Dilemma
I want to tell you a story. It is a true story; it’s about an experience that happened to me, about a situation I found myself in. I tell this story to you for two main reasons. First, I want you to ask yourself some questions; questions that have gnawed at me ever since this event took place and questions I couldn’t resolve. Indeed, I still cannot answer these questions. Maybe they will be simpler for you but then, to you, it’s all so hypothetical. Maybe that is another question you should ask yourself at the end, whether your response is what you think you’d do or what you know you’d do. The second reason I am telling this story is because the questions I want to ask you, I want you to ask yourself, are questions that I want to resolve. Like I said to you, I still cannot answer these questions. If I tell this story to you perhaps I will end up finding the answer in the telling. The proof is in the eating and all that. I don’t know if it will work, maybe it doesn’t even matter. Well, whatever, here’s my story. I hope you find it interesting and I hope it makes you think. At the end of the day, they say a problem shared is a problem halved; if I can halve this dilemma, maybe I can move on from the whole ordeal…
The central stage for my tale is my local watering hole, Ye Olde Crown (or The Crown, as it is affectionately known). It’s a lovely pub filled with warm, friendly decent people. The jukebox plays a load of different music and I can happily put on The Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd to my heart’s content. They even have a couple of Hawkwind tracks that I can play when it gets nice and empty. The landlord is a great guy; Jeff Wonder is his name. He likes the seventies rock much like myself. I have been going to this pub since 1990, when I moved to Thanet at the age of 22. I missed all the classic acts in their heyday because I was young and hadn’t discovered my musical taste. Jeff, however, had seen it all, got every T-shirt and he was still wearing them the two decades after. He was like a cool uncle who had lived through the time I loved so much. He would relay to me these great stories of rocking to Thin Lizzy, or whoever, and then hanging out with them afterwards. Some of the tales were pretty wild but I can’t really digress into another man’s anecdotes, especially as they hold little concern to my story. Still, Jeff remains the landlord and I remain a regular, even seventeen years later.
There are lots of others who frequent The Crown and most of them are really nice characters too. Often they keep pretty much to themselves, occasionally saying hello, but their conversations are normally either with Jeff or whoever they bring in with them. Normally, I go with a couple of friends but none of them are there as frequently as myself. However, my friends are not main players in this tale and neither are the other regulars. Even Jeff is a mere side-character in this story.
The individuals you need to concern yourself with are me, Chris (my second name is irrelevant), and Dave Meadows. I hope you’re getting a vague picture of me, but I will just paint me a bit clearer for the purpose of this story. I’m now 39 and married but the events that matter took place when I was 33 and single. I was a slightly different person then, a bit less mellow. I was a member of a socialist party and I worked as a fireman. I am still a fireman but my money no longer goes to a radical cause and is instead spent on my vinyl collection and my wife and kid. I had been raised in a worker’s party household and the ideas were pretty ingrained in me, even if 2001 was a very lonely time to be a socialist. I just want to give you an idea of the sort of person I was - a fairly angry guy who was quite involved in a small, widely-ignored collective, I was filled with good intentions and had two real loves, music and politics. Two areas I shared with Jeff who, though not an active radical, certainly had strong left-wing leanings. These two passions were not shared with Dave, however. The only thing Dave and I had in common was The Crown. He was a regular too and still visit’s the pub, though not so much anymore. He was a real nasty piece of work; he still is but far less vocal these days. He’s a big guy and as tough as a bull. He is the reason this story is being written. I want to tell you about Dave. I want to tell you what he was like and then I want to tell you what happened to him. I want you to think about what you would have done if you were me with my feelings at that time, if you found yourself in the situation that I had found myself in, six years ago.
Dave started coming to The Crown regularly around mid-1995 and he always appeared to be there from then onwards. Whenever I would go there after work he was already there, visibly drunk. He always drank alone until the point where he would go and speak to others and he often went up to them to cause an upset of some kind. He would get really tanked up and then he’d go up to someone and make some nasty remark; he’d make the whole place feel pretty uncomfortable and then he’d leave, an awkward tension lingering for some time after his departure.
At first, he had been quiet, he had ignored us as much as we him and he would sit there with his permanent scowl of malice. As time went on though, his true colours began to show and they were horrible. He was a twisted man, everything about him suggested violence and bad news. The first time he caused a scene was pretty horrible. I guess he wanted to make an impact so everyone would know to be scared.
He had been sitting by the bar, knocking the pints back as hard as usual when he suddenly went over to this table of three men. One of them had just been promoted at work, some accountancy firm, and he had got drunk with a couple of friends to celebrate. The guy had been loud but he wasn’t being a nuisance or anything. Anyway, it got to about half ten and the trio were quietening down, getting ready to leave. Dave went up to the table and sat down. I didn’t hear how it started but I understand that it went a bit like this:
“So, you got a raise, did you?” There’s nothing in Dave’s voice but spite but the guy starts off ignorant to his tone.
“Yeah, I’m going up. I’m glad my hard work is paying off.”
“What did you do? Fucking brown nose? Worm your way in with boss, yeah?”
“No,” the guy laughed, he still thought that Dave was messing about, “I just worked as hard as I could and it got rewarded.”
“You suck your boss’ cock. You fucking licked the shit off his shoes. You think you’re so fucking special, you’re a fucking maggot-piece-of-shit.”
“Er…” The guy was getting pretty intimidated.
“You fucking useless shitbag. You waste of space. Think you’re some fucking hot shit, I should fucking gut you.”
At this point one of the guy’s friends stood up. He was the biggest out of the three and looked pretty fit. Dave, however, was pretty big himself - kind of fat, but you could tell most of him was muscle. This guy that stood up looked as if he was ready to stand his ground if necessary.
“Look,” the man on his feet said, “why don’t you leave us alone. We’re just celebrating some good news and we’re off soon. Leave it out, yeah?”
Quick as anything, Dave reacted. Thump, smash, swing. Dave broke his empty pint glass on the table, moved up off his bar stool and grabbed the guy by his shirt, his other hand holding the jagged edges of the pint glass against the crotch of the man’s trousers.
“Think you’re some kind of hard man, do you?” Dave hissed the question with venom.
At this point Jeff calls over and tells Dave to leave immediately or he’s barred and the police will be called. Dave left. I don’t know if it’s true but apparently the guy Dave threatened had wet himself. I don’t blame him if he did. The way Dave acted that night, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had attempted to remove the guy’s manhood. Horrified, but not surprised.
Anyway, that was when we first realised what sort of man Dave Meadows really was - scum. He just hated people and wanted to make their life as miserable has his own.
There were some events that took place very close to one another about seven years after the above incident. These events are what I really want to discuss with you. It begins in The Crown, a lively Friday night. There are a few regulars, including me and Dave, and there are also a few people who are here for the first time. Of particular relevance are a group of black guys playing pool. Now, Thanet has proved itself to be pretty backward and racially intolerant generally - a result of asylum seekers entering through Dover, meaning The Daily Mail’s rants struck a particular chord- but Dave was always going to be the worst example of local bigotry. On this night, Dave’s face looks especially hateful and he is drinking as constant as ever. He starts quiet but consider the scene set: A vicious and spiteful drunk simmering at the bar; five men oblivious to the monster only a few feet away, happily relaxing into their weekend; and me, sat near the wall, Dave in my front vision, just to my right and sitting at the bar, the crowd of pool players a little bit on my left hand side. I have the perfect spectator seat for a horrible show that is just about to occur; a show that I had no idea was about to explode into action.
Dave stands up and walks to the table. It begins:
“Alright, lads? Where’re you from?” Dave places a hand on the pool table and the game is brought to an abrupt halt.
“We’re from up London way. Get your hand off the table.” The response was straight but hardly civil. The mood of the group had changed as suddenly as the game had stopped.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dave starts, lifting his hand to complete their request, “but where are you from. I mean, you ain’t English are you?”
“What’s that meant to mean?” one of them asks. It’s difficult at first to determine which of the group is speaking, they’re all looking at Dave and away from me. Another one says ‘leave it’, but it’s Dave next to speak.
“Well, I don’t know any dark Englishmen. I mean, Churchill wasn’t dark, the Queen ain’t black. You come from somewhere, but it’s nowhere English. Where’re you from?”
“I’m English. I come from London. I was born there and I have lived there all my life, until I moved down here.”
“Well, maybe you should check your roots. Find out where you came from. Exactly-”
“Just what the fuck is your problem?” The burst was sudden, a pool cue was thrown from a hand and I saw the guy stand over Dave. Dave was a good bit shorter than the man confronting him but the hatred in his eyes made up for what he lacked in stature.
“I mean get out of here!” Dave was raging “ We don’t want you here. Get the fuck out, you cunts! You fucking darkie cunts. Fucking nigger shits! Ruining our country. We’re going to shit and it’s because of you. Taking benefits, fucking about and fucking our women! You make me fucking sick. Fucking slave-race scum thinking you’re human. You’re fucking animals! Animals! (His voice was breaking with fury) We don’t want your stinking kind round here. Get out! Get the fuck out of here, you black, rotten, fucking, stealing, revolting fucking NIGGERCUNTS!”
“Dave, you get out of here, now! I don’t want to see you in here again. Out!” Jeff boomed at him with anger and I stood up, my body shaking with rage. I had never seen such a sickening display from Dave. He could be nasty but this was just inhuman. Disgusting. I was ready to kick him out myself.
“It’s alright,” said one of the five, “we’ll go. Don’t think we’ll be back anytime. Oh,” he added turning to Dave, “you better watch out. You’re going to get what’s coming.”
Dave smiled a malicious grin, nothing but sadistic satisfaction in his eyes. In the next instant he was on the floor, nose bleeding and cursing wildly. The man had clearly been pushed over the edge by that look. Everyone can only be pushed so far. I couldn’t help but smile at the crumpled mess of a man on the floor. It was pleasing to see him looking so pathetic. I sat back down.
And then they were gone.
Dave slammed a note on the bar, shouted for his drink, was promptly served and told it would be his last one. Moments later something unexpected happened. Dave gulped down the top of his pint and began walking over to my table. For the first time in the seven years I had seen him there, he came and sat next to me. I was a little taken aback and angry that he thought that it would be acceptable after the shocking display I had just witnessed. I was about to say something when he got their first:
“Fucking cunts,” he muttered, “who’d they think they are? I’ll get mine? Fucking I’ll get mine? They make me sick. Sick to my fucking gut.”
He paused to take out a cigarette and he looked at me; he wasn‘t looking to signify that I should speak, on the contrary he was tracing my face with his eyes as if looking for something, if I was to speak it looked like he would lose his thought. Sharply, his eyes widened and he began to speak once more:
“I saw you, you know. Smiling at me while I was on the floor. Find it fucking comical, do you? Guess I can tell where you stood when watching your little show. Rooting for the nigger, were you? Yeah, fucking whites unite don’t mean shit to you.”
“No. You want to talk about being sick to the gut, you should look at yourself.” It was my turn to pause. I was about to stand and walk out, leaving my last comment as I went, but my actions were cut short by a clicking sound from Dave’s hand. After he had lit his fag he had pulled out a knife and, with the push of a button, the blade had flicked out an inch from my stomach. I froze, I could not move my legs or my mouth. Instead, I found myself trapped by fear next to this twisted maniac. I looked around desperately.
“Hardly anyone about now, boy.” Dave spoke to me as if he could read my thoughts; that malicious smile had returned. “It’s getting late. Just you and me. If I see you move… I’ll cut you, no problems. Right where you sit.”
I looked at his face and that desperate, sadistic grin. After Dave’s humiliation he was probably even more unstable than usual and this meant that he was not a man to be tested. It was time for him to redeem himself in his eyes; it was time for someone else to be humiliated.
“Come on, boy. Why do you stand by the dregs instead of with your own? You’re fucking worse than them.”
I said nothing.
“Say you’re sorry.”
I looked at the knife, though I didn’t need to for I could feel it’s light prod on the outer part of my clothing. The metal was dull but the tip was sharp. One push and I’d be bleeding pretty bad and I had no idea how severely Dave would cut me. I looked into his dark, spiteful stare.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For smiling at you when you got hit, I should have helped you out.”
“Fuck you,” his eyes narrowed as he was reminded of his just desserts, “I don’t need your fucking assistance. I don’t need you to apologise for what you owe me. Say sorry for being a fucking nigger lover.”
The blade rode up and down my top, I could feel it move, painless but so very threatening. “I’m sorry.”
“For being a fucking nigger lover”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I’m sorry for being a fucking nigger lover.”
“They’re scum.”
“They’re scum.” I agreed. I felt a number of emotions, all of them horrible. I felt anger at Dave for being who he was and for doing this to me. He was such a nasty piece of scum and every cell in my body was filled with rage at his horrid existence. I also felt humiliated that I would let him treat me like this, that I was stuck in a situation where I was parroting this man’s hate-filled bile. Finally, I felt disgusted with myself; disgusted that I would allow myself to be humiliated in such a way. I should have been braver, risked a punctured lung. He shouldn’t have been able to play me like he did; he only could because I was weak and I felt so sick at knowing this. This disgust and shame led me back to anger. The three emotions stirred in me, cycling through me. I felt ill.
After being made to repeat more of his racist diatribes for about ten minutes, he grew satisfied while I grew more repulsed. I don’t want to bore you any more with the specifics and I don’t want to delve any deeper into the wretched things I allowed myself to say. Needless to say they were crass and repugnant, against the very principles I had stood by all my life. He clicked his knife back in but held it in his hand, ready to be activated if necessary. It wouldn’t be though for I was still paralysed.
He stood up and bid me good night, as if we were now close acquaintances. I said nothing and watched him leave.
I asked Jeff for a shot of whiskey and contemplated whether to tell him what had happened. I decided to leave it. Truth be told, we were all already a bit scared of Dave because we weren’t sure how far he’d go, what he was really capable of doing. I didn’t want to burden Jeff with having to piss off that crazy worm. I knocked back the drink and went home. I couldn’t sleep that night for the rage that flowed through me. I kept playing the scenario in my head, over and over. The taunting was unbearable. I felt defeated. I vowed never to give Dave another chance to humiliate me or even come near me, threat or no threat. For the first and last time in my life, I wished a person dead.
The following day I went to work looking much like the living dead. My eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and my entire body looked and felt sore from an awkward and disrupted night. I managed half the shift before my superior suggested I go home. I didn’t need telling twice, I was shattered. I returned home and collapsed into slumber almost immediately.
The following day I felt much better and began to function properly. It helped that I had the night shift meaning I could properly get my head together before heading back to the fire station. The shift passed without mishap but it did mean that for two consecutive nights I did not return to The Crown. The third night I was going to go back and so I deliberated with myself on what to do about Dave. The chances were he would ignore me much like every other time I had gone to the pub; he had his fun with me now and he was probably happy to move on - I imagined that two days was a long time in Dave’s head. However, just because he was likely to act like nothing had happened didn’t mean I was willing to return the attitude. Dave had seriously wounded my pride and offended me more than he had ever before, not merely with the personal harassment but the filthy racist mentality had been very difficult for me to stomach as well. I didn’t know how I should act when I entered the pub that night although, realistically speaking, my personality was not made much of confrontational qualities. I had done a little direct action but I had never really got my hands dirty, either one-on-one or in a mob. Still, this fact hid itself from me and I wondered whether I would give Dave what he deserved or even whether I should. Furthermore, he might approach me, this could be the start of a whole new relationship of taunting and abuse for this putrid maggot. If this was the case, I’d have to work out the best course of action to follow. After all, I did genuinely enjoy going to The Crown and I considered it much my local, I wasn’t ready to give it up because of some bastard with a nasty chip on his shoulder. I wondered whether I would have to tell Jeff to salvage the situation, as much as I wanted to leave him out of the whole wretched mess. I speculated and contemplated the issues for some time before I actually decided that the ‘fuck it all’ approach was the best, donning my coat and heading to the pub utterly unsure of what was going to happen or how I was going to play the inevitable encounter.
It soon turned out, however, that the inevitable was not going to be that evening because when I reached the inside of The Crown, Dave was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey, Chris, how are you?” Jeff welcomed me with a bright smile and started pulling my pint.
“Not bad, not bad,” I responded, “Where’s that bastard?”
“Dave? I don’t know. He was here last night but he hasn’t been in all day. I don’t care, I’m glad not to see his fucking sorry mug. Hope he never comes back. Piece of shit. You saw him that other night with those black lads; I should have banned him there and then. It’s just, with Dave, you don’t know what he’s going to do. He made that clear that first night with the pint glass. Let’s just have a good night, yeah? This one’s on me.”
And so that night we did enjoy ourselves. Everyone did. It wasn’t just that we were celebrating Dave not being there, the general atmosphere became more relaxed. There was no edge to the evening and it was something we hadn’t realised had haunted the place so much until we were given a night off from that bigoted scumbag.
Having spent the night in the pub a lot of my anxiety about what had happened quickly ebbed away. By the time I left, I was drunk, mellow and feeling lighter than air. It was on the way home I was unpleasantly brought back to earth.
I only live a short walk from the pub but on the way I pass an alley or two and down one of them, less than two minutes from my house, I heard the most disgusting, retching noise. I turned my head thinking little of it and saw a body slump over with a groan. Our area had very little problem with the homeless and so I began to be concerned. The noises had been unhealthy and I didn’t want to leave someone lying in the street all night, even though I felt sure it was someone simply the worse for wear because of too much booze.
I knelt down and asked patronisingly whether the person was feeling okay. The response was a gargled choke and large thick spit in my direction.
I immediately realised two things. First, the spit had been thick, thicker than saliva. The person I had discovered was coughing up blood. Second of all, I knew this person - it was Dave. It was very dark but his features and bulky build were quite distinguishable. He tried to speak but he was near fainting point and mostly incoherent. However, he did manage to reveal that he had been stabbed. It was a long, deep cut from just left of his bellybutton up to his chest. I looked at him and was pretty sure he had taken a beating too. He swayed back and forth, his silhouette moving like a misshapen pendulum, possibly tracking his own time until unconsciousness. I looked at him and felt his blood-drenched shirt before standing up. I took a step back out into the street. As I did, Dave screamed a slurred ‘fuck’ and I began to contemplate what I should do.
It seems so obvious that when you see a person in such a distressed and distressing state that you should help. Whether you call an ambulance and wait, just make the call and run or attempt to deal with the issue entirely on your own, you do not leave a person for dead. However, it was debatable whether you could even call Dave a person. All he had shown was a complete hatred and intolerance towards all other people; I knew not of one person he had left the slightest positive impression upon. As horrible and inhumane as it sounds, I wondered if Dave’s life was really worth saving. Remember that this was the man who had pulled a blade on me and had held me at knifepoint only a couple of evenings before. Not only had he shown himself in his worst colours that night – a night that flashed through my mind as I considered what part to play – but he had made that evil charade grotesquely a part of me. The worst thing I could have done was finish the job myself, to return to the alley and beat the final measure of life from the bastard. However, I was not that malicious and, as I have already confessed, I had never been one to get my hands dirty. So, I asked myself what to do: offer help or leave him to fate? Do I make the call to the right services and salvage a man who can best be described as a monster or do I wash my hands of the situation altogether? I ask you, now, what would you do? Think about it. Look at the things this man has done. Imagine that you had many unpleasant scenes in your mind of an individual, a fucking filthy vermin of a human. Imagine those disgusting scenes, imagine how, over five years, those scenes would affect you. There is no person in the world you have any genuine hate for - genuine, particular loathing - except for this individual who possibly only you can save from death. Now imagine that the freshest scene is the most humiliating experience of you life. What would you do? Could you honestly say that saving this individual would be your definite choice of action? Likewise, do you honestly think you could leave a human being to die? The clock is ticking, the pendulum barely swings, what is your conclusion?
I’m not going to tell you my decision. If I did you may feel you need to rationalise it. Or contradict it. What’s more is that I might feel that I need to rationalise it to you. I don’t need your opinion on what I should have done, it was a difficult decision to make and if I do work this out, it must ultimately be on my own. In other words, I wanted to share the story and the burden. I wanted you to ask yourself the questions I asked myself and have continued to ask myself. I wanted to ask them once more. Maybe I will now be ready to let go.
I will tell you what happened. Someone called an ambulance. It may have been me, it may have been someone else who found him after I left him for dead. Either way, Dave was hospitalised and he survived with no recollection of who attacked him or anything after the assault. Since then he has been much less frequent in The Crown and he has never returned to his abominable displays. He drinks less and looks a lot more cautious and timid, though just as hate-filled. Therefore, I do feel that what was done to him that night was for the best. I also feel that – because of his new, quieter personality – that it was right that he survived. However, I do often fear that he is now a time bomb with one last twisted stunt left to express upon the world. At the moment though, it appears that Dave is no longer the menace he once was. But I never had the privilege of hindsight when that night took place. I hope you developed your opinion before you discovered these conclusions because they undeniably taint things unfairly. Or maybe it makes no difference to you.
I often go over the events of those few days. There are definitely things I would change in how I acted but I ask myself, time after time, whether I behaved in an acceptable way. When you are in the night and you can help or hurt a monster what do you do? I made my choice.
Have you made yours?
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