For all of her feel-no-risk behavior, that night in Sri Lanka was the closest it ever came. I am a pacifist but I sometimes think about the one time I did respond with violence. It has haunted me, I still wonder if the boy is ok. And yet, what do I owe him? They would have scarred me for life if they had the chance. Maybe I owe them compassion.
It was New Years Eve in Hikkaduwa. Our posse all hung out at the beach club, everyone went in different directions, Mum Bear went home to bed ["Its too late! Midnight was enough Chicken Little!"], the skater 'zine dude went to contemplate turtles, Megan and the English chaps went to Loretta’s. Laurence and I went for a swim 'neath the moonlight, my dress was lost in the black waves amid pearls of idiotic laughter. We sat on the beach, I was in underwear that might have been a bikini. My dress floated in the ocean at large, a little primrose thing with flowers, never to be seen again. We were discussing Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, the Phaedrus syndrome. I had just read it and it rocked my world but I didn't know how to process it. He had been stuck on an island off the coast of Indonesia for a week and it was the only book he had. "It was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me." I resolved to read it again.
Out of no where I felt hands on my shoulders, there was suddenly a boy who could not have weighed more than 55kgs pulling me away by one arm. Somehow 3 boys were struggling with Laurence. It all happened really quickly. I went into instinct mode, bared my little cat teeth. One of them left Laurence and I was fighting with two little boys. They couldn’t have been more than 20 years old. Arms, legs flailing, they weren’t trying to hurt me, just pull me away. I punched one under the chin hard, heard his teeth crack and jammed my right hand, my index finger, into the kid's eye.
I have thought back on this a few times and have never been proud of it, wished I could have done things differently. My finger was in his eyeball, up to the first knuckle, my other hand around his neck, his hands on my wrist, my knee on his collar bone. I wish I had done things differently, in retrospect. But what do I know about fighting off a group of boys trying to drag me away on NYE? Is there a convention I missed?
I know my eyes were full of rage and I am ashamed. His scream rang across the beach, his friends left Laurence, came and pulled me off him. They tried to bring him to his feet while he clutched his face. I screamed a mangled virtuoso of horror and made the noise of a cow trapped in razor wire, an undecipherable song. He was howling too. I yelled words in English as they inspected and held their friend and tried to look at his face.
In the space of that moment, it was all over. No one was going to attack anyone else. We walk, extremely briskly into the gates of the hotel where I was staying, directly behind us. My hand was covered in blood and my finger covered in something else. It was under my nail. I couldn't look. We sat quietly in the garden for a minute catching our breath, looking at the pool and the flowers.
I think I just blinded a kid in one eye.
Yeah, I think you did.
We sat for a few more minutes and I felt bad. Stupid Princess suddenly realised what they were planning to do. I am full of all sorts of emotions but I will myself not to be intoxicated with anger.
I am still regretful, I never wanted to hurt anyone. He and his friends thought it might be fine to pack rape a white woman on NYE though. Logically, I should not feel guilty.
Laurence tried to stay friends but I wanted to end all contact. I never wanted to talk about it again.
When people ask the kid why he is blind in one eye, I wonder what he tells them. I think abut the bits of his eyeball under my nail and shudder. I wonder if he tells the truth.
