First night out on my last week alive | lukemitchwest's Blog

I come in out of the blizzard, and start bleeding out of my ears and nose. That's something of a bad omen, I suppose. I start drinking with a bunch of guys- it's good to have male friends. I actually kinda like it. 
my friend ben doesn't get in because of lack of ID- he's 25! and, like, massive! Insane, right? Ben's a good mate, so I go back outside and we drink elsewhere until he can try to get in again, and surprisingly it's successful. The night itself is unremarkable, until the end. Ben and I are throwing snowballs at some people, and it's good banter I suppose. 2 strangers start to pick me up, however, and I'm having none of this. There's something about snow that brings out some sort of bully or rage in people, I think, so I kick and struggle til they drop me. I jump on one's face and start riding him like a cowboy, just going "woop woop woop!" I'm just having the craic, trying to defuse his shitness. he drops me again. When I get up, he's trying to start a fight, pushing me and stuff. I'm starting to feel a sense of familiarity here. One thing that will always stick with me is something that happened in 2nd year when I was 12, when someone who had led a 2 year campaign of being a shithead to me was being a dickhead and focusing on only me in a snowball fight. Like literally he had eyes for nobody else, he was trying to antagonise me, and I guess it worked, because we started fighting, for about 40 minutes almost. My best friend of the time, Johnny power, was there, and he just watched. Barely even a word of sympathy. I guess that this was manhood for me. You're all alone, and people who you'd take a bullet for won't be there when you need them. And frankly, people have rarely proven this wrong [exhibit A: my old friends when I broke up with Becx. Where were they?]. Anytime I do something nice for people I always wave it off with "ah, you'd do the same for me", but frankly I don't believe it when I say it. Anyway, whine over, that's just something that's stuck with me.

Suddenly the guy is no longer squaring up to me, trying to start a fight. This is because Ben is trying to start a fight with him. Ben throws a punch at the guy, and immediately slips and falls on the ice. The other guy does the exact same shit! It's the clumsiest fight in the world, like Benny Hill and shit. Then I do the exact same shit too! My glasses are long gone by now, lost somewhere in the snow. The fight sort of goes all over the place, skidding and falling about, and the other guys mate gets involved too, and eventually the two are separated.
The other guys mate is holding back Ben, and I'm holding back the guy who wanted to fight me in the first place, who is easily like a good few inches taller than me. I'm holding onto his shoulders, and I'm shouting at him "slow down haircut, slow down!" [He had a dumb haircut] He's punching me in the face and I'm just taking it, shouting "I'm not going to hit you, I'm like buddha! You're accomplishing nothing!" And eventually, somehow, it works, to the extent that he's not hitting me anymore. His friend hands me my glasses and we leave. Through my daze I say to Ben as we walk away "can I tell people on the internet I've been in a fight now?" such a lame thing to say.
I should maybe let Ben know how much it meant to me that he had my back. I feel like I've come to terms with that whole incident in the past through this. 

On the way home some other stuff happened, like I shouted out the open door of a moving black taxi at some people and got a discount for it. This isn't such a bad week to die.
On friday my homeless befriender induction training begins. I don't think I'm going to tell anyone I'm working with the homeless. It makes it purer.