Once in Berlin, after a very long night of drinking with a
pair of Irish rock and roll types, Eberhard and I got onto a very crowded night
bus to head back to our temporary domicile. To say it was a weird night would
be an understatement and we were tired. Hell, everyone was. With that in mind,
neither Eberhard nor I paid any real attention to where the other was on the
bus. We both knew the stop so why would we? Fast forward to about halfway home.
There were two drunks sitting next to each other, one sloppy drunk and one mean
drunk. The sloppy drunk most closely resembled what one might think of if a
person could be the physical embodiment of an over cooked piece of pasta.
Meanwhile, his counterpart wore, from what I remember, a white T-shirt and
jeans. His hair was cut close to his scalp and in one hand he was still
carrying his last drink from the party or bar or far rightwing mixer or
whatever.
The sloppy drunk went to get out of the bus
but tripped over the mean drunk who took a marked offense to this. I happened
to be the only person that had a useful angle on the matter and pushed the
sloppy drunk behind me towards the door. The mean drunk was apparently in a
mood to take offense to most things by now and decided he didn't like me. I can
really only guess that because I don't know what he was yelling at me in
German. I only know that he was saying it as hard as he possibly could,
seriously red faced. It was at this point I took off my glasses for fear that
he might decide to do something rash. It was also at this point that I wished I
had thought to stick with my larger friend. Damn. Back to the villain,
everything was getting pretty intense. A few people, in their desire to get away
from this lunatic, had evacuated the space around him and given him enough room
to move comfortably. Double damn. I wondered what German prisons were like. Or
hospitals.
What happened next was
unbelievable. I was woefully outclasses by a modern day German Goliath. He
moved towards me with a grim inevitability. I raised my hands as he lunged
toward me. Years of getting beaten up… I mean training came back to me. I
stepped into his path, pulled my shoulder back, aimed for the nerve that runs
along the underside of his jaw line, then extended my arm while twisting my
hips and leaning forward. His head rocked back before he fell onto the bus
floor. Everyone in the bus stood in shocked and silent admiration. One woman
looked at me as if she had not seen a real man until… Ok, this didn’t happen.
Back to reality.
I don't
exactly remember this guy’s size but it is safe to say that he was bigger than
me. Most people are. If he had wanted to hit me, he could have. What did he
decide to do here? Here are three options: sit down and forget it, punch me in
the face OR Three Stooges style eye poke. Nyuk nyuk nyuk. He was clearly a
tough guy, and it did hurt. Actually, it hurt a lot. I don't know how those
guys did it for all those years. At this point Eberhard jumps down and grabs
the gentleman. I'd tell you more about what happened there but I couldn't
really see it on account of the fingers that were recently inserted into my eye
sockets. With the two of us separated, he had no way to reach me. No way that
is, save for the cup in his hand containing an undisclosed alcoholic beverage.
Light bulb. His next move was to throw said alcohol at me... on a crowded
bus... wait for it. It hits me on my left shoulder. That is some of it hits me
on my left shoulder. Most of it actually went over my shoulder and landed on
the giant Turkish man in the red shirt and brown vest behind me. Awesome. While
he was less than fashionable he was more than angry. What came next was sort of
a blur. Again, I couldn't see very well. What I do know is the Turkish guy
pushed past me and planted the backpack he was carrying on the ground. As he
reached into his bag, the previously brave German drunk made a hasty path to
the back of the bus. What did the Incredible Turkish Hulk pull out of his
backpack? The most dangerous weapon of all; a pot lid. Was it some cool
weaponized pot lid maybe, with a knife edge on it? No. Was it at least a
quality pot lid like the one’s from the various cookware sets I want but know
I’ll never actually spend the $374 on? No. This was my kind of pot lid. Cheap
crap. Cheap intimidating crap apparently. I’m not making that up. He never
reached the German guy and eventually we got off the bus. Shame. I really liked
that Turkish guy. And his pot lid.
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