Belly Boy Takes A Beating

It was one of those beautiful Maui evenings. If you’ve been there you know exactly what I mean. Nearly eighty degrees, a light breeze out of the west, the sun still painting a thin strip of red on the horizon, and ukulele music drifting down the Kaanapali beach strand. After saying good night to my Mom I left her eleventh floor condo in the Whaler building. I chose to go down the ocean front stairs. It’s an open fronted staircase and the building sits so close to the beach that for much of the walk down all you can see is ocean. As I approached the fourth floor I heard what sounded like an argument. I peered over the side just in time to hear, “Want some toilet paper so you can take a dump too?” It was very nearly dark now and looking down on my right was a man openly taking a leak on the side of the Whaler building, brilliantly highlighted by the buildings lighting. He was at least sixty and quite a site to behold. On his head was a sweat stained, baseball hat twisted a few degrees to the left, he wore a printed Hawaiian shirt that was entirely unbuttoned revealing a “body by Bud”, and his hibiscus printed shorts were down to his knees. He made a fist with his occasionally free hand and wagged it at the others. His constant sway gave testament to his level of inebriation. On my left, about ten yards across the entry walkway from him, stood four people whose ages ranged, by my calculation, from about sixty to forty, all fairly well dressed, all angry. My snap guess as to the makeup of the group was an older man, his daughter, her husband (his son in law), and another forty-ish year old man that I couldn’t quite figure. I was on the second floor now. Trying to time my departure so that I could exit the building between the two factions at minimum risk. Belly boy was wrapping it up. So I continued down the stairs and exited the building. Threading the needle between them I could see that the better dressed group wasn’t going to give the object of their anger an easy exit. The taunting continued. Belly boy was trying to respond but he really couldn’t put a sentence together. So I guess he skipped to plan B. As I connected with the strand and made my right turn heading back to my hotel, I looked over my shoulder in time to see belly boy, head pitched forward, in full Cro-Magnon walk mode, stride over toward his antagonists with his elbow high and clobbered (I don’t know how he didn’t see it coming) the older guy on the side of his head. I stopped. A good old fashioned donnybrook broke out. In about three seconds the two younger guys had belly boy pinned to the ground and they were dribbling his head off of the grass with their unblocked punches. The daughter had apparently decided that her roll was to provide a soundtrack to the bedlam because she was just standing there repeatedly screaming, “Oh my God!” “Oh my God!” “Oh my God!”. What did I do? What could I do? I put my new backpack off to the side just in case blood started spraying, and I walked over to the melee. By the time I got there the older guy who had first gotten cold cocked was getting his revenge. His daughter was still providing the sound track. The two younger guys were holding belly boy down and the old guy was hitting him in the face. I would have been A LOT more concerned if any one of em knew how to throw a blow. As it was the old guy was going at him with a kind of an ice pick move and hitting him with the bottom of his hand. I’m sure it didn’t feel good but the damage was minimal. Nonetheless, I figured that I should break it up just in case someone actually landed a blow and Belly Boy got hurt. So I came up from behind and stopped the older guys hand at the top of it’s arc. He looked back at me angrily, and the the two younger guys eyed me aggressively. “Guys, I think you’re all even now,” I said in the calmest, most peaceful tone I could find. “Why don’t you just let him up now before someone get’s hurt?” It seemed to break the momentum. They nodded and momentarily stopped. “He sucker punched me!” The older guy exclaimed and everybody started to pile on again. I agreed with him, told him he was for sure in the right but nothing was to be won now. All they were doing was beating up on a really drunk guy. All the while I was silently performing visual triage. No damage to the guys on top, Belly Boy’s face was covered in blood but I was pretty sure it was all coming from a bloody nose. Everything else seemed to be intact and still in the right place. The guys released their hold and let belly boy up. I felt like Henry Kissinger. But my victory was short lived. Incredibly – maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised – the moment he was upright Belly Boy wanted more. Only this time I was in the middle. Exactly what I was hoping to avoid. I grabbed belly boy turning him away from his intended targets. His face was thoroughly bloodied as was his chest, belly, and shirt. He was breathing heavily which had the effect of spraying a little blood towards me with every exhale…at least my new backpack was safe. Once I had his attention I convinced him that police were coming up the strand (I pointed towards Lahaina) in search of him and that the absolute last thing he wanted was for them to find him in this situation. He looked at me quizzically for what seemed like a minute. I guess he was processing what I said because in the next instant something seemed to click inside his head and he beat a hasty – for his condition anyway – retreat in the exact same direction I told him that the police were coming from. Meanwhile the well dressed pugilists were fixing their coifs and putting their apparel back in place and the daughter…I kid you not…was still repeating “Oh my God!” “Oh my God!”