Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Unsung Working Man

"Rape" is screamed.

Later, nobody can say who screamed. It is after midnight. There were more than 500 people in the bar.

The rape is apparently in progress inside the Gents. Guards attempt to force their way in, as the door is blocked. This reinforces the belief that a rape is in progress.

Inside they find that one cubicle is locked. There is something not quite right about what is happening inside it.

More than one person is in there, at least one is female. When guards make entry they find a male & a female, "at it."

Both have taken all their clothes off. This is diverging from conduct associated with a rape.

The guard who made entry to the cubicle is on his own, except for the ..er...pair who were already in there. (Must have been rather cosy with the three of them.)

Half-a-dozen males attack the guard & attempt to enter the cubicle to "get the rapist." The guard fights them off.
Then another half dozen males attack the guard & attempt to enter the cubicle to "rescue their mate."

The guard is punched & kicked aplenty, his cries for help cannot be heard. He's backed into the cubicle, with the amorous/rapist pair squeezed behind him. Otherwise he'd have no chance.

All the while there is an endless crowd of males coming & going to use the toilet facilities. They dodge around the brawl. (Yes, it really does happen like that.)

The Guard knows there will be no "Hotel guard intervenes to save rape victim" headline. There never is. These blokes put in some heroic efforts, receiving little but sneering from the press & the authorities for their trouble.

These blokes are middle-aged working stiffs, putting in late shifts as guards to pay mortgage, put food on table, send kids to uni, or perhaps pay maintenance. They take seriously their responsibility to keep patrons & premises safe. Salt-of-the-earth.

(Pumped up young ethnic types, with Robert De Niro accents, bulging gym rat arms, carefully oiled skin, trimmed eyebrows & metrosexually moisturised face? You'll only find those down in the big smoke, usually at CBD venues.)

Afterward the guards prowl the venue, grabbing & tossing out those who had attacked the lone guard in the gents. They throw out about twenty males. In a most unceremonious fashion.

1 comment:

RebeccaH said...

I once got caught in a riot inside a women's loo in a Munich Oktoberfest beer tent (long ago). My purse was stolen, I got a black eye, and I got ferried home to the NATO/US Army residential apartments in a German police car (having lost track of my husband, much to said husband's embarrassment).

Beer riots are fusterclucks, due to everyone being drunk (me included). I do remember the nice German nurse/social worker (they keep them on call at the Munich Oktoberfest), who assured me that dark beer especially "makes people crazy".

No telling how many rapes or near-rapes or faux rapes there were at those venues.