So Iceland who hasn’t been sleeping too well had finally dozed off about 2:00 when the doorbell goes. Now it’s normally either some late night visitors for the guys in the other flats who haven’t worked out which bell is which, or it’s actually one of the other guys who’ve locked themselves out.
So by the time I’ve got up, found some trousers, found the keys, got my glasses on, the doorbell is now buzzing furiously. I get down to the door and can see no-one at the door. Great. A drunk on their way home. So I stick my head out the door and there is a small collection of people having a fight down the road. Fine. Doesn’t bother me, I’m off back to bed (they aren’t actually hitting each other yet). Just as I’m going, I hear they’re arguing about why someone rang my bell. Deciding that I’m probably better off not getting involved, I pootled off to bed.
And the bell goes again. It’s still them. Finally got upstairs and switched it off.
DAMMIT if you want a fight have one but don’t go ringing my bell to let me know. If I wish to join in I can.
And then I got woken at 6 by hammering on the door by other guy who’d locked himself out GRRRR
The street fight reminds me of something that happened to me about 10 years ago.
I was working as a contractor for IBM, and they had flown a bunch of us out to New Jersey to work at various sites. It was a cozy deal, we got expenses paid, regular flights back home, and lodging in various decent hotels.
On my first night in a new hotel (it wasn’t uncommon to get moved around during the 8 month time period I was there) I was awoken to the sound of a bunch of voices outside the window of my room. I figured it was a bunch of druken revelers coming back from the bars, so I peered out the window because drunken revelers are fun to watch and I was up anyway.
Unfortunately, these were NOT drunken revelers. They were about 20-30 people who had decided to convene to the hotel parking lot to have a giagantic fight. This guy was hitting that guy, that guy was hitting the other guy, people were getting hurt, friends of the people getting hurt were trying to hurt the hurters, etc.
I called the hotel office to let them know they had what appeared to be a gang war going on in their parking lot, then snuck back to the window to watch. I kept a low profile though, lest they should all notice me at once, stop, form an alliance, and come over to pound on me instead. It just seemed like that kind of night, and these guys seemed to be fighting just to fight.
After a few minutes, a solitary police car showed up and ONE officer got out. I’ll never forget the sight of that one poor policeman trying to take on that mob. At one point he had one of the offenders on the ground and was trying to handcuff him with one hand, while warding off some of the arrestee’s buddies with the mace in his other hand. I was SO sure that guy was gonna get chewed to bits but somehow he managed to make it until backup got there.
Someone knocked on my door Sunday morning at 3 am. I actually got up and answered it - 3 slightly flustered guys. Of course it was wrong door (my three guys show up on Saturday mornings at 3 am ) , and as I closed the door I could hear one of them saying that they should have figured out which door it was before they knocked - that I might have thought they were rapists. Anyway, it didn’t strike me until the next morning how dangerous it is to open the door when half awake at 3 am - duh!
Uh, yeah. I am impressed by how calmly Iceland Blue handled himself. I think I’d be holding the machete, calling the police, and not answering the door at all.
Heh, heh. Many moons ago, I was a deputy sheriff. We had a place up in the northeastern part of the county called The House Of Blue Lights. Chinchy little armpit bar with a bunch of blue Xmas lights strung around it. They used to have a knock-down, drag-out fight there at least three Saturday nights out of the month. Fortunately, it was NOT in my district.
The guy who was hired after me, thereby relieving me of the title of FNG, got a call out there one night for a fight in progress. I was his closest backup and it took me about 15 minutes to get there. When I arrived, he had everybody face down on the floor like little angels.
He had walked up to the door, looked in and seen nothing but assholes and elbows flying around. He walked back out to the car, got the 12 gauge, walked back in, chambered a round and blew a hole in the ceiling. He described the result to me later as being like an old Disney cartoon fight where they are going round and round and round and suddenly freeze in place. He jacked up another round and yelled words to the effect of “I’m new and I’m scared and I’ll kill the first muthafucker that moves.”
We put everybody in plastic cuffs and when we got them cleared out, we went back and picked up a bushel basket full of knives, guns, razors and dope off the floor.
That was one of the more memorable nights of my career as a cop
) , and as I closed the door I could hear one of them saying that they should have figured out which door it was before they knocked - that I might have thought they were rapists. Anyway, it didn’t strike me until the next morning how dangerous it is to open the door when half awake at 3 am - duh!