There was a fight in the mall today. I broke it up.
Rewind a bit, maybe seven years, back before Xueling was born, and there was a memorable occasion when I was at ION Orchard, and a guy started getting loud and abusive at the wait staff of a cafe, and I emptied my pockets with the intent of taking him down if he went one more step.
As it turns out, I didn't have to, because this guy with the body language of a true gangster stepped in and ran him off.
I happened to see this guy in another mall getting loud at an Indian guy and telling him to go back to Pakistan, but, again, it was over before I spun myself up to do anything.
And I think, somewhere along the line, perhaps after almost a decade of dealing with kids and learning that, given the right conditions, it's ok to impose your will upon a volatile situation and with sufficient will you can make it stick, I decided that I wasn't going to stand around the next time, because you can't wait for a threshold and you can't say "right, when this guy goes this far, I'm going to become a hero", because that threshold never comes.
So back to earlier, while I was in a queue with Caffeine, waiting for a replacement SIM card (someone had stolen her phone, but that's a story for another day), I heard someone yelling in anger, and I saw a premob coalescing, and I shoved my bag and jacket at Caffeine with a here, hold this , and crashed straight through the mob around the commotion, and I saw a big guy pinning a smaller guy's head to the wall and attempting to remodel his skull with a temple-to-temple percussion.
I'm not sure how I did it, but I kind of teleported into position in front of the big guy as he drew his fist back and I raised my hands between us to get his attention and told him, in as level and solidly projected a voice as I could Dude, you have to chill, man. Just chill.
Because he was pissed. Really, really pissed. Way I saw it, the little guy was going to be dead and pancaked in a few moments, and whoever was at fault, it was the big guy I had to handle. Either he was the aggressor, in which case I was going to have to take him out in a few moments^, or he was about to explain to me why it wasn't his fault.
"He pushed my wife over."
Ah..
"I understand, sir." And then I put my hands on both his shoulders, which incidentally meant that if he took a swing I could smother it. (yes, I was taking a risk by stepping into a fight that wasn't my business, but I wasn't going to take an inordinate risk)
"And my wife is pregnant."
"I understand, sir, I really do. Do you need to take her to a doctor?"
"He hurt my wife!"
"Yes sir, I know exactly how you feel. This kid smacked my daughter around once and if I could have I would have put his head through the wall but you can't do that kind of thing. You have to let the cops handle it."
"He deserves it."
"Yes, he does and yes I absolutely agree but in a few months your child is going to be born, and if you hit this man again and the cops come and you're still hitting him you won't be there when your son or daughter is born. You won't be able to hold your wife's hand and give her support and strength and you won't be able to see your child's face, because you'll be in prison, because self-defence doesn't cover this. Self defence only covers to a certain point and you're about to step well over the point. DO you understand me, sir? Do you understand? Your fist won't help. You have to calm down. You have to chill. The cops are coming and you have to be calm when you face them, because if they ask you what happened and you shout at them that this man pushed your wife over and you were just giving him his punishment you're going to be in jail for assault. I don't know how long it will be but you're going to miss your child's birth. So chill, man. He ain't going nowhere."
And he took a deep breath and looked at his fist in some kind of confusion and said "normally I don't lose my temper this easily."
"You chill? You calm?"
"Yeah."
"That's good, man. That's good. I'm going to let you go now, ok? You just stay and wait for the cops."
"Yes.... Thank you."
^I'd already planned the next move. If he started a swing at me, I was going to step in and engage his bicep with my left hand and step through him. If he swung at the other guy-- well, the other guy was out of luck but I was going to go in round the outside and go with a ura ikkyo and hopefully finish with the big guy on the ground.
After that, I'm not sure what would have happened but it would have been epic. And I'm sorry, because he turned out to be a decent family man, but I didn't know that at the time and I had to plan for every possible move.
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