instep. Paul stays intent on keeping his balance and keeping hold of this sudden enemy.
"Stop it!" Julie stamps her foot.
Paul and the man bounce off a doorjamb and come to a stop in the doorway beside the customer, who stands looking at them with raised eyebrows.
"Out, I said," the skinny barman steps forward and, to cheers, gives them another push. The pair pass over the bristled threshold and the customer smartly slams the door, stands looking through its small thick-paned window.
"Let me pass," Julie orders him.
"Don't bother yourself love," the man says. "Like some new sort of dance. Silly buggers."
"Out of my way!" Julie screams at his back. Some men in the bar hoot. She pulls at the man's sweatshirt.
"Suit yourself. Suit yourself," he steps aside.
To shouted laughter Julie emerges onto the pavement.
Two policemen from a white transit are stood on either side of Paul and the jerking man still held to him. Another policeman is climbing slowly down from the back of the van.
"Come on lads." Paul feels a hand on his shoulder. "Break it up now."
"Police?" Paul's face is buried in the man's neck. Squinting out he sees black trousers and round black shoes, "You got him?"
The man, all twitching muscle and hard hairiness, has gone still. Paul releases his arms and steps back in under the policeman's hand.
The man, without Paul's enfolding support, staggers first to the side, sways back and, at the same time, launches a fist at Paul's face. Paul can't go any further back because of the solid policeman behind him. The lumpy knuckles ruck up his cheek and scrape across his eyeball.
"Hey!" the policeman opposite Paul shouts, reaching forward for the man's arms.
The pain travels like a red light through Paul's head and down in an internal arc to his stomach. The red light rebounds as white anger. Who is this man? Paul's arm whips out and his fist cracks on the man's nose.
"Cunt!" Paul shouts.
"Jesus," the policeman behind Paul says, grabbing him aside as the man breaks free and hits Paul in the face again. Paul wrenches at the policeman holding him.
"Paul!" Julie shouts, "No!"
"In the van?" one of the policemen asks. The man tries to break free, curses Paul. His arm is screwed up behind him.
"Wish I knew what the fuck this was all about," Paul shouts to the policeman who first caught hold of him.
"Sort it out at the station."
Paul lets himself be led to the van. Two more policemen had been prepared to grab him had he resisted. The man has been squashed into a corner of the van. The policemen wait for Paul to get in and sit down.
"What're you going to do to him?' Julie asks their large backs. The driver is talking loudly on his radio, is saying that they're on their way to the station.
"Depends what he's done," one of the policemen winks and smiles at her.
"We just called in for a drink on the way home. Paul went to the bar. Then that man..." Julie alone is now standing on the pavement. She looks along the street, "I don't know. We've been for a meal. Paul went to the bar. I just saw..."
The policeman glances behind him. Sitting in the front of the van is a policewoman. She reaches for the doorhandle. The driver beside her touches her arm and shakes his head.
"Come up the station,'" the policeman starts to close the doors, "Soon have it sorted out." The white door is closed, the black handle turns and the van drives away.
commentary .... Anger must go outwards. No ego can tolerate being continually berated. The individual must seek a second party to punish.
Like all potential recruits Paul had been led to believe that to fight is right. Hence his instant response.
No matter what delusions of intellectual sophistication Paul then might have chosen to cherish, sooner or later the real Bridgwater had had to come bludgeoning in. So do we all wander blithely into the habits, external and internal, of others. So do we become twofold casualties of habit, of others and of our own.
True Stories
In the Sedgemoor district, between May 1988 and October 1989, 547 stray dogs were impounded.
After 10pm on May 1st 1990, and before 6am on May 2nd, a thief broke in to the Hampton Close house of Kevin Tumbull and stole a video recorder, TV and radio cassette, as well as some food and drink.
In May 1990 Joseph Michael Baker, a teacher at Blake School, Bridgwater, grabbed hold of a 12 year old boy by the hair and shook him. 45 year old Joseph Michael Baker had repeatedly asked the boy to be quiet. The boy had responded with a smirk. Finally Joseph Michael Baker had grabbed the boy by the hair and had shaken him. Chairman of Sedgemoor Magistrates, Tony Conibeare, said, "The bench considers that any assault of a pupil by a teacher is a very serious matter. However, because of the degree of provocation, we believe an absolute discharge is appropriate." Joseph Michael Baker, of Spring Cottage, Spaxton, was ordered to pay £5 compensation and £16 costs.
