200 - "Oi! Are you that bloke?"
Manipulation in aggressive situations: Part four
Back in the winter of 2010, I was working in a small town nearby.
As part of the work I'd had to deal with several drug addicts that were stealing stock. A previous manager was intimidated into giving them goods and frankly free reign to start doing whatever they wanted.
I dealt with this situation directly and, as a result, was now anything but popular with them. I became, for want of a better phrase, a marked man in the town.
Constant police call outs, which means in reality, lodging a complaint with a well meaning but ineffective PCSO who then adds that to your file to be referenced when something really bad has happened to you.
I would often have to carry banking (small amounts, a couple of grand at most) at lunchtimes and would be verbally threatened on an almost daily basis. There was zero support from my employer, so you just get on with it.
If there were a couple of them it would be muttered threats, if there was more of them it was more serious – one main scumbag had tried pointing me out to four or five other dudes that were with him in an attempt to get them to lynch me there in the street.
It was bad news and a daily grind on my nerves just watching my back.
The main guy was a heavy build, 30's - tear tattoo on the face – a rear charmer. He was known as a heroin addict in the small town and along with his girlfriend, enjoying a seemingly charmed existence of never being arrested or hassled despite his public behaviour.
The girlfriend was worse than him – late 30's, heavy build and covered in skin lesions/ sores.
She was the daughter of wealthy parents in the town and the couple were bankrolled by these parents – drugs, drink, accommodation.
She was very aggressive, often drunk, known to carry knives, (she later tried stabbing someone ) and I had several run ins with her through work – stock theft, abusive behaviour etc.
One particular night after work was a turning point with them and the situation was then at it's worst from then on until I quit the job two years later.
It snowed in 2010 and one winter night I’m waiting at the small bus station in the dark and cold for the local bus back to my town which is, as usual, late and nowhere to be seen.
There are about 10 or so people stood around waiting with me.
I pass the time talking to two middle aged women who run shops locally.
They have their backs to the main road chatting about their days, customers and so on.
I'm facing them while carrying my work rucksack, trying to look politely interested in the conversation and looking out at the main road for a sign of the bus. All the while shifting on the ice and trying to keep my hands warm.
I see the junkie couple walking across the street on my left about 20 metres away.
She's shouting as usual. She stops and starts to nudge him as she looks over and sees me.
He looks over.
They both go quiet and it's stinkeye time.
They walk a few metres further on – keeping walking you assholes …
But no. They turn and start to walk back, looking over again, talking quietly and more stinkeye.
This will be trouble.
The two shop keeper women are still completely oblivious and laughing about a cake one of them is going to make as I stare past them at the events starting to play out behind them, my legs start trembling with adrenaline.
“Here we go, here we go...” I keep repeating to myself like a mantra to stay clear in my mind that the shaking of my legs and now, my frozen hands is just the adrenaline.
The couple start crossing towards me, now just a few metres to my left and I can hear her hiss “That's him!” He mumbles something back like “sort this now...”
I feel embarrassed in advance for the two women talking to my now blank face as they will have no idea why I've just hit someone in the middle of such a nice chat. I know if I say something to them, they'll look over and it will escalate the problem and possibly involve them.
He hands his shopping bag with clinking bottles inside to her and starts to walk towards me.
The bus has just pulled in, I'm at the back of the queue – open the fucking doors!
He's about six feet away and I look to the side and past him without looking directly but I can't see his hands in the dark.
The first move he makes, I'll punch him as near to out cold as possible and get him away from the two women if he fights back. I have no idea if this will be a fistfight or if he has a knife. I felt unsure of my feet on the icy pavement.
The queue moves onto the bus, the two women get on laughing, I'm next...
Closer now on my left, he's postured and snarls...
“Oi! Are you that guy from (business name)?”
I turn with open expression, feign non-recognition and say...
“No”.
His whole demeanour changes, becoming almost childlike, he stammers:
“Uh, oh....s, s sorry mate”.
He turns back to the girlfriend.
I'm on the bus, show my pass and turn as the doors close behind me to see him being beaten repeatedly around the head by the girlfriend.
“You fucking idiot! He's taking the piss out of you!!”
The bus lurched forward and I sat in the humid air, faint indistinct screaming outside and smiled at the two shopkeepers who were still laughing and talking, completely unaware of the drama they had missed.
Classic! Are you that bloke…. NO… I can imagine the look of confusion! The thing with skanks is that they are fairly predictable… and the mind is more than likely strained from some sort of concoction.. you may get a few extra seconds of confusion with these sorts with the right choice of reply! Well played.
Blimey. A horseman we respects asks people, when they are describing some sort of explosive behaviour from a horse, “did it come out of the blue or were there warning signs?”. He always thinks there were warning signs. The question is designed to find out how aware the human was of the build-up to the explosive behaviour. If the human says “oh, no, absolutely no warning, completely out of the blue” he knows there is work to be done on their perceptions, and removing their filters. A more aware horse-person might be able to give a detailed account of innumerable small behaviours from the horse that made them aware that all was not well and that a catastrophic loss of calm might ensue.
If things had turned out differently with the Junkies that night, it would have seemed to those women that the attack was completely out of the blue.
If they had been facing in the other direction, would they have picked up on what was going on, I wonder?
Or, does the fact that they were happy to stand with their backs to the main road indicate that they had such low expectation of anything bad happening that they wouldn’t have picked up on the potential danger of the situation?
It’s interesting to ponder how much our perception of safety is down to not noticing ill intent and potentially bad encounters.
And I suppose it can go the other way, seeing threat everywhere, like the woman who said to me that *every single man* she passes in the street, she is *certain* they are going to attack her. Even though she has never actually been attacked (which is an astonishing statistic in itself).
Accurately reading the warning signs is a key point I’m getting from this series, as well as the usefulness of manipulative behaviour.