Why do I always find myself in the most fucked up situations? For those of you that read my good buddy Tenmagnet’s blog (www.tenmagnet.com) you may have already read his account about what happened a week ago to me in Sydney, but for those of you that didn’t, let me explain the whole thing.
I’m too confident, most of the time that’s a good thing, but it also gets me in trouble…often. I will never back down from a fight, I will drink anybody under the table, I feel I can outwit anybody and charm my way through anything. This obviously has tremendous repercussions for someone who works in bars all over the world for a living. I’ve been in some very scary situations, believe me, but most of the time I can talk my way out of any serious problems, however, this past weekend in Sydney was not one of those times.
It was the end of the Saturday night portion of our seminar in Sydney. It’s about 2:30am and I just climb out of a car near the club that we took our students. I had been making out with a flight attendant from Perth that was wearing the same captain’s hat as me, so we had an instant connection and went back to her car after a short flirty conversation. She goes back inside to her friends and I realize I have no money for a cab home. I go to a couple ATMs in stores around the area but it seems like my card is frozen; this happens sometimes when I’m in foreign countries and forget to tell my bank that I’m travelling. I realize that I’ll have to walk home seeing as how I don’t have a phone to call my bank and the pay phones don’t seem to work. I don’t mind too much since our hotel isn’t far and I know the way, so I start walking.
I end up walking through Darling harbour to get back to the hotel since its a really beautiful walk at night the way the lights flicker off the water and seeing the Sydney skyline in the reflections. I get through the harbour and find my way to the aquatic centre near my hotel. As I’m walking up the stairs to cut through the aquatic centre I notice a thin oriental guy. He sees me, then runs up the stairs ahead of me very quickly. I remember thinking it was somewhat suspicious but assume he was simply in a hurry.
As I get up the stairs there’s a narrow path that leads through to the main road which is under construction and has some scaffolding pipes and wooden pallets laying around. Halfway through the alley a group of three guys come around the corner and walk towards me with purpose. I sense something, so I move to the side to let them pass by me, but they also move to the side to block me. I stop and realize that something is about to happen, the Oriental seems to have been a lookout. The biggest one comes forward, he’s jacked up and has those thick neck muscles that only bodybuilders seem to get, he also has a look of pure hatred on his face. The other two are only slightly bigger than me and seem to be less confident and keep a bit of distance. I contemplate kicking the big one in the balls as hard as I can or trying to gouge his eyes and making a run for it but decide I’ll wait and see what he does first. As he comes forward his body language is telling me that he’s trying to scare me, so I smile clench my fists and walk towards him; this actually confuses him for a second and he pauses and looks me up and down like he can’t believe that someone my size would stand up to him. This is something I learned from how male lions act in the wild: size doesn’t win battles, confidence does.
I stop in front of the big guy just outside of striking distance. He looks at me for a second then comes close and shoves me. He’s testing me, trying to decide if he can beat me. The other two remain at a distance.
Cajun: He-he are you drunk?
Big guy: Give us your fucking money.
Cajun: (dead calm) I don’t have any, atm card isn’t working.
Big guy: Give me your money or we’ll fucking kill you.
A bunch of things race through my head at this point. I decide that I can either fight them or make a run for it. If I run ill have to go back the way I came and since I’m drunk (students bought me a bunch of shots at end of the night) I figure they might catch me on the stairs and I could end up pretty hurt. If I fight I figure that I could probably hurt the big one bad enough to scare the other 2 away, or maybe take all 3 if I got lucky, but that’s a big if. I’m a pretty small guy, 5’7 and about 155lbs but I haven’t met anyone who is quicker or hits harder than me. I also come from a family of fighters, military elite if you go far enough, one of my ancestors being Napoleon’s best friend from Military school and his #1 general during his campaigns across Europe, he fought on the front lines with the troops as did all the other ancestors in my line and it’s been said in France that there is more blood on my name than any other in history. Fighting is literally in my blood and it gives me a shit load of confidence, something that any fighter will tell you can be the deciding factor in any fight. I figure that if I can hurt these guys bad enough then even if I lose in the end, they will second guess every other person they decide to rob from this point on. That could save lives. This seems like a stupid move but they didn’t seem to have any weapons, otherwise I felt they would show them in order to convince me to hand over my wallet.
I find it amusing that 2 days earlier the movie 300 was playing at the hostel I was staying at. As scenes rushed through my head I realized, like the Spartans, that sometimes you have to fight a hopeless battle simply to show that you’re willing to. I decide to fight.
Most men never get in a serious fight in their life. When I say serious I mean a fight for your life. I’ve had the occasional fight with people from school and plenty of bar-fights, but I’ve never fought someone with the intention of killing them. In fact I’ve always been scared of killing someone when fighting and usually withhold myself even in unfair fights, this may sound ridiculous but where I’m from fights are common and accidentally killing someone in a bar-fight can land you in prison for life, even if they started it. It’s hard to describe then, the feeling that takes over when you give yourself the freedom to fight for blood in a life or death situation. Maybe it’s this dormant animalistic trait that only gets activated in these situations, but I literally felt like I had no control over my actions once I decided to fight.
I started to speak to the big guy hoping I could catch him off guard by attacking him in mid sentence.
Cajun: Here, take my wallet.
Big guy comes closer.
Cajun: There’s a couple hundred…
I leap forward in mid sentence and punch the big guy in the throat as hard as I can. I can feel cracking and cartilage being crushed under my fist and assume I hit him in the nose and broke it. I pull back and he looks like he just got shot and falls down on his knees and makes a noise like a dog coughing. He clutches his throat and releases high pitched gasping whelps.
I broke his throat.
I laugh.
The other two look at each other with panic and come forward to help their friend. I glare at them and laugh maniacally in the craziest way I can. The bravest one swears and runs at me with his fist cocked, without thinking I position myself with my back against the wall of the building. As he swings at my face I step to the side and grab his arm. Using his own momentum to push him towards the wall, I grab the back of his head and smash his face into the brick wall as hard as I can. I can feel his face cave in and blood sprays out as he exhales through a mess of smashed teeth, broken nose and split lips. He drops limp leaving a smear of blood and cartilage on the bricks. I quickly turn around and look for the third, but can’t find him. The big guy is getting up so I walk over and contemplate kicking him in the face and stomping on his throat so hard it decapitates him, I remember this making me laugh. This is actually one of the last things I remember as I get hit HARD in the back of the head by something very heavy. I remember the world seeming to shift and the ground come up to hit me in the face. I black out.
I wake up and I can see my own reflection. I look bloodied and beat up and think I’m dreaming. I don’t know who I am, or where or what I’m doing. I quickly realize I’m awake and in a pizza restaurant and I’m looking in a mirror. There’s two nice people talking to me.
Girl: Oh my god, should we call the cops?
*I check my pants for my wallet.*
Cajun: Shit I think I was robbed.
Guy: Yeah you said that, should we call the cops? You look really hurt.
Cajun: Uhh fuck, I don’t really know what happened.
Girl: Here sit down, have some water, tell us what happened.
Cajun: How did I get here? Where am I? I remember getting attacked.
Girl: You walked in here 30 seconds ago with your eyes closed and were talking in the 3rd person, we thought you were a zombie! You said you were attacked and robbed and needed help.
Cajun: Fuck, I don’t even know who I am, this is scary, like a movie. They must have hit my head hard.
*I feel my head and its covered in huge bumps, I panic a little thinking that the guys fucked my head up forever.*
*The two nice people look concerned.*
Cajun: Hmm wait, I remember I work for a company called lovesystems!
Girl: Here use the computer!
I go on the computer and go to the lovesystems website, where I sign up for the upcoming bootcamp in Melbourne and learn how to attract women like the masters. Two weeks later and I’m pulling more tail than I ever have in my life, thanks lovesystems!
The End.
Just kidding. I actually looked at the bios and recognized my name as Cajun, I read my profile and was amused at what I read.
Cajun: Ha ha this is who I am? I’m ridiculous! Pretty awesome though.
I’m not even joking about this, this was a really weird feeling, like I fell into an alternate dimension when I had a really weird job and lifestyle. It’s like my soul was impressed with the body that it got to inhabit. Very weird. Even weirder is that as soon as I realized who I was all my memory came back.
Cajun: Ahhh I remember who I am now, yeah I’m staying in the Vulcan hotel in Ultimo!
Guy: Oh that’s right around the corner! Come on we’ll take you there.
So I get back to the hotel and this is where Chris’s account of the story comes into play. Chris and Steve (Keychain) get me a cab to the hospital and the doctor tells me they fractured my eye socket and I will need plastic surgery and titanium plates implanted into my head. I file a police report and tell the police to check hospitals for two guys coming in with a broken nose/face and throat. They don’t find anything, although they did tell me that there were thirty assaults reported that night so I don’t think they give any one much manpower, especially mine since they assumed I simply got punched in the eye and lost my wallet with nothing valuable in it.
I gotta give props to Keychain, he stayed with me at the hospital all night and is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Chris is one of my best friends but since there was a seminar the next day to teach, one of us had to be there, so I made Chris go back to the hotel to sleep so he could teach since I knew I wouldn’t make it in my condition.
So I got my operation 2 weeks later, after travelling the east coast of Australia exploring the beaches, getting into adventures and surfing, but that’s another story. I just finished my operation and can now say I am MORE MACHINE THAN MAN since I now have a titanium plate in my skull.
The question I keep asking myself now is: Did I do the right thing?
The more I ask myself the more I realize that if I DIDN’T do what I did I would forever wonder what would have happened if I did. I pride myself on always standing up for myself, even when it may seem idiotic or suicidal, I still do it because I have faith in my ability to overcome. I realize that one day I will find a challenge I can’t overcome and my arrogance will reward me with pain and suffering, maybe this was one of those times, but at the end of the day I still have to live with myself, and I define who I am by the choices I make, not the pain or the suffering that they bring.
Sometimes its better to learn things the hard way.
What do you think?
