in another world i punch him (in this one i pay for scrabble)
in the book, "making friends and influencing people", it is said that charisma is more about making people think you like them than exuding confidence or using the right amount of filler words or any one particular subconscious signal. this feels like bullshit.
i show up to the board game cafe 10 minutes before our agreed meeting time, 6:30. i sit down in an incorrect place, apparently, because a waiter moves me to the back for "privacy". it smells like spring rolls, as always. i read through our conversations on the friendship app of the week so I can remember what her deal is as we wait.
she shows up. we talk for ten minutes. travel, how our days were. i get a bit of a kick out of how she took her pictures versus how she looks in real life but I don't say anything about it. thats not to say she's ugly, she certainly isn't. but such things don't matter in friends.
we're getting into conversation and i mention that we need to tab in to play the board games. i go to the front and ask for a table for two. the cashier kind of grimaces at me and i don't know what that means.
we decide to play scrabble first. silly me, i broke the flow of conversation and now its awkward. she can't really spell so i give her something to call me on by using an acronym. she travels a lot, she has a boyfriend in fintech, she's going to greece at the beginning of the month. she's studying geology.
scrabble continues with increasing disregard for the rules with each turn. is pog a word?
she talks about psychology. when i was 15 i put on clown makeup conveniently right before my 9 month situationship told me her ex's ex was interested in her but that she was only mildly interested back and that i was, and i quote, "number one". she studies psychology now. i do not say this.
she talks about sports. i say i didnt really like them until i moved to the city. i say i dont really care so much about the sport (becoming untrue for hockey, certainly so for chess), i care about the energy and the community it creates. i talk about learning to make friends in bars through hockey. ive never made a friend in a bar through hockey. she agrees.
she works tomorrow. shes a cashier, a student, and she volunteers. i tell her thats hard but also i get it. it's getting late. we wrap up and i pay. she say's she's got next time and i intend to take her up on it.
as we're leaving she becomes much more inquisitive, which frustrates me slightly because this is the kind of shit you ask within the first 30 minutes. what do you like to do, what are you up to this week, where do you go in the city.
a man jumps out of an alley yelling at us. i stare at him, and pause to let him pass as he seems to be crossing the sidewalk. she jumps back. she looks afraid. he smells that. he lunges for her and i start walking forward, i grab her and push past him.
i get a look at his face. white, blue eyed, blonde in his 40's. in full winter gear, clearly not cold enough to have been outside long. likely drunk.
"fuck you fucking liberals. fuck you stupid entitled twats. i hope you fucking die. you're scared of me? you're scared of me? you should be scared of me"
my blood fucking boils. he smelled blood in the water and he felt a need to exploit that and to me that made him scum. i stop myself. in another world, i don't.
in another world, i tell him he's a pussy. i tell him he's worthless. i tell him he needs to fuck off before he finds real trouble. i tell him there's a reason the world hates him. i tell him he should try picking on a man his own size.
in another world, i don't grab her, i shove him. in another world he shoves me back, swinging, but he doesn't hit. in another world i don't run, i don't de-escalate, i don't back down, i shove him as hard as i can into the wall before punching him in the nose. i hear a loud crack, and pain shoots through my fist, but its nothing compared to the lightning shooting through the cavity where most people have a brain. the pain takes him back and he looks at me, dazed and shocked. i grab his head and i slam it against the brick. it's squishy.
in another world i trip as he shoves me. i hit the ground with a thud and i don't get up in time before he reels back to kick me, like a thousand pounds of stabbing pins in my side, crack, crack, crack. i can't breathe but i protect my head as i try to roll over to get up. she's ran away. i make it to my knees before something or someone or god hits me very very hard in the back of the head. i hear a fat lady singing.
in all worlds, my blood boils.
we're at the train station. she's clearly rattled, says that never happens to her.
i tell her about the time some guy was trying to shove me around outside the hardware store at the biggest intersection downtown. i tell her i punched him. thats not true. i shoved him. i should have punched him. i quip about the legal system. i tell her about the time i was on the subway and this guy started playing with my hair. i tell her that i froze and looked afraid and that that fear led him on. i tell her about the time i was walking in quebec and these men starting cat calling and following me. how i gave no reaction, and only when i turned around and told them to eat shit did they stop.
i say some people are genuinely crazy and unpredictable and will hurt you. but those people are few and far between, and they'll hurt you regardless of what you do. i say that what drives people like the man on the street isn't insanity, its a need for power and control, and you can't give them an inch or they'll take a mile. i say you know because he never would have done that if we were two men walking down the street. he's looking for power and you can't-
the subway comes. we go our separate ways. next time we'll play some more games, maybe we'll play fortnite, she says.
i feel nothing but my own impotence.