Something wild happened to me today

Chapter 7

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007, 9:17 PM

I’m starting to like this

I don’t know what to think. I beat up two security guards. And the worst thing is that I don’t feel the least bit sorry.

I’d best start at the beginning: at five-thirty, I met up with Rafa at the Menta Negra. He got there ten minutes late, like always, and I’d already sucked down the first Voll-Damm. He ordered two more—one for each—and sat in front of me. He observed me for a few seconds, and raising his “something’s wrong” eyebrow, asked me what was so important that I wanted to tell him. We each had three beers while I told him everything that happened over the past three days. He thought it was a joke, which was expected, and the conversation took a totally expected turn toward the shitty things his girlfriend, Marta, did to him. A typical subject—and you could say favorite—of Rafa’s.

Later, after going down to the boardwalk, we contemplated the sea in silence, sitting on an uncomfortable and cold stone bench. The buzz from the beer had gone away, and after a good while, he asked me if everything I told him in the bar was true. I answered that if he wanted to come home with me, I’d demonstrate it, and he just stared at me. I spotted a shadow of doubt in his eyes, but not totally, and he motioned with his hand that we should drop the subject.

I understand why it’s almost impossible for someone to believe me. I don’t even believe it myself...

It all started when we got close to the train station. From afar, we saw something weird, but since we were talking about Marta we didn’t pay enough attention until it was too late. There were three or four people on the platform, looking around nervously, astonished, how a security guard held a girl while his colleague punched a guy who didn’t even try to defend himself. He was grabbing him by his jacket collar and pummeling his face. Upon approached, I could see that he was half unconscious and that no one there did or said anything. They just watched. Meanwhile, the guy kept getting beat up, and the girl, held by the other ape, cried out to leave her boyfriend alone, enraged. Tears were pouring down her face.

The truth is that the two teenagers didn’t look too good. They were both really pale and skinny. She looked like she was high on something, although that may have just been because she was in shock.

I again felt that urgent sensation in the pit of my stomach. It seemed like it was telling me, “Aren’t you going to do anything?”

I went two steps forward, but Rafa stopped me and looked at me with a broken up face, saying in a shaky voice:

“Don’t get involved. You don’t know what happened. Maybe the kid…”

And that’s when I stopped listening. Because at that moment, the girl got loose and ran toward the guard who was beating up on her boyfriend, yelling at him to let him go, that he didn’t have to hit him for sneaking onto the train. And then the straw that broke the camel’s back: the other security guard ran after her, grabbed her arm and pushed her really hard against the brick wall separating the platform corridor. The girl’s head bounced off the wall and she fell down to the ground, unconscious. The people moved back, scared, yelling and protesting, at the same time that everything around me lost color and I saw myself jumping against the damn security guard.

As soon as I made contact with him, everything seemed to happen in fast-motion. I remember kicking him in the rib, his eyes wide open, looking at me as if he couldn’t believe that someone—specifically, someone like me—was hitting him. He tried to grab me, but I got away somehow and punched him in the stomach hard enough to force him backward. Then his colleague let go of the kid, who fell to the ground, and decided to join the party. I remember perfectly, thinking: “Good, that way I won’t have to go after you”.

The next thing I remember is Rafa yelling that I had to get out of there, that the police were coming. The wail of the approaching sirens brought me back to the real world. The two security guards were lying on the ground, unconscious. More people had come around us, enjoying the damn show, murmuring, and only three people were next to the teenagers. One of them said he was a doctor. 

“Go!” shouted Rafa. “I’ll call you tonight, but get lost now!”

I looked at him for a second; he was absolutely terrified.

“I guess now you’re starting to believe me,” I thought ironically, and in one jump went to the other side of the wall and ran home without stopping.

When I went through the door at my apartment, I felt relieved. I sat on the couch and breathed deeply. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.

When I finally calmed down, I couldn’t help but think that I did the right thing. What the hell- those sons of bitches deserved a bit of their own medicine!

Honestly, whatever is happening to me, I’m starting to like it more than be scared by it.