Your Blood (Honey)

Theo, Ollie (a friend of Theo’s), and I have just finished Clockwork Orange. Before then I ate my leftover curry madras while we talked a bit about transparency (or maybe semi-transparency) and the nature of the blog in relation to social performance. That aside:

Theo showed me the farmers market this evening, which is incredible. They’ve got local cheese, produce, wines, pastries, pies, meats, and a restaurant all in one building. Quite timely, given my judgement about the food options availiable. It was dramatic to think I had seen the end of the food options. Furthermore it makes sense I didn’t know about it, because most college students aren’t usually interested in that sort of thing–mostly just folks a bit older. Theo then showed me the health foods store, where I can purchase tempeh and tofu–two things I’ve been missing a lot. Finally, we were heading to Aldi’s to get some really dirt cheap soy milk. But on the way a young man, who was in a much larger group of guys, bumped aggressively into Theo. Theo was turned around because the bump was so hard, and the guy also turned around and looks pretty pissed. Then as we’re about to walk away, the guy punches Theo straight in the upper lip. We didn’t say anything, the guy didn’t say anything (or it was indistinguishable from my memory), and we started walking away. The guys friends sort of pushed him along with them and said something like “come on, let’s go.” At this point I look at Theo and say, “did that guy just punch you.” To which Theo replied ,”yeah man, what the hell,” spitting some blood out onto the cement floor of the pedestrian tunnel we were walking through.

I guess the guy was just trying to exhert his masculinity. Or perhaps he was very sad, something terrible had happened to him. Maybe he was aggressive because he lives in a college town invaded by what he presumes to be pretentious middle class kids. Regardless, I couldn’t get it out of my head for awhile, it was unpleasent but real and unavoidable. I know this sort of stuff happens but I had never been present. I have been in a fight before in middle school (it was an equally strange experience). Still, we just walked away, no questions asked, no comments made. We were outnumbered, but I suppose we could have fought back. We wouldn’t have gained anything either way, it was an immediate net loss (probably for the guy too, it didn’t look like his friends thought it was a good idea). I guess then, it wasn’t weird, it was stupid/terrible/crappy. The strange thing is watching Clockwork Orange afterwords.