Ok, so yeah, ok, I’m gonna write about this.
I just saw a fight in the nights bus.
I think I have seen fights before, I definitely have seen some blows being exchange since I moved to London, and I think I saw a proper fight when I still lived in Brazil, because I remember being astonished at how much of a ugly thing it was. I grew up with Tarantino, I saw Clockwork Orange when I was way too fucking young for that shit, I played videogames, and man… Seeing actual grown up man in a fight, nothing is uglier, nothing.
And the worst thing was, the worst thing was… It was a group of boys beating up another guy, and the bus driver had the good sense of shutting down the bus doors, but we were in shoreditch and the bus stops are easily walking distance from each other, specially at night so when we got to the next one… One of the boys knew exactly how to activate the emergency door open button to make the bus doors open so a couple of boy of the group could come in and beat the guy (who I imagine, had shoved one of the group as they were leaving the bus). That was something meant for emergencies, being abused for violence. The worst thing.
When they did that again on the second stop, the girl who was with the guy (I think she got beaten too, things were very confusing, maybe the whole fight started because of her? I don’t know) placed herself between the guy and the boys and started yelling “if you gonna beat someone, beat me” and created a shield* and pushed the boys out of the bus, until the guy was safe inside, and the boys outside and the door finally closed for good.
(there was the suggestion for the guy to go to the upper floor, but there seemed to be other boys upstair ready to also beat him…. Some people in the bus said “we just want to continue in our journey” which seemed… stupid)
*could you say it was a patriarchal shield of a kind? I don’t know, seems just a funny situation now.
And then I had to stay a few other stops, hearing the guy and the girl discussing. Initially I through the guy had his pride hurt, of being defended from a girl, but maybe he was angry she had put herself at risk. At some point I high fived her, when she was clearly trying to make the point that she did what she did so the violence would stop.
But the words the couple was using, it was all so refined, so surreal to my mind that people that know this words dont get in this situation.. But is my village brain thinking that.
And now I still have a fuckload of adrenaline going through me, through I’m home, and safe, and had a friend by my side the whole time.. Not that she would protect me, but was a second check of “should we stay, should we go”. I’m safe, I through one of them might have a knife. I;m safe, but my biological reaction to danger is still going through me and probably won’t let me sleep, and is annoying. And the emergency door open button. Something meant for danger situations, abused.
I’m afraid that can happen anytime, that my sympathy meant for emergency times will be used for violence agains’t a guy just trying to get home.
