Last night I witnessed an actual fight, between two actual adults. Aside from a couple of bouncer-related incidents from my days labouring as a waitress in a slightly rough pub, this was a first for me. I was using a crosswalk by Angel tube station and some rather ghastly driver had chosen to disregard her red light and drive on through; fortunately, she wasn’t going very fast so she didn’t actually mow me or my fellow walkers down. Anyway, as I walked past the car I must confess I had an urge to rap smartly on the back window in admonition of the terrible driving etiquette that had just been displayed.
Good thing I didn’t. Someone else did, however, and as myself and Team Pedestrians stood nicely waiting in the island waiting for the next light to change in our favour, an outraged fortyish man came charging out of the back of the errantly-driven car.
‘Who hit the car?!’ he said. ‘WHO HIT THE CAR?!’
I scampered out of his way guiltily, wondering if he had read my mind. But in retrospect, perhaps I should have volunteered, because he seemed like the sort of cowardly, crazed man who wouldn’t hit a woman.
Whereas he was definitely in the cowardly, crazed category of people who would hit a man in the middle of the street for not respecting his right to run over pedestrians. It was unclear whether the fellow who he opted to punch was even the car-hitting culprit, but suddenly the fists were flying and the non-crazy guy’s glasses had fallen to the pavement and - this really alarmed me - no one in the car (I had noted, as it nearly ran me over, that it was full) was doing anything to stop their crazed, violent companion.
Disgusting.
