the world has turned and left me here

non-confrontational

Well the South African (Martin, if we're going to be exact about things) and I went to the Keller last night in order to rock out. It was generally a great time except for one pretty messed up incident.

The whole time there was this ape-dude who kept making a nuisance of himself. He was nasty, brutish and short (as Hobbes once said about life), with a scuzzy pony tail in the back and a face that hadn't been shaved in about a week it seemed. Rather than join in the fun, he spent the whole time making fun, and whenever someone on the dance floor was getting attention he would go mock the way they were dancing. He ran back and forth between the bar and the far side of the dance floor practically on all fours. He wanted to give the impression that he was real drunk and thus wasn't responsible for what he was doing, but I could see through that.

Anyway at one point the dance floor kind of cleared out and he took advantage of this situation to get more attention (which is all he wanted anyway). The few guys who were dancing out there tried their best to ignore him, but he was getting up in their face, slamming into people, and finally an Italian type had had enough, grabbed him by the throat and threw him backwards. A fight almost broke out. All eyes were on the dance floor and the vibe had clearly been ruined. Ruined by one idiot.

The ape dude went back to it again, but this time the Italian type and his friends decided to play it happy and just ignore him, and started dancing around like nothing was wrong. But something was wrong and no one would do anything about it. No bouncers showed up on the scene. Everyone was avoiding a confrontation and I couldn't see why. Why for crying out loud?!!

The ape dude got too close to Martin and me and Martin gave him a shove. He crashed into someone. A beer bottle fell to the floor and broke. As he got to his feet he headed straight for me, the only person who wasn't pretending not to see him. He just stood there six inches from my face, not looking at my face, but at my chest, at the dreamcatcher which Martina gave me and I only wear out in the open when I'm dancing. I felt the adrenaline in me. I was ready.

I yelled in his ear if he was happy now that he got everyone's attention. His response was to give me the finger, and then he suddenly changed it into a peace sign before I could retaliate. (His strategy of provoking, but not provoking too far, was way too calculated to pull off while drunk.) All eyes were still on us when the Italian type pushed us apart and signaled me to ignore him. A song must have started as the dance floor was suddenly flooded with people eager to get the situation over with.

The guy retreated to the corner and eventually must have left. The night went on and the vibe eventually returned. Martin and I even eventually started having fun again.

But what I still can't understand is people's non-confrontational attitude. There were a lot of "hardcore" people in there, a lot of dudes dressed in back, a lot of supposed badasses, a lot of angry music which we moshed and thrashed around to. And yet everyone wanted to avoid conflict when it came down to it. They preferred letting one guy ruin the night for everyone there rather than confronting this one problem, when clearly just one person willing to give ape dude an ass-kicking for the common good would have fixed the situation.