The Lunatic Incident

We were just ambling in a perfectly peaceable manner down the road. Max had that day acquired gainful employment, and quite naturally felt like celebrating. Unfortunately however, it was a Thursday, and most of our friends being one step ahead of Max – not to mention an inestimable number ahead of myself – were not at liberty to piss away the early hours of the morning on futile urban adventurism.

Socially destitute, we cut a path in the general direction of the local casino; the plan being to drink and gamble away Max’s future earnings, safe in the knowledge that 15 hours a week of primary school teaching assistant salary would soon be at our disposal. Given that no contract had been signed, this arrangement could last a few weeks. On the other hand, it could last forever. As such we felt it not unreasonable to advance ourselves an indefinite supply of easy credit.

It was in this spirit of bonhomie that we ambled quite unprovocatively towards the bus stop. I suppose the beer and excitement gave me tunnel vision, because – despite the long, straight emptiness of the road – the first thing I knew of our new acquaintance’s existence was when he lunged, semi-violently, into our personal sphere, and barked “WHERE’S THE PARTY AT!??!”

Somewhat startled by this unannounced debutant, Max’s reaction was to dispense a quick “dunno mate”, and continue his unbroken course. Whilst not exactly considering this poor form on Max’s part, my response nevertheless diverged. Although no such monologue ran through my mind at the time, were I to formalise the reasoning behind my response, it would have run something like this.

“Here is a gentleman, who – though clearly lacking in the social skills most of us take forgranted – has demonstrated no malice of intent, or fundamental disagreeableness in disposition. All that can be fairly ascertained from his words is that he wishes to know where the party is at, and from his boldly open body language, most likely desires further interaction with us. I believe to a very substantial degree in the fraternity of man, so why deny it to him?”

Accordingly, I turned towards him, opening up my body in a move anticipated to display respect and amicability. My utterances continued this theme. “Hmm, not sure I’ve heard one around here to be honest mate.” Although he was disappointed by this, our discussion continued on friendly-enough terms. He went on to bemoan the fact that – assuming my implication that there was no nearby party was correct – the guys down the road “MUST’A BEEN TAKIN’ THE PISS!!”

I extended my condolences, and sympathised that they must’ve been real wankers to send him off on such a wild-goose chase. However, pity as it was, we had an itinerary to keep to, and as such I tried to break-off relations, while maintaining cordiality. Perhaps this was my mistake, in that I suppose he picked up on my distaste (however incidental) for continued conversation, combined with my continued presence, and deduced that I was hanging around only out of schadenfreude.

In our subsequent review of the incident, Max described the situation as one that, at this point, had developed a steadily increasing undertone of tension. “It seemed like it could, potentially, have developed into an antagonistic situation.” Certainly it was bearing little tangible fruit. Where before we had been exchanging collaborative proposition and counter-proposition, our discussion had reached an impasse in the form of:

“So what you doing?”

“Going that way mate.”

“So what you doing!?”

“Going that way mate.”

“SO WHAT YOU DOING!??!”

“Going that way, mate.”

(I have said nothing of the man’s appearance up till now, and perhaps – despite my supposed liberalism – it was a factor I should have taken into account sooner. Scatty would have been a kind way of putting it. Bizarre, and rather frightening would have been another. And this was with his hood tightly done up. It was at this point that things (next-door to literally) exploded from the ‘Could potentially get antagonistic’ stage, to the ‘Here you are right now with a fucking lunatic leering in your face demanding that you get your hands off him even though they aren’t even on him’ stage.

The guy had, at astonishing speed, used both hands to tear back his hood to reveal his face, (the features of which were remarkable) and fling it towards mine, stopping perhaps 6 inches short; the rest of his body in close support. As aforementioned, I found the guy borderline frightening even when I couldn’t see him. Now I could, this emotion was fleshed out in full. If his behaviour had been on the eccentric side, his face was that of a fully-fledged lunatic. He had discoloured, emaciated skin. His eyes were wild and bulging. But the aspect that scared me the most was the interior of his mouth. I recall throughout our stand-off fearing desperately that he would bite my neck with his assorted metal teeth. And seriously, the only word which I could use to describe his general outlook, would be rabid.

Despite Socrates’ insistence that courage is only fear of a greater evil (It’s in the dialogue where he drinks the hemlock), I’m pretty proud of my unyielding response. Though I do not pretend to any martial prowess, I nevertheless have always thought valour in the face of those who would do evil upon you is something to be admired.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that I had an ally to my back, but I don’t believe (I’ll have to check with Max) I flatter myself when I say I did not flinch, nor give way an inch. I don’t remember what he was saying at this point; no doubt nothing more meaningful than me (“What the fuck d’you want?” “What the fuck do you want?”) We were eyeball to eyeball no more than a minute, and perhaps much less. It could have been shortened further had I heeded Max’s advice of “Come on Pete, we’ve got to go.” However at this stage it seemed that showing weakness to someone who was demonstrating such violent potential – particularly someone as obviously unbalanced as this man – would be folly in the extreme.

It’s quite possible that it was a case of consequence without causation; however it is equally possible  that it was this policy of non-deference that resulted in the guy eventually snapping suddenly back to his former amicable self. The speed of change in his temperament was again quite astonishing. One moment he looked ready to tear my larynx out with his bare teeth. The next he was all good-nature and well-wishing. Within a minute of this reverse, with a shake of the hand, and mutual expressions of good-will, off he set one way, we the other.

Whilst we were at the bus-stop – despite having been in several incomparably more savage situations – I was close to tears. At first I thought maybe it had been a while since something like that had befallen me, I was getting old, and the nervous strain had taken its toll. What I now believe to be the probable truth however, I find far more distasteful. Just before we’d set off we’d been at a friend’s watching Newsnight, and there had been a report about the English Defence League. Again, despite my liberal attitudes, or perhaps because of them, I had defended them against the assertion by Max that they were really just a bunch of racist thugs. My argument was, basically, ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ I suppose my conviction in this is largely founded on a desire to believe the best in people, regardless of instinctive reactions based on appearance and social graces.

Or put another way, exactly the same convictions that led me to treat this guy who – I maintain could (or even would) have visited real harm on me – like someone worthy of no less than respect and kindness. Then again, although (according to Max) I certainly did nothing that could have qualified as provocative throughout, I think that my prejudice against the guy – late night, hooded, ‘chavvy’ appearance, and under-developed speech patterns – (which if sublimated by whatever socio-philosphical-political trend I’ve bought into) was definitely present. I remember distinctly at one point at least, feeling amused by him. I suppose maybe I’m thinking incorrectly –and unjustly highly of myself, as well as lowly of him – that I largely successfully masked those feelings.

Fuck it, perhaps the only reason I wanted to talk to him in the first place wasn’t because I felt he was another decent human being, but just because I wanted to inflate my moral ego by sucking up to some pretentious ideal. I mean instinctively I do think the EDL are (largely) a bunch of racists thugs. I could say “ah well it’s how you act, not how you think that defines you”, but if I acted in an insincere way – which probably justly antagonised this guy in the first place, because I wasn’t talking to him as a frère, I was condescending to him which is so-very-much worse than just brushing him off a la Max – and was incapable of passing it off as genuine, which caused the guy to get pissed off, whether I was being a pretentious prick or not, that makes my actions those of antagonistic twat. I was supposedly being a brother to this guy, but actually I maybe I was just suffering from some compulsive moral masturbatory disorder.