MINDLESS MUSINGS

Walking, or should I say staggering drunkenly, along the main street of Kings Cross after a big night on the piss, I was stopped by a guy who I mistakenly took for a bouncer. Greg and Joe were further ahead of us heading for the station, as it was the end of festivities for us tonight. Jonno was standing beside me trying to wrench the ‘bouncer’s’ hand free from my collar.

I didn’t realise I was standing in the gutter and everyone else was on the footpath making them all appear much taller. The guy who had my shirt was a white guy and he was talking to his islander mate asking, “is this the guy?”

I had no idea what was going on, and I was confused by Jonno’s insistence that the ‘bouncer’ let me go. I was thinking I was being mistaken for someone else who had caused trouble in the club these two guys worked for.

Finally, Jonno wrenched my shirt free and pushed me on my way. I stepped back up onto the gutter and realised that I had not been accosted by a couple of giants. I also realised that these were not bouncers and that this was not some misunderstanding. I know now that I was free to go all along, but in my drunken stupor I was very slow to react. Turns out these were just two blokes hanging around outside Porky’s who had nothing to do with the club. Either way I was walking away now.

I do not know how far I had gotten when the flash of light rang through my head. I knew that sensation; I had just been hit. I staggered drunkenly towards the road and miraculously hit a no standing sign or something similar. Had I not I would have stumbled helplessly onto the main road of Kings Cross and into the path of an oncoming vehicle; squish!

I turned just in time to see Jonno punch the white guy in the head. He then turned and called Greg and Joe. The bully wasn’t so keen to continue hitting people once the numbers were not in his favour. It was all well and good hitting a tiny bloke like me with only one full sized mate to defend him. I would have been 58kg wringing wet at the time, so technically it was two against one and a half; the half being stumbling drunk as well.

After a bit of push and shove nothing eventuated so we continued our walk to the station and headed down the travelators. I could feel a nice shiner rising on my right eye. I didn’t really mind. I thought of it like a reminder of the time I nearly ended up in traffic from a dog shot I most certainly did not deserve.

I still get chills when I remember how I could have so easily stumbled into oncoming traffic and God only knows what could have hit me or where I might have ended up. Wrong place at the wrong time, but at least a little luck was shining my way that night.