My family and I went out for dinner tonight at our favourite local italian eatery. We had just sat down at a table by the door and were perusing through the menu when a man wearing a nice-looking suit walked in. Our server happened to be near the door and approached him. Suddenly, the man started swearing at our server and threw several wild punches at him, yelling that he was getting his "fuckin' coat".
Violent Man walked further into the restaurant, continued swearing, and started swinging at the next guy who approached him. Then Violent Man picked up a bar stool. Things could have gotten quite out of hand if one of the big guys from the kitchen hadn't stepped out, grabbed Violent Man and attempted to calm him down, causing the bar stool to fall to the floor. After a brief struggle (that I couldn't see very well), three guys grabbed Violent Man, hurtled him towards the door and threw him out.
Violent Man stood at the door and continued to yell at the men, who stayed by the door to keep him from re-entering the establishment. There was some spitting involved, and this went on for maybe five minutes. Then a huge policeman showed up out of nowhere, and the whole thing became a silent movie, as we watched the action through the front window. With lightning speed, the policeman got Violent Man face down on the snowy sidewalk with his knee in the middle of his back. The handcuffs went on, and he kept Violent Man on the ground for several minutes. More policepeople showed up, and they took him away to the cruiser. Later on, three other policepeople came into the restaurant, no doubt in order to gather witness statements from the kitchen guys. We went back to our business, noticing that the food was a little slow to arrive, but we didn't mind.
The speculation was that Violent Man was completely plastered (or mentally unstable) and had already been thrown out of the restaurant earlier in the evening. Hence the coat being left behind. My mother, who could always be counted on for being ridculous in these kinds of situations, had been holding on to my father's arm the entire time, even when the altercation had moved outside. She temporarily forgot that she was hungry.
At the end of our meal, we were surprised by a plate of chocolate eclairs that were on the house. Our server apologized for the unfortunate scene earlier, but we were more concerned about whether he had been hurt. Violent Man had punched him many times before moving to the bar stool. But thankfully our server was okay.
Although the entire event is kind of unnerving and not very pleasant, all of us (minus my mother) found it very entertaining. It seems wrong somehow to witness this kind of thing and then feel excited to tell the story later, like I had just seen a really great movie but in real life.
Look at what popular entertainment has done to me.
"This fire is out of control, I'm going to burn this city"
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