Friday 9 November, 2001 at 10:05AM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (1)

What an interesting start to the day. I just walked IceQueen to the subway to go to work and her train had just left when down below I heard someone yelling abuse (the station is above ground, and the street is below it). So I start coming down the stairs to street level and there's this big Pepsi truck on the road and the driver is out on the street running after a silver sedan, which at first slows down, then takes off. The truck driver yells some abuse and starts to return to his truck. At this stage I presumed that the car had cut him off or something and I was seeing a little bit of road rage going on, as ya do. But wait, there's more.

A minute later the car comes back (after driving around the block) and stops behind the truck and the driver gets out. This could be interesting. Within 10 seconds these two gentlemen (and I use the term very loosely) are nose to nose abusing each other, and then the truck driver throws a punch. The driver of the car is a Jewish guy, so seconds later, being a Jewish neighborhood, a bunch more Jewish guys appear from all directions to join in (the truck driver is quite a bit bigger than the other dude) so more punches fly and there's a lot of yelling and pushing and shoving.

Just then another truck which happens to be passing by stops in the middle of the road and the driver jumps out and immediately joins in, fists flying. It's all on - truck drivers versus Jewish dudes. Within seconds there are about seven or eight guys having a big fight - all I could do is shake my head and think 'cavemen'. I considered going over and telling them to grow up but the fighting stopped pretty quickly and someone was calling the police as I walked away (this all happened in a very short space of time) but I have to wonder if this was stress release of people being worried about attacks (terrorism I mean) or whether those people were just natural born assholes.

This is the second fight I have seen in the neighborhood - and this is a good neighborhood apparently! For what is considered to be an enlightened, advanced, civilized and free nation, some of the citizens have a lot to learn.