We went to a concert last night here in Prague. ‘Lucie’ was playing (think 80’s rock-n-roll hair band with the literary sense of the ‘Spin Doctors’) which is the Czech equivalent of ‘U2’ (been around 20 years, everybody knows and loves em). After the concert ended, we started herding out. Unfortunately the security guards wanted to funnel people to a set of doors on the other side of the arena from where we were at, but someone managed to get a single door open on our side. So thousands of people are all trying to push through a single door, and of course it gets jammed up and we’re all basically stuck.
Well, a drunk guy next to me took offence at being jostled from behind by a guy who was jostled from behind by another guy who was jostled from behind…get the picture? There was little wiggle room there. So drunk guy decides that his honor is being offended and decides to start a fight with the guy behind him, who really isn’t at any fault. Drunk guy’s girlfriend and friends try and stop him, but no, he’s 10 ft. tall and bullet-proof from the beer, so he goes after this guy behind him (who happens to be smaller and a bit sheepish compared to drunk guy’s well-built body and aggressive nature).
First punch is thrown and it knocks the glasses off of the little guy. A little room is created. I think about stepping in, but A) I’m with my wife and her safety is my first concern B) He does have a few friends with him that I have no clue about. So I move my wife to the side just in time to see a guy behind me who A) doesn’t have his wife with him and B) doesn’t care that this guy has friends C) is upset that drunk guy is acting like an ass going after a smaller guy. BAM! One of the most solid right-crosses I’ve ever seen in my life hits this guy right in the face. But wait, that’s not all! There’s a bonus round! The drunk guy got hit so hard he bounced off someone behind him, slips on the floor and somehow manages to do a face-plant right into the concrete. By now there is a small circle around these people and you can see blood all over the place. The hero behind me picks up the little guy’s glasses and hands them back to him and the drunk guy’s friends all start to help their friend get up. The look on EVERYONE’S faces, including his friends, was one of “You stupid idiot. You got what you deserved.” One of his friends looked at the guy who hit him and shrugged his shoulders implying “You did the right thing.”
They managed to get him to his feet. It is amazing how much space you can create in a completely crowded situation when massive amounts of blood are involved. We all parted like the Red Sea to let this guy and his friends out through the one door and to the paramedics.
Today this guy is probably in bed with a broken nose, chipped teeth, a cut forehead and quite possible worse (broken jaw, cracked sinuses). On top of that his girlfriend might be breaking up with him (she looked past the point of disgust, straight to the point of “Why do I put up with this?”).
Normally I think of karma as taking some time to come back around to you. This guy got an instantaneous lesson in it. I’d like to feel sorry for him because he got hurt so bad but that damage could have easily been dealt to the smaller guy if no one had stepped in.
-Tcat