The Mad Bull’s Blog, Version 3

Knives are dangerous indeed! My previous post should have highlighted that fact. You’re probably saying to yourself that teen agers have no business walking around with knives anyway. I won’t lie though, there have been a time or two when it may well have been a good thing that I had a knife on me… at least right at that particular time.

The one that springs immediately to mind involves a sweet sixteen party that I went to… Lets see, I was about seventeen or eighteen at the time. The party was in Waterworks, and it was a good one, nice looking girls, good food, liquor, pretty IRIE… until I started talking to this girl called Melanie… She went to Priory High School, the school all the rich (and way out) kids went to. I knew her AND her boyfriend fairly well, which is why what happened next seems all the more strange to me.

While talking to them, I noticed another guy who went to Priory sitting nearby. He was staring at me, non-fricking-stop! It began to get annoying, so I asked him what was up, why he was staring at me? He got up and began to cuss me out, then he pushed his hand towards me, pointing and gesticulating, then he did it! He put two of his fingers on my chin and shoved my head backwards! This is a grievious insult in Jamaica… GRIEVIOUS! I was shocked! I had done nothing to this fool, and look what he was going on with! I immediately retaliated. I used my whole palm and covered his entire face and shoved right back. We call this “masking” his face here. As soon as I did that, I saw about seven guys stand up and encircle me! Of course, you done know (can be sure) that there is more…

“Uh oh!” These guys were his “gang”, and they were intent on one thing and one thing only: They wanted to slap me silly! They formed a circle around me and tried to rush me BUT I drew my knife and told them I was going to stab the first one to get close enough! And this time I meant it! They were effing cowards, so that stopped them. They still had me circled and they were attempting to surprise me, but I managed to keep them at bay, because whenever they got too close, I swung the knife at them, forcing them to back off. Luckily, I was able to get my back against a wall, so that they couldn’t rush me from behind. This went on for a couple of hours. It eventually came to the attention of the parents of the birthday girl. They threatened to call in the police, but I believe that the guy who was the ringleader of the “gang” was one of their friends’ sons, so they never did call the cops. I was really beginning to get worried, because although they weren’t able to get to me, they still had me encircled, and there were seven of them! No one seemed inclined to help me out either. I mean, people were shouting at them, telling tham to leave me alone, but the gang ignored them, and no one really wanted to get involved. Eventually, two of my friends came and joined me. We all sat by the wall with the seven guys circling us taunting me, trying to get me to put down the knife, or to catch me unawares. Unfortunately, we were still outnumbered. Finally (Thank God), two men who lived in Orange Grove (where I lived at the time) decided to check out the party. They saw what was going on and stopped to help me. As soon as the “gang” saw that the numbers were a little more even, and that the new guys were PLENTY bigger than they were, they dispersed RAPIDAMENTE!!!. I got away that night without getting hit even ONCE! Big up to the Wilkins massive…

I simply couldn’t understand what had prompted the start of the whole fracas. I assumed that the guy who started it must’ve been high. I decided that I’d just forget about it. At the time, I had a girlfriend that lived at “Nappy Road”. All the guys who lived on her road were my friends, and one of them told me that he had heard that the “gang” was planning to corner me and beat me at the next party. They decided that we’d all go to this party and “dust out” these pretenders.

The night of the party finally rolled around. My friends and I decided to go to the party in two vehicles. There were about eight of us. Everyone in the car had a weapon, be it iron pipes, or baseball bats, or knives, or machetes. We decided that we would go to the party and play it cool. We weren’t going to start anything (cos we were peaceable like that). I wasn’t to keep a low profile however. We weren’t going to let any fassyhole (a very disrespectful term. If you visit Jamaica, DO NOT call anyone that!) dictate where any of us could or couldn’t go! I was to parade up and down near to these guys. I wasn’t to say anything to them, just go about my business, wherever it took me. If they tried anything, we were going to put them down!

When we got to the party, I did just that. We espied them as we were walking into the party.They were lined off, sitting on a fence outside the party, smoking and drinking. My crew didn’t even go inside. They spread out a bit, trying to look unobtrusive. Meanwhile I continued into the party. Then I came out with drinks for the guys. I made several trips back and forth, all the time walking past the guy who had started it all about a week ago. Eventually, I even leaned up on the wall not too far from him. Lucky for us, they didn’t take me on. With all the parading, they just took it easy. I figure that they definitely noticed us coming in. They saw the group walk in together and then split up a bit, but everyone remained near to hand, all in the same area where they were! They figured out that we were set up waiting for them, and they were basically cowards… As I said, lucky for us! One of the guys who was in my crew was a little insane at the time. He was always high on Ganja (marijuana) and I guess that impaired his judgement. His father was a businessman from downtown, and therefore had several guns. He wasn’t careful with them at all, and that night, his son had taken out two of the firearms, which he had hidden behind the car seat. He planned to use those if those guys rushed us… The thing is, he (the two gun kid) probably would have too, and we’d all have ended up in jail. Thank God they were such a bunch of wimps.

A couple of weeks later, the two gun kid was arrested by the police. A man had come into the “Nappy Road” environs and got into a fight with one of his friends and he went for the two guns. He fired after the man but missed. The man ran off. He came back later with the police, who locked my friend up. Lucky for him, his father was able to smooth things over with the man he shot after and with the police, but he spent the night in jail. You can really never tell how things will work out. Back then, I thought he would always be in trouble… Another friend of his who was living the same lifestyle went crazy over drugs. He died a couple of years back, after struggling with drugs and mental illness for years. Nowadays, my friend has stopped doing all that crap. He has a nice job, working in a Jamaican branch of a multinational IT firm, and he is married with a couple of kids.

What of the “gang”? I don’t knw what they are all up to now, but a few months later, they tried the same thing with another guy (Mark) who was alone at the party, and Mark cut one of them up and ran off like a bat out of hell! The guy had to get quite a few stitches. Serves the little mofo right!

Yup, they were a right bunch of wusses, but praise God that those guys were such wusses, because I never, ever want to spend time in a Jamaican jail! No effing way!

Tags: General //