Wild Sovereign Development Site

Tag: aggression

  • I spoke first

    In a crowded lunchtime cafe we were pressed elbow to elbow. The couple beside me talked and talked, while both scrolling idly on their phones. At last I turned to the woman, whose mouth was open and full of food, and asked her,

    “Excuse me, would you please be so kind (in German we say ‘so dear’ or ‘so love’) as to swallow first, and then speak?”

    Her mouth dropped open further. Her gaze sharpened. So I said, “It’s kind of gross. And I am also eating.”

    People who lack emotional honesty are often intimidated by it, I think. They turned to each other and went on as though I had not spoken, except that the woman changed her habit. But the man must have been revolving it in his mind, like the visible food in her mouth. I went on with my meal gazing into the beautiful day around us and was startled by his hand on my arm.

    “Firstly. You should ask more politely. And secondly. If it is you who doesn’t like it, it’s you who moves.”

    “That’s polite?” I said, almost laughing. But she gained courage from his hostility and soon they were both railing at me, jabbing hectoring fingers in my face, telling me off as only Germans can.

    “Look, if you want to have a fight about this, can you do it amongst yourselves? I’m not interested.”

    This outraged them further and the woman’s chest was heaving. The people at the next table looked shocked. The waiter came so I could pay and asked, how was it. And I said, truthfully, it was ok, thank you, it wasn’t super like it usually is.

    Five German gasps went up around me like balloons. The Vietnamese waiter laughed. “It’s because today I cooked it myself.” It is interesting to me and I sometimes experiment, how much you can frustrate a German by simply refusing to make eye contact – whilst jaywalking, for example – because they long to tell off the transgressor and shepherd them back into the fold, but lack the straightforwardness to tackle someone who has not spoken first.

  • find your kind

    Heart-curdling rage in the city today. I was in a crowded shopping street when a man began to roar at his son. He was bantam-weight, wiry, blond, apoplectic: the boy looked six or seven at most. His little sister, used to keeping out of it, hung her head and looked away. Around them hundreds of people turned their heads – it was loud, roaring, full-bore, insanity’s volume. Shopping bags rustled, buskers busked. I stopped. A teenaged boy on a bicycle stopped too. I laid my hands flat on the air in front of my stomach, a placatory gesture. “Please,” I said. “Calm yourself. Your children are frightened.”

    He didn’t hear, didn’t answer, knew in that instant no one but themselves and his own swollen, massive entitlement to rage. He roared and roared, putting his face close to the child. The boy was bent double, both his arms rigid, pulling back and curving his body away from the danger as far as he could. The man held him by both hands in one large fist, the other hand making big threats in the air. I exchanged glances with the boy on the bicycle. I put one hand on each little dark head, smoothed and cupped them. Their soft hair, their stiff little faces. “There’s no need to shout like that. He can hear you. We can all hear you. You’re frightening him.”

    Giving me a vile look he dragged the child away. The girl followed willingly, willlessly I suppose. The man was blond and Nordic, red in the face; the little children looked to be Moroccan maybe or Egyptian. To my shame I was wondering how did this blond man get hold of these two small, dark children. Perhaps he was married to their mother. Perhaps they were his by blood, though none the more his to abuse and to frighten. Perhaps they were adopted. Maybe, stolen. I walked round the corner where they had gone, fretting and wondering, my heart a drum. The teenaged man on his bicycle came behind and I saw him swoop past the man and call out something. The man shouted back. My ears were filled with an army of blood. Making a determined effort I crossed the narrow laneway and caught up with them. “Sir,” I said, “sir, do you speak English? Please stop. Let me talk to you.”

    He turned and snarled, he raised his fist and planted it two feet from my face. “You’re not from here,” he sneered, “you know nothing.” I said, “Listen. You don’t need to frighten your children. Look at them: they’re terrified of you. Be gentle. Be kind. Find your kindness. Please!”

    He made a feint at me, not meaning it, just wanting to put me off. “Fuck you,” he shouted. “Fuck off!” I cupped my hand round the little boy’s nape. Probably he spoke no English at all. “Are you alright, little boy? Are you ok?”

    The poor darling. His father, the monster, dragged him away, gesturing curtly for the girl to follow. He was still detailing to the child in coarse roaring snorts how the boy was at fault, was faulty, would amount to nothing. I hope for the boy’s sake he saw that of those six hundred people who didn’t know what to do, there were two who could not accept he be treated that way. It’s not ok, you are someone, you exist and we can see you. Maybe that is a candle that keeps him alight until he can run away into the world. I did nothing, I made it worse, it’s not about me. Despairing I bellowed after the man, a last effort: “Be a real man and protect the children!”

    A girl came out of a shop, wondering. I showed her what had happened – the boy dragged around the corner, disappearing now, hanging back as hard as he could. She said, “Oh, my god. How could he.” We stared into each other’s gentle, sane eyes. “If he’s that loud, in public,” I said, slowly, “if he feels that entitled to shout and scream in the middle of a Saturday afternoon right here – imagine what he’s like at home.”

     

  • great parents, both healthy

    great parents, both healthy

    I shared a restaurant nook tonight with three dinosaurs in suits, entertaining a young lady. The young lady was “three weeks pregnant” to the oldest dinosaur and hardly said a word. (“We’re not telling anybody yet.”) He sat with his arm linked loosely round her chair, establishing claim, while parsing the charms of various female executives as lazily as though picking his teeth. Gosh, I disliked him. Several times his voice rose on the repeated phrase “these ridiculous wind farms.” He talked about firms being “ripe for the picking” and a “young” female CEO of “42 or 43” who inexplicably had become suicidal when her high-riding company suddenly collapsed. The three of them leaned back to dismiss, one by one, the possible “real” reasons for her despair: Great parents, both healthy. She’s got a sister, they get on. She’s in a plum position, the world is her oyster. She’s charismatic and, frankly, gorgeous. The little wife sat with her hands folded under her chin during this recital and her baby, I guess, nestled under her ribs getting used to the uninterrupted sound of its father’s voice as he laid out the state of things for the education of the room at large. Oysters and plums. Niggles & Pimms.

  • you want a peace of me

    you want a peace of me

    Tonight I intervened in somebody’s love mess and may well have made things worse. I had cycled through the lit tunnel under the bridge four times for the sheer joy and came out blinking into the stormy-seeming piled sky, alongside the frozen-over river. I heard a shout. A tall man was dragging his much smaller girlfriend by the collar of her coat, shaking her like a puppy, while she cowered and pled. It took a second with her face hidden and in the dark to ascertain this wasn’t mutual horseplay. Hey, I shouted, then really bellowed HEY! Leave her alone!

    She was shrinking inside her clothes and he was a shrunken king, big in the body but small in the soul. Hey! I cried again, and he paused in his torment to shake a big fist at me. I don’t know what “You wanna piece of me?” sounds like in Danish, but then again, I think now I do. I was yelling to her, trying to speak slow and clear, praying all Danes understand English: Walk away! You, girl, please! Just walk away. Two other women huddled in the bus stop asked, what was going on. By now the fraught couple had retreated (first rule of evading attack: do not go where he leads you) behind a big tree and she was crouching on the ground like a servant, in her fur-lined parka, her supplicant head bent as he yelled down at her and she took it. After a while seeing he was being watched the coward started gentling and soothing, he crouched opposite and the young woman in the bus stop said, naively, It’s alright now.

    We daren’t go any closer. Their stronger-minded friend walked past, I didn’t catch her name but the other two girls called out to her and she said, Well, we don’t know what kind of guy he is. I said, I think I know exactly what kind of guy he is. Well, she said, but if he has a gun – or a knife –

    They must have called the police because the three of them climbed on their bus when it arrived and moments later a police officer with a piercing flashlight lept out of a car. He talked to the ‘man’ and his female colleague talked to the woman, who had her back turned from shame, and the upshot was the couple climbed into his big black SUV and roared away. We can do nothing, the policeman said, if she stays. People are grown-ups. Yes, I said; she has to want to walk away. Exchanged cards with the lovely-faced Persian guy who had climbed off his bicycle and he said, Next time you come to Copenhagen, you don’t have to stay in a hotel. Nonetheless… I think I will. I think of that girl, home with him now, cowering and pleading. May she find the strength that’s inside us all. May he. And stop your bullying.

  • I’ve been playing this music for many years

    I’ve been playing this music for many years

    Today I was walking by the river when a man accosted me for directions. His tone was accusing and he didn’t say excuse me or thank you. He was carrying a crumpled green flyer, and pointed. “Do you know This Street?”

    I turned to show him the sign. “That’s this street right here.” He frowned. “But I need the church on the corner of That Street.” I pointed. “Could it be…. this church right here?” We were standing right next to it. A leafless, skeletal tree waved its shadow over us, helpfully: or would have, had there been any sun.

    “You don’t understand,” he said, “this is very important to me. I’ve been playing this music for many years.” That’s right, he had a guitar over his shoulder. “Well,” I said, beginning to suppress a smile, “I’m pretty sure this is the place. What other church is there, on the corner of This Street and That Street, by the river?”

    Why does one pity selfish people? I guess it’s because they are innocent, and seem helpless. He pushed the flyer at me. “You should come to the concert. On Saturday.” I said, “Sorry, I can’t on Saturday. But good luck!” But my last words, possibly all my words, were wasted. He had turned away, sighing, “Yeah… well…” and was blundering into the churchyard, trailing his self-absorption like a long, dragging skirt made from stockings filled with bunched-up wet newspapers.

    H2O HoL I've been playing this music