Daemon Fairless - Mad Blood Stirring: The Inner Lives of Violent Men

A FEW YEARS AGO , on New Years Eve, I head-butted a man on the subway. Heres the version I generally tell people:

My wife and I were on an eastbound train. We had been skating at an outdoor rink near our downtown apartment. We were on our way to the suburbs, to ring in the New Year with my in-laws, when a mana big, thick guy in his early twentiesdecided to pick a fight with me.

He was loud and obnoxious and extremely drunk, and he was showing off in front of his two friends by prying open the sliding doors of the subway car and sticking his head out into the tunnel. I got up because he was dangerously close to dashing his brains out on the concrete pillars whizzing past his head. I told him to sit down. He exploded and challenged me to a fight. I told him I wasnt going to fight him and I sat back down.

The long and the short of it is that, after he yelled at me, after he threw a bottle at me, spat on me and then, finally, threatened to hit my wife, I stood up again and head-butted him in the face. A brawl erupted and at least a dozen other men jumped in and tried to pull us apart. The police came. They arrested the guy and took my statement.

I was sober and the other guy wasnt; I was the victim and he was the aggressor. The police gave me a subtle nod of approval for defending myself, even as they pointed out the obvious risks. One of the cops took my statement. Youre lucky, he said. What if hed had a knife or a gun? But there was an understanding between usId taken the risk to protect my wife.

Directly after the fight, while I was still a little stunned, a man came up to me. He was short and slight and wearing a well-cut suit. You did the right thing, he said, dabbing his bleeding nose with a napkin. He had a gift bag with him, champagne decorated with pearlescent ribbons; he was on his way to a friends party. I hadnt seen him on the train, but apparently he had been watching and, as soon as the fight started, had tried to break it up. I apologized for ruining his night. Dont worry about it, he said. That guy had it coming. He shook my hand. Plus, now Ive got an amazing story to tell my friends.

This is generally the reaction I get. Most people understand why I did it. And, to be honest, I like telling this story, too, in the way Ive just told it. It makes me feel like a stand-up guy.

The real story is more complicated.

Im in a bad mood even before I get on the subway. I hate crowds, and the Bloor station is a downright zoo. Its packed with cliques of tipsy revellers on their way to parties. I have to push through people to get anywhere. A girl trying to get her friends attention screams in my ear. My skates bang against my shin.

We take the escalator down to the platform. It stinks. Some kid has just sprayed his tag on the wall and the whole place reeks of propellant and paint. The kidhes maybe fourteendashes past me, followed by a gang of tittering friends. It irks me that no one has the guts to say anything, that an entire crowd of onlookers can stand by without intervening. For a moment I consider grabbing the kid by his jacket, pulling the can out of his pocket and spraying his chest. Then I consider the consequences: Id be charged with assaulting a minor. I let it go. This pisses me off further.

On the train, I rant to Lyana, my wife, about the bovine complacency of crowds. I bring up the case of Kitty Genovese, the New York woman murdered in the 1960s in front of thirty-some witnesses, none of whom intervened. Its not the first time Ive brought up Kitty Genovese. Shes standard fare when Im in one of these moods.

Now Im having trouble concentrating on what Im saying because of some drunk idiot behind us. Hes so loud. His voicehes got the kind of ignorant, belching yawp thats hard to ignore. He bellows like a one-man argument, all fucks and shits and bitches. It sets me further on edge. I can feel my jaw clenching. The train lurches from stop to stop. More and more people get on. The loud guy grows louder and more belligerent. Im not entirely sure who hes talking to. Everyone on board has given up trying to hold their own conversations.

I turn around to get a look at him. Hes younger than me by at least ten years. A big white kid in baggy pants and an oversized hoodie. He talks like a wannabe gangsta. He probably lives in the suburbs with mom and dad. He looks like such an idiot, standing in the aisle like that, legs spread wide, rocking back and forth with the motion of the train. He saunters over to a set of sliding doors and tries prying them open. He jams his fingers into the rubber seal and cracks the doors a few inches. In an exquisite manoeuvre of stupiditywere talking Darwin Award nominee herehe pops his head outside, into the tunnel, where the concrete support pillars are zipping by in a complete blur just beyond his meaty cranium. Whoosh! I have a brief vision of his headless body falling back into the car. Whoosh! Worse things have happened. Whoosh! Hes a subhuman moron.

The guy pulls his head back into the car. He says something boastful and obnoxiousI cant hear what exactly. I realize hes with two guys. His friends look uneasy. One of them tells him to chill. He interprets this as a challenge. Hes back at the doors. This time he pries them apart, his back arched, chest out like Superman pulling apart prison bars. He grunts. He gets the doors open most of the way. Cold, stale air rushes into the car. The effervescent cheer of the holiday crowd has gone flat, replaced by a nervous hush. This guy needs a talking-to.