Today, my daughter's baseball team held a little pizza party at a local public park. We arrived early to assist with any set up, and my lady and I ordered a bounce castle for the kids. It was a slow start, but soon enough most of the team had arrived. Let me use this opportunity to say that this is children's minors baseball. Ages range from 5 to around 8 I believe. The kids were having a great time jumping, and running around, being children. We set up near the playground equipment so that the kids could play there as well and be adequately supervised.
Unfortunately, this is where the story takes a bit of a turn. While watching my daughter and her friend playing on the slide, we (my girlfriend and I) noticed two men crossing the street from the gas station across from the park. One man, the man ahead of the other (we'll call him red shirt) had a walking stick and seemed to be trying to get away from the cursing ball of intoxicated anger behind him (black shirt).
My girlfriend called the girls back to the group and I walked over towards the escalating altercation as to put a barrier between the children and the brawling drunkard. Of course, I would keep my distance, as the spat wasn't my deal, and I am an armed citizen. I avoid all kinds of altercations if possible.
Black shirt was angrily pursuing red shirt spewing every obscenity under the sun. Red shirt couldn't run anymore and turned to face his stalker. It was easy to see that Red Shirt wasn't the fighting type, and if he was, he sure wasn't showing it. However, despite his better judgement of fleeing, and succumbing to his lack of physical fitness, Red Shirt made the decision to turn and stand his ground. I mind everyone that Red Shirt had a decent sized walking stick that he now held in the fashion of a Louisville Slugger. It was a mistake he soon regretted.
Black Shirt, being the type he seemed to be, intimidated Red Shirt into dropping his stick. At this point, they've moved along the edge of the park, forcing surrounding families and groups of pre-teens to scatter. The teens just kept their seats at their table, which was right in the middle of the whole shebang, a sort of ghetto ringside seating. Looking around I noticed that everyone was either recording or calling the police, and figured the fight was fizzling out.
Both men, now unarmed facing one another, "put up their dukes", but the only shots being taken were verbal. Red Shirt presumably saw the situation for what it was, and decided that fleeing was indeed the best idea as he began to walk away again. The misfortune brought upon the park was not quite over yet.
Black shirt, agianst the pleas of the crowd, did not, "just let him go". Nor did he, "put the stick down". Needless to say, Red Shirt saw the error he'd made in dropping his stick and continued to try to distance himself.
One of the teens decided he would intervene, you know cuz hormones, and perceived invincibility. That was the next bad decision, in a string of bad decisions made by several different people all culminating in this one flash point of clouded thinking. He stood between Red Shirt and Black Shirt, telling Black Shirt to, "drop the stick" and "chill out man". Black Shirt cocked back with that stick and swung it right into that kid's left side. Im sure he broke a rib or two.
At seeing this, Red Shirt turns around and kicks Black Shirt in the head a few times, since he and the teen had fallen to the ground and the boy struggled to take the stick from Black Shirt. Black Shirt got free, and took down Red Shirt. At this point, a few other men had gathered by my side and I decided that enough was enough, and I felt there was sufficient amount of people to get involved. As we approached the group, Black Shirt had his hand pinned to the ground, by the teenage boy, and Red Shirt was underneath the heap. They were soaking in blood from their own wounds and with the blood of the others mixed so much that one couldn't tell how many wounds one or another person had.
The boy pointed out to us that Black Shirt was stabbing Red Shirt and the boy himself with something he had in his hand. I stepped on black shirts fingers and got him to drop what turned out to be needlenose pliers. (They were a short pair, which was probably one of the more fortunate things in the whole clusterfuck, as they couldnt penetrate too deep.
Cops and ambulances arrived, statements were given, and hand sanitizer distributed, Black Shirt left in handcuffs, and the other two in the ambulance, I believe without pending legal penalties. The kids, hadn't noticed a thing, thank god for that bounce house! We talked about it amongst the parents, and seemingly my girlfriend and I were the only ones to actually see the whole altercation. We finished the party, the kids had a great time, and some hobo stabbed some other hobo and a teenager across the way, nonethe smarter as to what had happened.
It was mentioned, that Black Shirt was at the same gas station the day before being belligerent, and It hit me again. For the million and first time, I shrugged it off, just another day in my hometown.