Serious Trouble

The first time I witnessed serious trouble, I was having a swift midweek half in my adopted local.
It was the smallest of the nearby pubs, less corporate and loud. Regulars only, all faces known, but light on the bonhomie. We were private drinkers, mostly solo with a smattering of groups of two or three. The pub motto was "mind your own.
So I'd paid no heed to the young guy in the brown leather, nursing the dregs of a pint as he leaned next to the darts board, on the far side of the pool table, away from the bar.
Not until they came in to get him.
The three big men stepped in through the double doors, eschewed the bar and beelined for him with minimum fuss. There was an efficiency about their movements that sliced through the listless mood of a downbeat boozer on a dull midweek evening.
It was hard not to stare, and there was a barely perceptible shift in demeanour in my fellow drinkers - two more pints and I would have missed it, but glasses were lifted and strategically replaced to allow for sly glances and conspiratorial nods, before returning to the business of the midweek drink.
The three visitors surrounded Brownleather man, who was now visibly cringing and shrinking in their presence. It seemed they were trying to persuade him, in low controlled tones, to take a walk outside. I couldn't hear his answer but could see his hands held out in the internationally recognised symbol for mercy.
It was apparent they were men of professional restraint but little patience for stalling and they were soon pulling Brownleather towards the double doors. The poor guy made a pitiful show of resisting, but was firmly persuaded it was for the best to go quietly. They were doing him a favour, they were making it private.
And I knew as well as he that whatever fate lay outside for him, it was unavoidable, bigger than him, demanding retribution. Lessons needed to be taught. Points made. Pain delivered. Honour retained. The big man was waiting.
I was fascinated and sickened.
Not on moral grounds.
I was just glad I wasn't him. For a moment I was back with the scoolbullies, and the childhood gangs that haunted my youth, recalling the overwhelming irresistible forces that would sometimes appear and swallow my world back then.
The inevitability of the outcome.
The futility of pleading.
I knew Mr Brownleather could expect considerably worse than a dead leg, a bloody nose, a face full of spit, his head down a toilet. This was big boy trouble, a True Crime tale in the making.
But I knew how alone he felt, how his world had shrunk to the size of those three lumps and his waiting nemesis. I felt cold and sick.
I ordered one more for the road.
A couple of days later I was sinking another when he came in on crutches, banging and swearing his way through the double doors. No-one enquired after his health as he leaned on the bar and ordered his pint, and paid no heed as he clattered his way to the tiny table in the nook, splashing his beer as he went.
There were murmurs of "kneecaps, and "that's what you get, and it seemed order had been restored, some law had been adhered to. I was outside of it, untouched, I thought, but when two of those cartoon henchmen appeared at the bar, nodding to all like regular boozers, with a wink and a nod to their kneeless victim who held up his glass and smiled in return, I sensed last orders calling for me. This was not to be my local, this was not my street. All my hours and years of working, of getting where I was, were ephemeral things in here. I could be eaten by big fish, and my rules would not apply.
I sank my last and left, to join the boys down the road who'd put in the hours, who talked their talk, of how was their day, and swaggered as if they owned the world, corporate and loud, a stone's throw and a world away from my quiet abandoned local.