I Don't Want to be a Hero

I’m no have-a-go-hero. In fact, I have racked my brains for this task almost as much as I had to to come up with a selfless act. So what follows is barely heroic. More an act of extreme stupidity. But here goes.

The hour was late, and a great deal of drink had been taken. We were on our way home from a party, four lads and myself. Merry, but not utterly plastered. We planned to finish that job with the bottles of Mad Dog 20:20 which were clanking in my handbag. We were  students. And poor.

The walk was long, and we stopped off at the kebab shop. I’m not much of a night time eater, and indeed have never had a kebab, so I waited outside. And as I waited, two blokes came along and started being not quite nice to me. One of my lads came to my rescue immediately. The bad men were less than impressed with his intervention. What might be described as a scuffle followed. Fortunately, one of the more sensible of our number rescued all of us. The bad men went on their way.

Kebabs in hand - theirs, not mine - three of us formed a splinter group and started walking. The bad men were ahead of us, and finally turned off down a side street. We thought no more of it. Until we came to the side street. Unexpectedly, the bad men reappeared. What might be described as a full-on attack followed.

And one of the bad men had a claw hammer.

Now, I’m not especially brave, and I have never been involved in a physical altercation before or since. But something in me snapped. I realised that one of the bad men had my friend D pinned over the bonnet of a car and was bashing his head in with the hammer. I found myself clinging to his back, punching, clawing, biting and scratching, and screaming bloody blue murder. All three of us toppled to the ground. There was a lot of blood. The other bad man suddenly realised that they were in fairly serious trouble, and they legged it. Fortunately they chucked the hammer under a car, where it was later retrieved by the police and used as evidence. And, of course, we pretty much knew where they lived.

A long night in A&E beckoned. And interviews with the boys in blue. Funny how something like that sobers you up. We could have drunk the MD 20:20 but thought it best not to. No-one was really seriously hurt, but quite a few stitches were required. The biggest casualty of the whole affair was my red wool coat which was never the same again, despite repeated dry cleaning. The phrase “blood red” is actually wildly inaccurate when it comes to describing colours.

I was deemed something of a heroine by my boys, although thinking back, I was really something of an idiot.

(The following summer, there was a court case. I was more afraid then than I was during the actual incident. The guys did time for it. I was glad. They were very bad men indeed.)

I Don’t Want to be a Hero - Johnny Hates Jazz

Comments

[bob]

Gawd, that's horrible. Your mate was really lucky to have not been more seriously hurt (and you as well!)

I used to have nightmares (back when I was 5 or 6) about a "claw hammer killer" that allegedly lived in the woods behind our house.

I'll bet you never do DIY, eh?

[Angelalala]

Go, girl! Excellent adrenalin response. I'm bloody glad they were caught too.

[Cat]

Bob, not one of my finer moments. And, no, I don't do DIY. But I suspect that's because I'm a lazy cow more than anything else.

Angelala, it was a pure adrenaline response. If I'd thought about it for 30 seconds I would have run away!

[Angelalala]

Honey, that's what adrenaline responses make you do! Most people would have taken flight, you jumped on the bastard which makes you a top bird in my book.