Remember back in junior high school when word got around the school there'd be a fight in the park and after class we all went running out there to see what was going on? I remember the two guys with intense rage and a hint of fear on their faces, all the kids around them yelling, egging them on. I was so intrigued and just wanted the fight to get on so I could see someone get punched. I think I eventually left because all they did was face each other and occasionally yell some sort of threat. I think I stopped attending those fights after that. I didn't really care. But there's something about a fight that makes people stop and watch.
Last night I had the pleasure of taking my children to the Spokane fair with some other friends and their children. We did the whole fair thing, rides, animals, food, booths, etc. My kids wanted to try some games and now that I'm a grown up, I understand why my parents hated letting me play those fair games. I did my best to convince them to try out the spin art booth instead, that way they're guaranteed a prize! (You know, you squirt some paint on a piece of paper for the guy to spin around and voila! Art!) We found three open spots right next to each other and I was digging in my wallet to pay the attendant when loud voices distracted me. To my right were two very angry, snarling people. It looked like a couple fighting; the shorter, Latina-looking lady and not-much-taller guy yelling at each other. It sounded as if someone intervened and the guy suggested in his angry way that they take it outside the fair. Well that satisfied me, so I relaxed a little until a split-second later, fists started flying. This was happening only a few feet away from us, so I calmly lead the children in the opposite direction to wait it out before we returned to our art project. I couldn't understand why the other customers just stood there captivated by this violence while the entire time I kept wondering when the weapons would surface. The mob had even bumped into a few working on their masterpiece and moved around behind the booth. I kept waiting for it to calm so we could return, but it continued! Up popped this white guy out of no where with blood running down his face who I later was told was on the ground getting kicked in the head by all these people. I steadily inched further away, but kept my eye out to make sure the fight didn't come toward us. Finally someone in uniform as well as the biggest black man I'd ever seen (or maybe he was just in hero status at that moment for me) arrived and the fight was ended, the not-much-taller guy yelling "Call me when you get your green card." We made our art pieces and our way out the fair gates. Note: While before this fight occurred, that game where you squirt water to fill the balloon until it pops was just a startling annoyance, but afterwards turned into a PTSD symptom. Also note: On our way out, we crossed paths with the same guy in uniform and biggest black man I'd ever seen and I wondered if the fighters had been escorted out the same gates we were now exiting. My nerves were on edge until we were safely in our van.
Being one of those regular "clubbers" I've witnessed my fair share of brawls. They are never too bad, but it isn't fun being on the dance floor when all of a sudden you're getting pushed all the way to the other side of the room along with everyone else by two drunk guys until the bouncer jumps in, stomping all over your feet. I never really was afraid of those fights and eventually learned to look for the first clear escape to get out of the way and let it dissipate. Then there was Double Dribble.
I was working a remote at the Double Dribble for Live 104.5 two winters ago with my cohost DJ Manic who had been spinning that night. We shut down the club and I hung out there while they put all the equipment away (I would've helped, but I don't think they trusted me touching any of it). It's always a challenge to get everyone to leave because they usually are drunk and don't want to go home, so when I started to hear weird, drunken wailing, I just figured it was some girls whining about having to go out in the cold. Everything got packed up and we said our goodbyes. I headed toward the front of the club while they exited through the back. As I stepped outside, I heard more wailing and noticed some very drunk people, so drunk one of them was being held up while he walked, eventually collapsing not far from me. However, when the person next to me said on the phone that there had been a stabbing at the Double Dribble, the picture became much clearer to me. I started to panic. I couldn't get to my van because it was in the same area from where those people were coming. It was a wall of stab victims I would have had to walk through. Plus, I had heard that the actual stabbing took place only a few feet from my van. I walked back toward the club, but saw no one inside. I called Manic, but no answer. I called anyone else that had been there, no answer. Finally Manic called me back and I told him what had happened. He had no idea and had been trying to get the station vehicle unstuck from the snow in the back, so he told me to meet him back there. After they freed the car, he and I walked back to the front while I tried to warn him about the scene out front. By then the police were there and those panicky feelings started up again. There was the guy who earlier had been assisted by his friends, his blood soaked into the packed snow on the parking lot. Manic tried to calm me down, grabbed my hand, and commanded me to walk. Don't stop, just keep walking. A police officer tried to stop us and ask if we saw what happened and Manic told me to keep walking. We had to walk over this huge bloody spot in the snow and I started whining, but Manic said to keep walking. We made it to my van, said a very short and frightened goodbye and I drove away. It took a few days to get over that one.
I've been lucky enough to have missed out on the shooting that left one man dead outside a well-known Spokane bar last Halloween, and other violence that has happened downtown. Now that I think about it, I really don't know why I continue to stop in those places, and I'm sure I'll have family members and certainly my boyfriend questioning this as well. I was brought up in very sheltered and small towns where the most violence we witnessed were two guys or girls yelling angry threats at each other with the rest of us spurring them on. But take it from this girl who has never witnessed a drive-by, a club shooting, gang violence, never been mugged, never been raped, never been threatened by any violence whatsoever that if a fight breaks out in a public place, to walk as far away from it as possible because as the woman next to me at the spin art booth said, "Bullets don't have names."
(I think that means they aren't assigned to specific people, or...um, something.)
