Pub Brawl

As would be expected of a pub brawl, this one started unexpectedly. And like any decent pub brawl, it was nasty, brutish and lasted only a few seconds before security intervened and violently threw us out.



Elvis wasn't with us when the brawl went down. Being a family man, he doesn't have as many free evenings as the rest of us do. And considering that Allan and I aren't particularly violent people, you should by now have guessed the brawl was all Moses' fault.



"So tell me," Allan asked him as he rubbed at a rapidly developing bruise on his forehead, "why the hell am I standing here nursing a head injury that I'm certain I didn't have a few minutes ago, instead of being seated inside there," he pointed at the pub from where we had just been ejected, "nursing a bottle of beer I'm sure I did have a few minutes ago and I'm certain I paid for?"



"You people didn't have to come to my aid. I had everything under control." Moses said and I couldn't help the smirk that crossed my swollen lips. If having things under control meant soaking up massive blows to the head from the massive Mr. Big Allan and I had saved him from, [and led to us being kicked out ourselves,] I shuddered to think of would have happened if he DIDN'T have things under control.



"Where I come from, it is considered good manners to thank people who have just saved your life from an angry Mr. Big, especially when those people were forced to leave behind perfectly good alcohol in the process." Allan snapped at him. "Anyway, are you injured? I think we should all get ourselves checked by a doctor. My head feels like it wants to explode!"



I agreed that the cut on my lower lip and a few loose teeth courtesy of a bouncer's fist did warrant professional medical opinion, and Moses admitted that indeed, several of Mr. Big's harder jabs had landed on his cranium.



"Well, there is a private clinic a few blocks from here." Allan said. "As we walk there to have our injuries checked, why don't you explain to us why the hell we got injured in the first place?"


We set off as Moses started narrating. "There was this girl..." he said, and Allan and I sighed in unison. of course it had to be a girl. Moses seldom picked fights over anything else.



Moses shot both of us cross glares. "As I was saying, there was this girl I found seated next to an empty seat, and when I made to sit on it, she said she had reserved the seat for her husband." He said.



"And being the gentleman you are, you bade her good evening and went to find a seat elsewhere." I said.



Moses ignored my sarcasm. "I told her this is a free country and I could sit where I damn well pleased. She said something rude and I expressed my sympathies for the man stupid enough to have gotten trapped in holy matrimony with her, the man she was apparently saving the seat for. She then shouted at someone and next thing I know, I am being assaulted by the evil Nubian offspring from the unholy copulation of Shrek and Godzilla."


By then, we had reached the clinic and we went in, where we found only two nurses and a security guard. "Please do come in ans sit down. The doctor will be back shortly." The female nurse told us. "His sister-in-law just called him about his brother being attacked and he rushed over...in fact here he is now." She finished as a car roared to a stop outside.



A few moments later, a diminutive lady walked in, speaking animatedly to two people behind her, and on seeing her, Moses, who was in the middle of saying something, froze in mid-sentence.



Allan and I were puzzled, but not for long. The lady was followed by two men, and although we didn't recognize the short, stout, bespectacled man in a lab coat that entered first, it was obvious he was the doctor. His brother we however did recognize.



Huge, menacing and every bit as ugly as before, Mr. Big was a pretty hard person to forget.