So there I am, 140 lbs wet, speccy twat with geeky glasses, doing IT nerdy stuff, in an environment that, shall we say, has a reputation for violence and menace, yes, the prison system, and of course all the machismo is flowing and it is only a matter of time until references are made along the lines of “I’d rather fight him (5′ 10″ 275lb tub of ex army lard) than (insert 6″ gorilla), but hey, (giggles and looks at me), I can always pick on him”
I just smiled sweetly, not that I am any kind of ninja imbued with magical super-powers or anything, in a drunken fist fight with a bruiser I’ll get my ass kicked every time, but (since I am a geeky nerd) to give an IT analogy what they thought of as “violence” was a desktop calculator, to me it’s the network and every computing device connected to it.
My problem with their definition of violence is it is frankly stupid to limit myself to their definition, just so I can get my ass kicked, if you outreach me by 6 inches and outweigh me by 100 lbs and fight at least once every week or two, the only real options I have left are to go for your eyes and blind you, and then stomp on your neck and kill you, which has consequences I don’t like, or take a beating, which I don’t like, or be the speccy twat toasting marshmallows, but only one at a time as two are too heavy.
Anyone with the strength of leg to climb the stairs two steps at a time can stomp on your throat hard enough to kill you, first time, every time… sure, that assumed your opponent is already on the ground, but getting your opponent on the ground isn’t a problem if your first move is to blind them permanently, which isn’t a problem if you have one hand free, and if your second move is to end their life…. surviving 5 rounds with Cassius Clay in the ring is epically *hard*, undoably so for 99.9% of us, killing is fucking easy, any human in their teens can do it.
“Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight” had this at the root, it’s been misconstrued now, people think a knife is a weapon to fight with and injure your opponent, whereas a gun is a weapon to fight with and kill your opponent, so everyone has lost the original premise, the guy holding the gun shoots the guy holding the knife when he is still 60 feet away, game over man, it was about the REACH of the various weapons, don’t bring a handgun to a rifle fight says the same thing.
Milquetoast me vs the gorilla is only an unequal fight in the gorilla’s flavour as long as I am content to let him use his advantage, and refrain from using mine, which is the level of violence available as a first resort.
And there are no-re-runs, not really, it’s not yet another world cup where yet another match takes place between blue team and red team, same as last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.
Crew fed weapons were invented because armies the world over knew that with individual weapons only 10% would even fire towards the enemy, as in, in the general direction of.
Of those 10% only another 10%, or 1% of the whole, would actually AIM at the enemy and pull the trigger, of those 10% only another 10%, or 0.1% of the whole, would pull the trigger a second time after seeing their first kill, and of those 10% only another 10%, or 0.001% of the whole, would grin and seek the next fucking target…. and of them them is another 10%….
And outside of active hostilities that 0.0001% better be toasting marshmallows, different scenario, different survival tactic required.
You hang around services guys long enough and get past all the bullshit, and you will eventually meet some guys who have actually met genuine elite special services types, and they will all tell you, they are not 6′ 6″ 300lb of muscle ninjas expert in every weapon and every form of unarmed combat and demolition and espionage ever invented.
Most of them are short, skinny, and feral. Masks off.
So there I sit, in my speccy twat glasses, toasting marshmallows while we all discuss so called violent men and there is much joshing and preening about who could kick who’s ass, and I am liked because I can take a joke as well as give it, I don’t take offence at anything, because there is after all no imminent danger that the rubber will ever meet the road here, not so much in the Crimea, but then, I’m not in the Crimea.
Just as I hide behind a mask there, I hide behind a mask here, I could tell some great and truthful stories about what we were doing, institutionalised corruption and incompetence and waste and ignorance, and I am sure you would find the stories interesting, but, like lifting my mask there, their just is no upside FOR ME in doing so.
Not as mask so much as in a theatrical type mask, more the poker face mask, I’m not projecting anything false when I sit toasting marshmallows, I’m just not projecting anything much real either, so I just sit there looking at the other masks, in this instance there were 7 others, 6 male and 1 female, wondering, if push came to shove, which order to kill them in, the ones who will obviously attack are one thing, the ones more skilled at their own masks who will stab you in the back, they are the ones not to miss, so it is not just in which order, but what method, so as to jam their mental gears and gain the seconds of advantage.
Of course it’s all bullshit, just more mental masturbation that doesn’t mean a thing when push comes to shove, but the lone female looks at me, because we have spoken and like it or not the mating instincts kick in, it’s 50/50 if she is going to do the “aww that’s unfair/not nice” routine or the “no, that’s not right that he is less of a man”
But by luck or judgement or instinct or serendipity or the diving intervention of the spaghetti monster, if you look at us all from above there she is sat, like a sheepdog that has almost but not quite separated one sheep (me) from the herd, and the cosmic puppeteer yanks the strings of the other 6 males, and suddenly it is time to talk about people not physically present.
So I toast my marshmallows, thinking heh, good fucking luck with that one, bitch is fat, face caked with make-up, 10 year old kid at home, and if that all isn’t fucked up enough for y’all, works in the prison industry, may well be 25 years younger than me but even I wouldn’t hit it more than once to dump my cum.
If this is being a psychopath, it’s good to be free.