HarryG

We all know that gut-wrenching feeling when we have to make a decision we didn't ever want to make. The school bully is approaching with raised fists. The neighbour has walked into the bedroom while you're shagging his wife; you've found your wife in bed with the neighbour. You can see the enemy soldiers approaching, but your fellow soldier is lying at your side with a gaping neck wound. The motorist whose car you've just clipped is walking towards you with an angry red face and a large jemmy. You're interviewed by the tax inspector and he shows you a bank statement from an account he shouldn't know about.


Here's my most recent experience:


Having purchased my favourite newspaper, a computer magazine and the Hello for my partner who prefers pictures to words (bless her), I stopped at my favourite bar for a coffee. As I settled down on my bar stool, intending to read the article in the computer magazine about the latest cyber threat, I noticed that Vicente's hand was shaking when he put my coffee and little chocolate biscuit in front of me.


I looked around the bar to see why the normally unflappable Spaniard was worried. There were three middle aged couples sitting at the long bar, and two elderly ladies were standing at the bar, although there were bar stools available. Two other couples were sitting at the back, eating their tapas.


Then I saw him at the far end of the bar. A man wearing a string vest, not normally allowed by Vicente, with wild black hair and bulging muscles. He was staring at the glass in front of him on the bar.


I watched as the man finished his drink and waved his glass at Vicente. From his loud voice I knew that he was Russian, quite a few live in the neighbourhood and President Putin owns an apartment block a few miles away. The Russians I've met are hard-working, decent people but recently the Spanish police have arrested a gang of them for money laundering, all to do with oil back in the Steppes.


The man at the bar also knew some Spanish, because he shouted at Vicente who was filling his glass up, “Mas, mas, Conjo.”


I tried to concentrate on my computer magazine and sipped from my hot coffee, when the Russian, I thought me may have been a Cossack because he had a handle-bar moustache to go with the wild black hair, got off his stool and walked along the long bar. I watched in amazement as he stopped next to the first woman sitting on a bar stool and fondled her backside. It wasn't just a tweak, it was a serious fondling, accompanied by loud smacking noises of appreciation (from him).


He repeated the process with the next two women sitting at the bar, although he didn't linger with the last one who had a rather thin posterior.


He was quite near to my position when he got to the two elderly ladies standing at the bar. They really got a good fondling, before he suddenly walked back to his end at the bar and drowned his vodka, shouting at Vicente that he wanted more.


I was utterly amazed by what I had just witnessed. The three women sitting at the bar were there with their husbands, who had done nothing when their wives were assaulted, apart from shaking their heads. The diners were eating their tapas as fast as they could. I sipped from my coffee, but it was still scalding hot.


I gave up on my computer magazine, my concentration had vanished.


The inevitable happened, just as I, Vicente and everyone else in the bar knew it would. The mad Cossack finished his drink with a flourish and got off his bar stool. My coffee was still too hot to finish.


This time he lingered with each of the women sitting at the bar, ignoring their protestations as he lovingly caressed their bums, even the thin one he had previously ignored. The two elderly ladies next to me were ready for him, both of them faced away from the bar and waved their hands to stop the lunatic. I drank some more hot coffee.


The mad Cossack got hold of the first one, spun her round, and started to raise her skirt. For me, the time to flee had long passed. I got off my stool and told the Russian to stop.


Seconds later we were rolling about on the floor and things started to get broken.


Should I have kept my big mouth shut and walked away?

Malone

That's insane. The ladies with husbands weren't your problem, but you were right to stand up for the old women. That seems like an easy one. The question about leaving a dying friend in combat to save yourself from near certain death is much harder.

And chocolate biscuits...does that mean cookies, or are they making chocolate biscuits somewhere in the world and I'm being deprived?

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James Antony

Well that's really brave of you, and I'm glad to hear that you stood up to him, as it sounds like somebody needed to! That's the kind of thing I'd like to think I would do if I was in that situation. Just make sure to be careful if ever something like this happens again. How are you feeling after the fight?

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GooGooMuck

You shoulda tossed your coffee on the bastard!

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Charlie_Eleanor

You did the right thing, and you can tell by the voice of your conscience coming through in the above story. There is no question.

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aspiretowrite

Should have poured the coffee over his head and then brained him with the cup. Nevertheless good on you for standing up to that hulking bully. somebody had to.

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Mr President. If a child can buy pornography for five dollars on any street corner, isn't that too high a price to pay for free speach?

No but I do think five dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography.

JosephB

The fact the all three husbands did nothing or that no one simply left the bar defies all logic and belief. Everyone reacted exactly the same -- and did and or said nothing? Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

What happened? Did you kick his ass? Did he break every bone in your body? Or did you two just roll on the floor? Did he fondle your ass while you were rolling on the floor? Did you give him your phone number?

Why leave us hanging?

You should be proud, that you alone, in restaurant full of people had the guts to take on this muscled, mustachioed, savage. Of course you did the right thing!! Harry G, you're my hero!

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"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-- Albert Einstein

"I am really only interested in a fiction of miracles."
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The Backward OX

OX’s rule of self-preservation, # 47: never attempt to reason with a drunk.

These Cossacks must all be the same. There was this other one, nursing an open bottle of Stolichnya, who boarded the Trans Siberian Express in Vladivostok, entered a compartment already occupied by a young blonde female, and seated himself with a flourish of the tails of his greatcoat and an exaggerated crossing of his booted feet. As the train moved sluggishly through the dull grey landscape, he sat and stared at the blonde for two hours without saying a word, while taking occasional swigs from his bottle. Then he roused himself, and said to her “Do you kom from Vladivostok?”

In a tiny voice the blonde answered “Nyet.”

Another two hours passed the same way. Then, “Do you kom from Minsk?”

”Nyet.”

Two more hours. “Do you kom from Mos-kow?”

“Nyet.”

Another two hours. “Enough of ziss foolish luff talk. Down viss your pants.”

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How Beautiful it is to Do Nothing, and then Rest Afterwards . . . . . Spanish proverb

Mermaid on the breakwater

I don't know how big you are but I would guess that this guy would probably kill me if he hit me a few times so I would not be fighting him directly, at least. You did the right thing to stand up for a couple of old ladies. Throw mud in his eyes, hit him with stools, sratch and bite, it all goes, dude.

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The Hack

I don't know how things are in Spain, Harry, but in my neck of the woods, the police would have assailed this guy long before he had a second run at the ladies. I cannot imagine a barkeep in my town not notifying the authorities at the first sign of this guy - and I can't imagine the local Barney Fifes not circling the bar awaiting the sign to swarm. I live in a pretty small town.

Edit: but you certainly shouldn't feel you did anything wrong.

BOURBON

I'm thinking Walter Mitty's come to town.

The Hack

Did you know they're remaking the film version, with Michael Myers as the title role?

BOURBON

that's such poor casting. the Thurber story reads so dark to me. the last thing it needs is over-cooking.

Foxee

Harry, you have my respect. I am so glad you stood up for the older ladies and I'm aghast that the husbands didn't at least find safety in numbers and jump him.

I'm also kind of surprised that none of the ladies in question did anything. I know there would be a limited number of options if you're still sitting facing the bar but you'd think at least one of them would have tried to elbow him or scratch and you'd think the second time down the line they wouldn't have stayed tamely facing the bar.

Anyway, what you did was fantastic and the way you wrote it (as always when you write a little slice of life like this) was good reading. Applause from me on all counts.

And I'm with Joe here...what happened next?

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Mermaid on the breakwater

Foxee, if he's as big as Harry says he is, there's not a lot that any of the women could have done. Most of the time people go into their shell in a situation like that and rightly so. The nail that sticks out gets hammered, as they say.

Although I am sure my rottweiler would have been quite happy to give him a fight. He'd run out of the room like a big girl then lol. In reality, my rottweiler would try to lick him to death, but he's not to know that if I can get him barking a bit.

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