Gregoire and I approached our house late the other Thursday, much later than we're usually out during the week. Suddenly Flossie, our trusty white chariot was stopped in her sporty little tracks by a fight. Not just any old fight. Looks like six or seven young men were involved, punching and kicking each other in the middle of the street right next to the blogtrain station. This brawl wasn't played out according to any Queensbury rules. It was very violent, brutal, and shocking. Combatants used any and all means of attack. Fortunately I did not see any guns. One man cowering on the ground was being viciously kicked repeatedly by three others.
Commuters waiting at the bus stop kept their distance and yelled for someone to call the police. We pulled over. The mayhem in front of us continued. Gregoire wanted to get out of the car but I urgently called for him to stay put. I dug around for my cell phone which was rumoured to be at the bottom of my bag. Now there was a challenge. I hate the beastly phones. Its been so long, I didn't even know how to turn it on. And I could not see any numbers in the dark. I was thinking that the likelyhood that the battery was actually charged up was very remote.
As I was fumbling around, we heard sirens. The youths scattered in all directions, hurling abuse at each other and there were shouted threats of "I'm going to kill you" and "You are so dead!" So dead? How did that phrase finagle its way to pollute the English language. That's the crime, if you ask me. But then you probably didn't.
Back to the action. A white squad car arrived, and two women police officers stepped out. One of them very impressively restrained a young man attempting to flee. He looked twice her size, but he was totally immobilized as she held his arm behind his back. This was obviously run of the mill for her. I could picture her sipping a cup of tea with her free hand. WPC IronFist's companion then started interviewing another man who was stumbling very unsteadily in the road. He was bitterly complaining that he'd been kicked in the head. Another police car arrived in a hurry and screeched to a halt behind us.
The cops weren't interested in talking to us. We gingerly drove around the cars and various individuals on the ground, and returned to our quiet little house not one hundred yards away. We walked quickly into our home. Once safe in side, we locked the back door, poured a couple of stiff whiskies and contemplated the merits of relocating to a beach hut in Tahiti. In the following days I never saw any reports of the fight on the news or heard a peep about it on the radio. Sadly I suspect it was just par for the course for midnight on a Thursday night in Blogsville.
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