Righteousness
I’ve never been in a serious physical fight in my life. I’m a really, really fucking passive, very fucking relaxed sort of bloke. It takes a lot to piss me off, but...

I’ve never understood why some blokes love to go out, get a gutful of piss and start a blue.

To my mind, it isn’t worth giving those sorts of blokes the savage near death beating they deserve. After the stitches come out, they’d be back out there, looking to inflict violence upon another easy target, like a demented skinhead Energizer bunny. Life usually sorts them out in the end. They become car detailers, service station attendants or lifelong welfare recipients. Facial tattoos do tend to somewhat limit your employment prospects.

If I am enjoying a nice night out, I’m not too pissed, but I’m unfortunate enough to attract the attention of a particularly obnoxious mouth-breather eager for conflict, and I’m in an equally feisty mood with no fear of consequences, I will happily give a fucking good gob full of “life coaching”.

To whit;

Pissed moron shoves you, utters some threat. He has to be immediately informed at absolute full controlled volume, with full eye contact, with no swearing whatsoever, he’s not very smart, not tough, and he’s very unpleasant to be around drunk or sober. A propensity towards unmitigated violence actually isn’t a very good social skill. It doesn’t translate to a successful and happy life (particularly in an office environment). His friends fear him, rather than respect him, in time they will drift away and he’ll end up in prison for bashing his infant step-kids if he doesn’t address the need or desire to inflict violence upon others. It’s not normal, it’s wrong. Society will rightfully hate him and resent his very existence. Obviously no-one will ever stand up to him for fear of nasty retribution, but they will absolutely hate him, for the rest of his life.

He has the choice to exercise some tiny shred of self-discipline, sort out his problems and lead a fulfilling life, or keep going until inevitably someone bigger, stronger and more violent sticks a knife in his guts, so he can die a noble street warrior’s death, bleeding out on the footpath amongst the cigarette butts and dogshit.



The last time I pulled this stunt was in a remote work camp, some machinery operators (bulldozer drivers) had a day off in middle of their roster, they duly got stuck into the piss throughout the afternoon and by evening were well and truly shit-faced and being very fucking obnoxious to all and sundry in the camp. No coppers within cooee, a few security guards who specialised in watching late night pay TV and eating donuts.

It was getting stupid; non-existent reasons for starting “retribution” fights, threats, shoving and just being cunts because they were big, pissed, looked tough with the their hard-man stickers (tattoos) and shitty attitude.

After receiving a few shoves and some primal drooling utterances to goad me into retaliating, I was so very fucking over it. I stood up to them, risked a beating, and fucking spelt it out in a barely controlled Mr Darcy–esque rage.

Maintaining full eye contact, I held forth a full, loud heartfelt diatribe until they just stood there, silently swaying, dumbfounded, slack-jawed and drooling.

Fucking cretins.


After a small silence, some of them mumbled apologies, we engaged in the obligatory handshake/backslaps shared a few cigarettes, and then the sorry stories of fucked up childhoods and ensuing justifications for abrogating personal responsibility started.

The same old stories started to come out, growing up in a broken family blah blah, all the usual pathetic self-pitying shit that “explains” the complete lack of personal responsibility. Fucking spare me the violins.

I’m just standing amongst them, staring them down, King of righteousness and reason.

One bloke with tears tattooed on his face actually starts crying, and in between the sobs and saliva, blubbers some crap about how he’d fucked up his whole life up, but he was going to go straight now. This was his first real job, first time in his life. He’d just been released after serving 10 years inside and had jagged this job through a rehabilitation scheme. Not going back inside, ever.



I pause in mid-drag on the cigarette...err, sorry. What? Did you just say 10 years?


That’s, ummm...a lot of time, to err, you know, be in prison, like.


oh, manslaughter. really?



Jesus. What the fuck was I thinking?



No, no, of course, I’m sure it wasn’t your fault. Well, yeah, it’s great that you have a job, and ahh, yeah..no, no, please, take the rest of the pack, I really should give them up. No, no, I insist. Here, have the lighter too, and ah, yeah, I’ll see you later mate, sorry about you know, the yelling and stuff. Just can’t seem to control the temper, yeah, the old man used to beat me and stuff when I was a kid, but I’m working through it. One more hug? ahhh, yeah sure, sorry, what’s that? A hug’s better than a punch up? Ha ha ha yes indeed, oh my word yes, ha ha...look, I gotta go and err...get some sleep, so I’ll see you blokes tomorrow. Nice to meet you, great tatts. Bye now.


Couldn’t have stuck a pin up my arse, I was that puckered.

10 years. I mean...fuck...I could’ve ended up with a knife in the guts.



Moved out the next morning to another camp.
( Ken Oath, Tue 19 Mar 2013, 14:07, Reply)