Boundaries at Burger King
I'm going to start my new career as a vigilante...
I'm going to start my new career as a vigilante: I already made 5 dollars and a coffee--I'll explain:
The coffee was awhile ago, a friend was boarding the streetcar outside timmy's, heckling back at a street-harasser as she boarded the vehicle, and like a relay race, I took up the argument as she departed, without skipping a beat.
The dude was deep in DARVO, saying SHE had harassed HIM, um dude, I know for a fact she'd never speak to you unless forced to.
He pursued me into the Tim's and I explained to him in a loud booming voice: THIS IS NOT HOW YOU'RE SPENDING YOUR EVENING -- YOU ARE STREET HARASSING WOMEN -- YOU WILL LEAVE etc. and after he enjoyed the attention like a sick little child, exclaiming he'd read the bible and that he was smart, I pressed the door into him as we concluded the argument and he obeyed, frankly.
The staff awarded me my coffee, but more recently I got FIVE BUCKS -- here's how:
I'd been chatting with a friend about the "Night Economy Town Hall" in which just talking to someone, confrontationally or not, wasn't on the list of options for how to de-escalate someone -- widespread cultural cowardice was simply assumed in the structure of the multiple-choice question! We shared stories of drawing the line on people's behavior in public places -- this person and I are friends because we both. aren't. bystanders.
But as fate would have it, immediately after this strategy session I made two outings and had to correct someone for boundary violations each time, first for coffee, then for burger king...
My morning coffee was ruined by a gross aggressive dude -- I sat and dunked my donut and gazed at the park thinking "Why don't I do this more often instead of taking my order home?" I was quickly reminded, a dude approached and I interrupted his opening question with 'No' -- a syllable that was apparently irrelevant to him. Instant Enemy. Rapist Material. Alert.
He pushed on with his preamble and request for WEED (not the essentials of life even by my standards) and proceeded to SIT DOWN AT THE TABLE OF SOMEONE WHO WAS ACTIVELY SAYING NO AND NOT TO TALK TO THEM -- it didn't take long before I was screaming at him in the face to stand the fuck up and leave me alone -- he eventually complied, but didn't; he sat in a chair 50 centimeters away and stared me in the face. I said "Oh really? You're going to sit there? How's that going to work out for you?"
Unperturbed, he'd clearly been rewarded for this behavior before and that was about to change--I'd already told him twice this was going to be a life-lesson: I stood up rapidly and pulled the chair out from beneath him, and he collapsed to the groud, he looked astonished, as if people's personal boundaries had been a fiction to him before. He pretended he couldn't get up. I kicked him in the ankle and screamed at him to get out of my space. I held the chair up and he RAN, able-bodied as fuck, across the street, and the baristas LAUGHED as they put down the phone saying "Oh, he's across the street now"
The dude twice my age in the table behind me acted like nothing had happened, and barely moved; he nodded subtly like he might have done the same.
As he had left he'd said to them "You'll let him scream at me like that but *I* have to go?" They rolled their eyes, they know me because I've corrected other customers they wish they had the freedom to. I'm acting out their fantasies, and righteous fantasies they are! But I didn't get a coffee this time, they can't give out freebies every time at this corner! This was all pro bono -- my second outing of the day paid off, in monetary and therefore reductive terms:
Five bucks was what the group of boys handed me in the Burger King after I got the man harassing them to leave. He'd been sitting silently when I entered, but I knew he was trouble, and before I could pace my order he started glowering and muttering at the group of boys, or undergrads, across the room and eventually said YOU'RE KIDS and I interrupted saying "which is why you should leave them alone" his gaze met mine and became unbroken, predatory, and savage. I wasn't afraid, I was relieved he wasn't bothering them. I told him very simply to leave people alone and he challenged me to violence, at one point picking up the yellow 'watch your step' thing from the floor and swung it around like a baseball bat. He followed instructions ultimately, and respected my statement that I did not want to fight him outside after he left. He seemed ultimately glad someone was standing up to him.
A dude beside me who was jacked had scrolled on his phone when I asked him to call the police -- afterwards he nodded timidly at me as if to thank me and I scolded him: "You know, you're really fucking useless. Did you even fucking call them? YOU tell him next time. Be a man." At least the children paid me.