102. ...a cruel and rusted knife...
(life story)
This is the start of a story in three parts.
(there’s an out loud version of this at the bottom if you prefer a listen to a read)
1/3
I’d been thinking and writing about starting points and catalysts the other morning and then Monday lunchtime Krav Maga in the muddy Meadows brought this to mind. It’s an incident that sparked some change in me and though it was unpleasant at the time I’m quite grateful, with hindsight for the experience.
We were filming Gary Tank Commander in Victoria Park. IMDB tells me that the second series went out in 2011 so it was probably the warm summer of 2010. We had a sunny afternoon, for an easy walk and talk scene with, crucially for me, no props. The director was off following the action with his face in a portable monitor. Extraneous kit and crew, myself included, were tucked away, out of shot, on the other side of a dense shrubbery.
Off duty for a while, I took a casual lean against the side rail of an empty equipment cart with my bum resting on the backs of my hands and legs crossed over in front of me. I rocked back on my heels, tilted my face up to the sun and eased myself toward an upright doze. Film crews work long days, rarely less than 12 hours, so you get good at spotting safe moments for downtime. The sun warmed my face and the petals of the pink rose bushes Glasgow council uses to fill out flower beds and demarcate their gardens. Their calming scent flavoured the blood orange light behind my eyelids. Everything was gentle and calm.
My eyes jolt wide as acrid heat and spittle gust at my cheeks and lips. A man's livid face is right up in mine. Scars like tram lines across both cheeks. A clenched and shuddering jaw. Caustic cider fumes vented with spat words through the gaps left by lost teeth, “Gies yer fucking wallet!” he hissed.
Panic detonated in my chest and gut, flash freezing my body in a very unsympathetic flood of flight and flight hormones. I’d have run but nothing was working.
He leans back cocksure and I get a good look at his scariness. He is scary. His posture mocks my own reclined stance and I get a brief chance to look him up and down before he’s back in close. The aged sweat smell is powerful on the stained, torn and slashed army jacket hanging open over a loose band t-shirt. A jeering front man from a forgotten punk band leers out from the chest of this real life forgotten punk. His hair might have been a mohawk once but it now looks like a nurse has shaved off only the bits the surgeon needed clear cut in order to perform the lobotomies. The width of this guys grin goes a long way to pluralising the “lobotomy” idea.
He raises one hand. Manky, claw-like fingernails pinch a rank wee, yellowed roley, which he jabs toward my face to add punctuation to his words as he reiterates…
”Gies. Yer. Fucken. Wallet.”
His other hand is behind his back. Like both of mine. But he’s not sitting on his. He’s all mobile and unpredictable, swaying about like a basketed cobra, sharp eyes never breaking contact with mine. His other hand, the one behind his back, gives him a cavalier look as though he’s used to bowing before taking a ladies hand to dance. He’s choosing this position, his hands back there for a reason and it’s not just posturing. I realise, he’s holding something isn’t he. He is.
This man wants my wallet and he has the brass neck and balls to walk up to me in the park, on a sunny day, while I’m filming a tv show for The BBC! We even have security guards just over there, all the way over there, outside of the park by the trucks, Shuggy's guys, Big Shug, all the way over there. On this lovely sunny day, with a tummy full of lunch and extra naughty pudding, right in front of the people I work with, this guy wants my wallet.
The people I work with are still enjoying the sun. I glance across for support and see them all sitting in their folding chairs. Jade Art and Jade Costume comparing something in a magazine with something on Jade Art’s phone. Irene Makeup was off to one side a little, engrossed in difficult sudoku.
Jade looks up from other Jade’s phone screen. She smiles happily at me and goes back to comparing whatever pop culture incident is being held up for scrutiny.
I glance past my tormentor's shoulder hoping to see Shug advance stealthily round the rose bushes.
“I’ll no ask again son. I’ll no repeat ma sel.”
No one is coming to my rescue. A good proportion of my body weight is on my hands. If I want to whip them out and attack this man with a karate chop to the neck I’ll have to engage my core and launch myself up and forward. This maneuver would require karate skills and core strength I do not possess. I’m a little soft to look at and a lot soft in every other way. The man clearly has a cruel and rusted knife behind his back and I’m about to get gutted. He’s going to tear me open with the ragged blade of his poundshop paring knife. I’m terrified almost to the point of voiding myself so it comes as quite a surprise when I hear my own voice say…
“pardon?”
My inner monolog is screaming “He’s literally just told you that he’s not up for repeating himself!” so I apologise, “No, not pardon. I mean, sorry. I'm sorry, I don’t have a wallet”.
He leans in closer, spits a ”Whit?” directly in my face. He’s close enough now that I can see the gaps between his teeth and the rotten discoloured stumps where a dentist should have been a long, long time ago.
“I…I don’t have a wallet…because…I’m at work”.
I say this as though it makes perfect logical sense. I’m reminding him, nobody carries a wallet while they’re at work. Remember?
With an obvious lack of hands I use my eyes to point at the, seated oblivious, crew over there and repeat, hopefully, “at work”.
He turns his head to them.
The Jades look up and smile at us both. He returns their smile and I gag a little at the extra gums. They turn their attention back to the magazine and screen and he gets back to the business of mugging me.
He clamps the little rollie in his teeth and leans right in. He’s so close that I can’t see his arms but I can tell from the way his shoulders roll that he’s bringing his left hand round from behind his back and I tense and if ever I was going to scream or cry out or squeal this would be it but what if I’ve misread the situation and everyone laughs, what if I’ve got this wrong? No, I know the knife is coming but I might faint before it gets here and then I think maybe I did because I’ve lost some time, and now his dirty palms are on my cheeks and we're eyeball to eyeball, like he might kiss me but instead he breathes words into my face…
“Ahm just fucken wi’ ye pal”.
“I’m sorry…” I start to say, meaning “I’m sorry what?” but he cuts me off and entreats me, with a waggled finger so close it brushes the tip of my nose, “No, no. No need to apologise pal” and with a double tap clap on my cheeks he releases me, turns, swings both hands behind his back and clasps them there as he swaggers nonchalantly off to continue his afternoon stroll.
At the end of the shrubbery he pivots back to me, bending as he does, to pick up a cigarette end which he holds in the air in a small jubilant gesture of celebration before tucking it away with a pat, pat, pat in the breast pocket of his army jacket. The very picture of gentlemanly insouciance.
“You know the weirdest folk”.
I look across to my small cluster of colleagues and see that now, now that the crisis is over, everyone’s looking my way.
“Who’s your friend?” Jade Art asks.
I can feel a sickness lurch through my body as the flood of adrenalin drains from my brain. I draw air up my nose and suck it down as far into my belly as it’ll go so’s to provide some kind of levy to hold back my rising lunch. I stand straight, cautiously, unsure whether my legs will support me.
“I could maybe have done with some support there” I say to Jade. She looks genuinely unsure so I elaborate “That guy just mugged me”. Everyone’s on their feet now and genuinely concerned although I think it’s mostly about my sanity - I have clearly not just been mugged.
“Ok, well, not ‘mugged’ exactly”.
I walk, shaky legged, over to where they’re sitting and explain.
“You have to admit though” Jade says, when I’m done, “You do know some odd people. That guy wasn’t an unlikely Paul pal”. Irene comes back from the tea table with a polystyrene cup which she passes over to me, “I put two sugars in already”. Irene is everyone’s work mum. She places a gentle hand on my shoulder and leads me to her wee make-up stool. It’s actually a fishing stool but it’s been repurposed as a perch for an actor’s bum on location. It’s for actors and Irene and NEVER anyone else, so this offer of a seat is a big deal that I gratefully accept.
It’s funny though, I wasn’t hurt and all of my organs are still internal. I haven’t actually been mugged and like the man said, “he was just fucken with me” so really it was only a bit of fun. He was just fucken with me. But I feel like I’ve been hit and it doesn’t take much for my already quite fertile imagination to grow the feeling of a knife (the one he didn’t have behind his back) embedded in my side. My stomach lurches again and I gulp the hot, sweet tea. Concentrating on not yelping at the scalding heat gives me a minute to compose myself and distracts me from the rising spew.
“I couldn’t do anything to protect myself” I say looking past the tea, to a flat nugget of ancient chewing gum on the pavement between my feet. I’m struggling to raise my eyes. I feel emasculated and I don’t want to make eye contact with these kind women. I feel confident that they’re a little disappointed in me. I’ve let everyone down by not defending myself and fending off my non-attacker. I should have dressed him down at least. Fought back and slain the beast. Now he’s out there in the park possibly terrorising some other innocent party and if anyone’s to blame for what happens then it’s me.
The familiar intense heat of shame and self loathing burned incandescent in my core. Coward. On the outside I think it probably only showed as red cheeks.
I pulled this together from old phone notes and shonky memory but I think it’s reasonably close to accurate. Irene or the Jades would know. I’ll try to ask them.
I said at the start that it might be an inflection point or catalyst. That night, after work, I searched up every martial arts club in Edinburgh and resolved to try them all until I found one that fit. I’d get ripped and hench and fighty street wise and I’d never be a victim again.
I don’t lean on my hands any more. I definitely don’t blame myself for the actions of others. None of the martial arts classes really stuck. Ripped and hench didn’t happen. I think I did start reading self help books around about this time though. From those I’d dig down into their author’s source material. I read broad and deep and that did stick. We get strong from the inside out.
The guy in the park was a bit broken. A lot broken. He was a victim who’d learnt to be a bully. School happened to a background of bullying and I met a few at work too. I think they’re drawn, like sharks sensing blood in the water, to people with low self esteem.
For the past year, with reasonable consistency, I’ve trained Krav Maga. A couple of weeks ago I stood up to a bigger man who was aggressive toward a couple of younger guys. I stood up to a full grown bully and it felt good.
That was a long one right? If you stuck with me the whole way I’m grateful.
Doing an audio version of this made me feel a bit uncomfortable but I think it’s okay. It’s not too painful to listen to I think.
I skipped the last three lines when I read it out so if you’ve skipped down for a listen maybe scroll up when you’re done for the conclusion.
Here it is out loud…
I’m going to try and write about my failed martial arts odyssey. It’ll be in amongst all the usual mind wanderings. You can subscribe to get a wee email when I publish a new post. I’m keeping to one or two a week so I don’t think it’s too up in your face.
Thanks for reading. I hope you’ll stick with me.
Organs still internal - ha ha 😂
All part of the "Glasgow the Friendly City" experience.