Day 244 - Fight

 FIGHT 

Prompt - Fight : Write about witnessing two people get in an argument with each other

An early finish at work for a change so I thought I'd treat myself.  A quiet pint in a quiet pub, a rarity in these pandemic stricken times.  Sure enough I found the Fiddler's Elbow near empty.  A cool and shady refuge from the twenty degree heat outside, with a barmaid relieved to see another customer to alleviate the mid afternoon boredom.  I tucked myself into a table in a corner, well away from the only other people in the room.  At one table sat a couple of young guys, suited and smooth, plotting over a laptop.  The other occupants were also male, but the resemblance ended there.  Small, red faced, crumpled looking men in their fifties, one looking like he wanted to hide in the glass before him, the other casting out challenging looks into space.  Neither table looked like offering interesting company, which was fine by me.

I took out my phone and started flipping through the usual nonsense, while enjoying the occasional glug from my ale.  It felt good to be out of the office, away from the pressure, with time to myself before I had to face the exuberance of my kids.  Life was being good to me.  Then my peaceful period of contemplation was split open.

A crash, a smash, a shout.  "You bastard!"  I looked up to see a laptop on the floor, smashed glass around it, and a yuppie standoff.  The blue suit was standing, glaring at his brown suited companion, arms stiff at his sides, neck tensing forward.  Mr Brown sat laughing, helplessly.  I could see our barmaid looking worried, and the crumpled men turn slowly to see what the fuss was about.  Blue picked up Brown's glass - G & T? - and threw the contents into his antagonist's face.  The now moist Brown's demeanour changed instantly.  In one surprisingly swift movement he was up and had turned the table over towards Blue, requiring the latter to jump back or be hit.  In doing so he tripped over a chair behind him and fell back on to another table.  Brown leapt across and was on him, fists pumping into the face that he had been so closely working with moments before.

"I'll call the police" came high pitched from behind the bar, but she didn't move.  Just stood in horrified fascination as blood spurted from Blue's nose, and then Brown was shoved back and also fell foul of scattered furniture.  He crashed down on to the already failing computer, and found a bloody Blue land on top of him.  This was getting messy.  I knew I should do something, I just wasn't sure what.  This was well outside my normal sphere of experience.

"Shall I call the police for you?" I offered the stricken member of staff.

"Aye, yous dae that son."  The gruff voice came not from behind the bar, but from the Glass-hiding man, now up and striding across to the fracas.  "I'll sort these tae for noo."

And he did.  Older and smaller as he was, he was also a good deal more ruthless and more practised in violence.  A well placed kick removed Blue from Brown and left him squirming in glass splinters, clutching between his legs.  "Your want the same?"  Mr Brown, young and angry as he might have been, wasn't stupid, had seen what had befallen his colleague and didn't fancy the same fate.  His head shook urgently to express his negative reaction.  

I got on with my call.  A couple of police arrive about fifteen minutes later.  Blue and Brown were still on the floor, Glass-hiding man still over them, enforcing their prone states through force of will.  And threat.

The police talked to each of us and took the offenders away.  The barmaid got on with cleaning up, aided by the crumpled men, who both expressed concern for her welfare.  As they walked back to their table, and what was left of their pints, Glass-hiding man turned to me.  "Wee bastards, eh?"

It seemed sensible to agree.