Excerpt from 'Taxi Diaries';
Chapter 7. Assault, (Part 1).
I was cruising the Douglas area of Cork looking for a fare at about 12.45am one Saturday night,
not a sinner to be seen anywhere, so I parked up outside the Briar rose bar,
(Not a regular haunt of mine as it would have been my 'local' for many years as a teenager,
and truth be told, myself and my drinking buddies from Ardfallen would probably have paid for
most of the big extension they had added onto the back many years earlier).
After only a few minutes waiting outside in the cab this young lad about 20,
approaches my cab and asks; "Are you free ?",
I obviously respond; "Of course, jump in",
having no idea of what trouble was looming ahead, he seemed a nice young lad,
pleasant tone, well groomed, designer jeans, Real Madrid soccer top,
but he was very agitated and breathing heavily through his nose.
He rang his girlfriend 'Trisha' and started roaring at her to leave Mangans niteclub
and to meet him outside Burger-king, he rang her about Five more times on the way in,
saying the same thing and getting more abusive by the call, even telling her he was
waiting outside the door of Burger-king while he was actually in my taxi on the way into town,
as it turned out his mates were winding him up by text messages,
telling him that 'his girlfriend was snogging another fella in a niteclub on Patrick street'
and this had driven him completely mad.
We arrived at HMV across from Burger-king and he jumps out and runs up the road
to meet his on-coming girlfriend, a lovely little thing, about 19 or 20, blonde and about
5ft 1 or 2 in height with a mini-skirt, he starts roaring abuse at her immediately
and then he head-butts her, I drive up beside them in the taxi
and he continues to push and prod her and pulling at her mini-skirt,
then he head butts her again and I break my most 'Golden Taxi Rule' and intervene,
I leave the safety of my taxi and walk over to them and say;
"Easy lad, ur frighting de life outta de poor girl",
he replies; "Fukc off, she's MY girlfriend",
I tell him; ''Well, you don't own her, she is a human being''
and he calms down a bit and then his buddy comes along, arriving out
of one of the side streets and asks; ''Is this taxi-driver hassel'n you ?",
I knew I was in trouble then and I start to back away, but the first guy is still calm,
so I ask him for the 12 euro fare and I am told to; ''Fukc off'',
So I tell him; ''I'm gonna get the guards''
and he 'loses it' and kicks out at me, catching me in the groin,
I think to myself, 'Yes, we are on Patrick Street, it's all on CCTV'
and I back away slowly, not really giving a shit if he hit me or not,
again he lashed out with his fist, a wild cowboy punch and caught
me on top of the head, most probably hurt his fist more than my head
and again another wild punch, caught me just on the side of my head
between eye and ear and glanced off, but I got a nice 'shiner' to show for it !
This young lad had no martial arts training as a young boy,
if he had any training at all in the fighting field, he would have 'put me away' easily,
I had thought to retreat to my armory within my taxi,
which included a stanley knife (preferred weapon of the english football hooligan)
or a Hammer and Screwdriver (preferred weapons of the eastern european football hooligan)
basic essentials really for a Cork Night time driver,
obviously these tools are held within the car for emergency repair work on the vehicle
and are definitely not for display under the close scrutiny of St Patrick street CCTV cameras.
Then he backs off to abuse girlfriend some more,
who was now tugging at him to pull him away from me
and I retreated to the safety of my car to call the gardai at 1.11am
and told them; ''I'd been assaulted and to send a squad car''.
In the meantime the young lad had viciously grabbed his girlfriend by the arm
and had dragged her across Patrick Street, over by Porters book shop,
where another young man had intervened to stop him from abusing her,
a large fist fight evolved between them, firstly standing and punching,
then the first lad was thrown onto the bonnet of a taxi parked outside Porters
and ended up with three of them grappling on the ground, the first lad was now
bare-chested as top and teeshirt had been ripped off of him,
anyway that eventually broke up and still no sign of a Guard
and the first guy was running bare-chested around Marlboro st
abusing everyone he could see.
