Drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and fight

The planets (and Pluto) aligned yesterday and I got into my first street fight. I was near SanLiTun village, happily drunk at Lucy's going away party, dancing and enjoying myself, when some guy shoved me cause I was apparently dancing with his girl. I shoved him back, like my daddy taught me to, but it didn't escalate quite then, someone restrained him and I wasn't trying to pick a fight. Five to ten minutes later I found myself dancing with a lot more floor space to myself than usual, especially on a crowded Friday night. I looked around and saw two white guys and a bunch of Chinese guys pushing each other and yelling. I didn't want to get involved, partly because I don't have a death wish and partly because...no, pretty much because I don't have a death wish, but when I saw like ten other guys running out screaming scary words that rang with red and blue and all directed toward white, I restrained a particularly eager dude from leaving with a full nelson. Let's just get this out of the way: I know nothing about fighting. So when I say "I put him in a full nelson," it sounds beautiful and skillful but I'm sure it was exactly the opposite. He was probably just dancing with me.

Still, that guy didn't attack me, he just kept trying to get outside and help his buddies beat the shit out of someone non-Chinese. Eventually I had to let him go, I think there's some kind of rule against bringing combative drunks back to your apartment just to keep them from killing someone. I wasn't too keen on introducing him to my girlfriend's mother either.

Anyway, after I let him go, I went outside to see if I needed to call the police. However, by then the situation had resolved itself. One of the two white guys was now red from the neck up, as in you his whole face was covered with blood, and the other was cut up but not quite as damaged. The victorious mob was taunting them and the bloodier white guy seemed intent on getting himself killed. Having learned nothing at MIT, I rushed in with my "hey guys! Calm down! Let's all smoke a joint together and sing some reggae," which finally got me a smack in the face.

Without really taking a careful look at who it was that hit me, I hit him back. Turned out to be that guy that shoved me earlier. His friend restrained him from attacking me, which was very refreshing to see. He seemed to be the only Chinese guy trying to push the situation toward peace. Unfortunately, he was vastly outnumbered.

It's hard to describe what happened then. Basically six or seven skinny Chinese guys started pummeling me. The first two or three I hit back but it was like some kind of crazy Chinese hydra attacking me, the heads grew back faster than I could chop them off and multiplied quickly. Perhaps according to the Fibonacci sequence.

Luckily they didn't seem to be fighting to kill, just scare/hurt a bit. When I realized it was stupid to fight a hydra without at least a machine gun, I went back to my reggae speech and even quoted Tom Cruise to them from Far and Away: "I have no wish to fight you!" But they were pretty excited, I guess they don't get fed such splendid white meat every day. Plus, I had just gotten a haircut and a shave so I was even more infuriatingly handsome than usual. They just wanted to even the aesthetic playing ground is all.

Somehow I managed to escape, though I remember having my back against a wall at some point and getting kicked in the chest and stomach a few times. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would so I suspect they were afraid to hit me hard. I was also drunk, which helped, and adrenaline cruised the air like the Gulf Stream. Anyway, all thoughts and suspicions vanished when someone threw a beer bottle at me as I was making my escape. It didn't hit me but it did hit the ground and shatter convincingly.

As I backpedaled away, hands out in front of me in the universal gesture of peace and pat-a-cake (hmm, wikipedia's spelling, I always thought it was patty cake), one guy kept following me, chanting "run away!" and waving the two bottles in his hands at me, one beer, one rice wine. I didn't point out the irony of the chasing-me-to-tell-me-to-run-away situation to him, but calmly backed down, suddenly feeling quite ok with appearing a coward. Eventually he grew tired and abandoned, at which point I put both fists in my mouth to restrain myself from advising him to exercise more and smoke less. Then I met up with the two other beat up white dudes and called the police.

The police came five minutes later, which surprised everyone, but they didn't really do anything. The two cops just stood there, as if daring people to start fighting in their presence, but not like "someone throw a punch, I fuckin' DARE you!" More like "I hope you guys don't start fighting because I might have to blow my whistle!"

Meanwhile, the bloodier white guy was going crazy. We spent a good ten minutes restraining him from running back into the mob of angry Chinese guys to "kill them all" and probably get himself killed before he could throw a punch. He wasn't really helping our "innocent foreign lambs getting mauled by rabid Chinese wolves" case with the police. Amidst the bedlam, some Chinese guy came up to me and started complaining that his face hurt. I transferred him to the "dude, seriously, look at that poor white dude, his face is way more fucked up" department. "You want the same?" he yelled at me, and twenty Chinese guys teleported instantly to his side. I mentally congratulated him on his logic and got back into my pat-a-cake stance.

Finally, Lucy and David came out to see what was going on and we all went home to the chorus of "go back to your country!" and worried looks from the police. Then Lucy threw up out of the cab window on the way home.

After looking in the mirror this morning, I was happy to see I got away only very minor damage to my face. My stomach and chest don't hurt but my jacket and sweater have some interesting footprints. A cut on my finger's kind of annoying but it's also totally minor. All in all, I'd say I lucked out. I should go back tonight and give them all a copy of my album.