I've been working with the Kilkenny Arts Festival all week, as I was last year. I wrote two blog posts last year on my exhausting experience which you can see here and here. This year won't be nearly as interesting because I'm not working at any of the events themselves but hopefully I can bring you a few juicy tales.
A couple of days ago I was working in the box office when a middle-aged man wearing sunglasses and a dirty looking cap shuffled in and asked us to call a taxi. He swaggered up to my colleague's desk and began to complain that he had been waiting an hour for a taxi and he had no phone. When he was politely told that we aren't permitted to make phone calls for members of the public and should try Langton's restaurant just up the road, he started swearing loudly in frustration. He said Langton's refused to call him a taxi and repeated that he'd been waiting an hour and needed a taxi. After, it seemed, he had determined that he would not get a taxi called for him here he swayed out of the building muttering obscenities under his breath.
Not long after this he returned and my colleague who had spoken to him before was now on the phone with a customer. He hovered in the entrance for a couple of moments before moving towards my desk where I followed general customer procedure, smiling and asking how I could help. He claimed he had been in the sun all day and was fatigued and needed a taxi. I told him as politely as I could that we couldn't call him a taxi here and there was nothing I could do to help him. I again suggested that he ask Langton's, who will normally order anyone a taxi who needs it. He claimed he had tried Langton's earlier that week and they had threatened to call the police if he didn't leave. I'm not going to lie, he seemed like he had been drinking and he looked - I don't mean to be prejudiced - but like a drug dealer. So it didn't surprise me that Langton's had told him they'd call the police, doubtlessly for unruly behaviour.
This second time in the box office, when I spoke to him, he was discouraged more easily and left pretty quickly still muttering and telling anyone who would listen that it was "fucking ridiculous". Don't ask me what.
So fast forward to today. I was sent on an errand because the office was very quiet and everyone knows that office workers can't live without their coffee. I was walking up Kieran's street (which is well known in Kilkenny for its delinquent teenagers and its druggies) when I saw the same man again. He appeared to be even more intoxicated this time and was yelling at tourists and passers-by. I've never seen people group together in public so suddenly the way I saw them today. Exactly like in a film where someone is making a scene and strangers gather around to watch the drama unfold. It felt so surreal to see it happen right in front of my eyes.
An Asian family with two young children were subjected to his pointless, angry rant but they wisely ignored him completely and quickly walked away. Losing his prey he turned on two unsuspecting women almost shouting "What are you looking at?! I saw how you looked at me! Don't you look at me like that!!"
The women were clearly quiet frightened and though I didn't have a perfect view because the woman's back was to me, the man either hit one of them or tried to pull her scarf from her. But he definitely touched her shoulder/arm area. By now there was quiet a crowd watching from a distance but no one was doing anything to help the women. I was closer to the scene than most of the viewers and I was ready to step in and tell him to back off if he did anything else. I had to hold myself back from intervening. I hated so much to see two women standing helpless to this man while everyone around watched, but I was painfully aware that I was just one small girl and for my own personal safety I forced myself not to approach the scene unless he made a second approach at the women. I guess in this circumstance my Slytherin won through my Gryffindor.
In retrospect I think it would have been safe to interfere because the truth is people are afraid of getting involved with situations that don't concern them. They wait for someone else to act first but then people usually follow suit quickly. I think had I stepped up first to try even the most feeble of attempts to stop this drunken man other onlookers would have help me out. Maybe my opinion of humans is overly positive but I sort of wish now that I had tried to help.
The man got bored after that though and walked off still angrily swearing into the wind. Both women were considerably shaken as they moved down the street in the opposite direction. It makes me sad that there are people who just seem angry at the whole world and can't or won't contain it. It doesn't seem fair that the rest of the world should be inflicted with their built up anger. And also sad that no-one tried to help these poor women who were the victims of his inebriated outburst.
No comments:
Post a Comment