Hannibal Lecturer

I used to drive at night because the money is better and the traffic more free. But then an incident occurred which changed all that.
It’s just before one a.m. on Saturday, 11th March in 2004. The Friday night crowds are on the street and I’ve pulled into the kerb beside Café En Seine, or Café Insane as we call it, to write up my log after dropping the last passenger. As I’m writing, I hear the nearside rear door open and I turn to look as a body slumps acroos the backseat and next thing I know there’s a cop knocking at my window. I press the button and the window glides down.
-Are you ok to take these two home sir? asks the cop, in a flat midlands accent.
I look him in the eye, then look back into the rear to see a man has now got into the back beside the body slumped behind me. Another garda is closing the back door. The man looks pissed, his face puffed, his eyes bleary and wet. His mouth is shiney with dribble and he’s snorting breath like he’s swimming upstream. I turn back to the cop.
-Thanks a lot, I say. This is just what I need right now.
-The woman’s pretty bad, but the man is compus mentus, says the cop, trying to sugar the pill a little. Now, I don’t want to do it, but this guy is a cop, and he has a uniform, and that makes me feel kind of obliged to do it. I mean, when someone in a uniform asks you to do something, you feel kind of obliged to do what they ask. I feel like I don’t have the authority to argue so I give in.
-Ok, As long as I have an address. If we can get an address out of them, fine, I’ll take them.
The cop nods, looks through the window past me and shouts at the man
-What’s your address, sir?
The man nods and mumbles something. I turn to the man and say:
-Give me your address, sir and I’ll take you home. But I can’t take you home if I haven’t an address.
-S-----------, he blurts.
-Whereabouts on S-------------? I press him further. -I need the actual address.
-A--------. S----------, he says.
-That’s not an address. Look, you’ll have to get out of the car if you can’t give me the full address.
The garda has moved away from my window and is walking around the car as though to leave. I beep the horn and he bends to the passenger window.
-I’m not taking them if I haven’t an address. He won’t give me the full address.
The cop leans in the front window to get closer to the man.
-Give the man your address, or he won’t take you home. Tell the man where you live. Go on now, tell the man.
The drunk takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then pours out -Number X, S------ T-----, A------, S----------, Dublin. [I'm obviously not going to give the address here because of the possible legal repercussions...]
I write it down, repeating it aloud as I do so. With a wave the cop backs away from the car and I slip it into gear and pull out into the traffic on Dawson Street.
There is a stillness in the car in which I can hear the sounds of despair; the man’s heavy breathing and the woman’s quiet sobbing in sharp focus against the backdrop of revellers and busy town traffic outside the car. For a while this continues before the man breaks the silence.
-You’re a bitch, do you know that? You’re a bitch. I’ll never talk to you again after that. Never. Do you hear me?
There is no response that I can hear from the woman, who is still lying across the seat behind me.
-You’ll never treat me like that again, I’m telling you. Fucking bitch.
I hear a sound like a slap. -I’ll never fucking talk to you again. Another slap. I look in the mirror but I can’t see what is happening. It’s all too low down on the seat, and the mirror is angled for a view out the rear window, but the sound continues, slap, slap, and I think it’s the sound of him slapping her buttocks or thighs as she is lying away from him. I have to intervene.
-Listen, you’ll have to stop hitting her or I’ll take you back to the police. Do you hear me?
-Sorry, I’m sorry, he says, and the sounds stop. I turn onto D--- street heading west, and the traffic is free now, so we can get this over with sooner, and I’m glad. But then the man addresses me.
-Are you married? he asks, with the directness of one who has drunk so much that their social inhibitions have gone completely. I don’t want to answer and I consider my options: Tell him I’m married? Tell him I’m divorced? Tell him I’m divorced and remarried? Lie and tell him I’m not married. I have to find an angle at which we can relate in order to keep this on some sort of track that will get them home, and get me paid for doing it. Keep it simple, I think.
-I am, I say. -And you?
-I am, he says, To this bitch. He pauses for a moment, then continues: -I’m married to this English bitch.
There’s the opening, I think.
-Is your wife English? I ask, trying to make the most of the conversational opening.
-She is. Is your wife Irish?
And I’m thinking this is the problem with drunks. Once you start to talk to them, they want to know everything personal about you, stuff you don’t want to tell them, and they want to share everything personal about themselves, stuff that you really don’t want to know about them. Do I tell him my wife is not Irish, which is true, in which case he’ll want to know where she’s from?
-Yes, she’s Irish, I tell him, and it’s not difficult to lie because my first wife was Irish so I can talk about her.
-My wife is English, he says.
-Is that right? I reply, ignoring the circularity of the conversation.
Yes, She’s English, he says, -and fucking English girls have no idea what the word “marriage” means. Do you, you bitch? You haven’t a fucking clue what the word “marriage” means, do you? Do you hear me?
I hear another slap.
-Do you hear me? Bitch? Fucking whore!
Another slap. They don’t sound painful, these slaps, they don’t sound hard, but it’s the principle I don’t like. The girl is whimpering now in the back seat, mumbling incoherently, and the slaps are continuing. This is getting harder for me. I have to act.
-I said stop hitting her, or we go back to the police, and I mean it, I tell him. -You can’t hit her.
I’m keeping my voice low in pitch, but supporting it from the diaphragm like I do when I’m giving a class or a talk in what I think of as my “real” life, my life which is other than this one and which is so far away right now in this precipitous moment. I am trying to control the situation. I have to control the situation. I curse the Gardaí for compromising me like this. How will this end?
The authority I put in my voice works.
-Sorry, I’m sorry, the mans says, and then his voice breaks and he starts to cry quietly, saying -She doesn’t know what marriage means. She hasn’t a fucking clue what it means, the English whore.
We are crossing the river now and the struts and lights of the bridge illuminate the car interior and I glance in the mirror and see the tears on his face shining in the refraction. Not far now, we are almost there, and to my relief I see a Garda checkpoint. I take comfort that if things get nasty between him and her again there will be help nearby. We are waved throught the checkpoint and I swing the car onto his road, and just as we are about to turn onto his side street the man says:
-Stop here!
I had told the Gardaí I’d take them home. For some stupid fucking reason I actually feel a duty of care for these people. I don’t want them falling all around the street, and so I hear myself replying:
-But we aren’t at the address, I tell him, -and I said to the Gardaí back in Dawson Street that I’d take you home so I’ll have to take you home.
There’s a pause while he takes this in.
-Alright, he says, go on.
I turn the car onto his side street, an L-shaped street, and then around the corner of the L but before we reach the terrace where they live he shouts loudly,
-Stop the car here, stop here!
So I stop this time. On the left, the houses run in a line, on the right we are a few metres from where the terrace begins, running around to a little courtyard with four or five small houses on it, close enough.
-How much do we owe you? asks the man, in a forcedly civilised tone at odds with the threats and recriminations of a moment earlier.
I look at the metre. -Nine euro even, I tell him.
-Right, she’ll pay you, he says, and opens the door to get out, but he’s drunk and slow and can’t control his leg.
-She’ll never be able to pay me, I reply. -Look at her. She’s almost unconscious.
-Well, I’m not fucking paying you, he says, succeeding in getting his left leg out onto the road. I have to act.
-Right, we’re going to the Gardaí back at that checkpoint. If you won’t pay me for bringing you home I’ll have to take you to the Gardaí,
and I put the car in gear and start to move forward a little to show him I mean it. The door swings back on his leg and he howls out
-Alright alright I’ll pay you, hold onto your fucking horses.
I stop the car. We have hardly moved 10 centimetres. He puts his left foot back on the road and starts to fumble in his trouser pockets, first one, then the other, then another, finally producing a fifty euro note.
-Take that, he said and give me back...He pauses to calculate...-Give me back...a twenty... and a ten.
-That’s not right, I say, -I owe you forty-one euro.
-It is right, he insists -It’s a tip for putting up with all this... shit.
He gesticulates around the backseat with his right arm, indicating the space in general, but the gesture is meant to encompass the slumped body of his English wife. I don’t want to argue any more.
-That’s very generous, sir, I reply, -Thank you very much, handing him the change he asked for. -I’ll help you get your wife out of the car.
-Keep her, he says. -I don’t want her.
I turned to look at him in disbelief. -What do you mean, you don’t want her? I don’t want her either!
-Too bad, he says, and he heaves himself out of the car, turns and says -Keep her, before slamming the door, walking around the back of the car, then past me and around the corner into the little courtyard.

What the fuck am I to do now? If I drive to the police she could start screaming. If I help her out, I could be accused of assaulting her because I’ll have to physically help her out of the car.
I make a decision based on pragmatism. If I help her out, this’ll be over quicker. If I go to the gardaí I could end up with some stupid garda arresting me for kidnapping. I open the door and get out of the car.

We have stopped in the middle of the narrow street, and I open the back door where the woman is now trying to crawl out of the car onto the roadway. It is really pathetic. She places one hand in front of the other on the ground and literally crawls out of the cabin, her dark hair covering her face which I still haven’t seen. She is wearing a dark cardigan and dark trousers, with flat shoes, one of which is half off her foot. As she emerges from the car, she is crying for her handbag. Her hands reach for the door handle and she pulls herself up to her feet using the door as a support, eventually reaching a position wherre she has one arm over the doorframe. She stays there awhile, crying for her handbag.
-It’s alright, I’ll get your handbag, I tell her.
I look into the car: her bag is on the floor in front of where the man had been sitting. I go around the other side of the car to get it and bring it back to her.
-It’s alright, I tell her gently. -Here’s your bag. Come on, I’ll help you get to the house.
She reaches for the bag, clutches it to her, and then lets go of the car door. The effect is startling. Without the support of the door, as if out of a catapult she spins around, the arm holding the handbag flies out to grab something, finds nothing, and she staggers a meter or so, still spinning, to bounce off the back of a parked car and fall to the ground, then roll over, eyes wide staring up at the half-moon.
Her face could be pretty, but she’s in such a mess it’s hard to tell. She looks French, rather than English, with dark eyes and a sallow complexion. The cheekbones are high, the lips thin, the chin pointed. She sighs heavily, as though relieved to be lying on the ground.
I think for a moment that now would be a good time to leave, but there are all these voices in my head saying -I can’t leave her there. If something happens to her I’ll get the blame.
Fuck it, I hope she has a key to the house. I have to help her. I know that if I leave her here, I’d be leaving a piece of my own humanity there with her, so I bend down to her and say
-Come on, give me your arm. Are you alright? Give me your arm and I’ll help you up. Do you mind if I take your arm?
She reaches up with her arm and I take it and pull her to her feet. This is going to be tricky, I think to myself. She’s got no control at all. It is then that I realise suddenly that the car is still in the middle of the street with the two righthand doors open and the engine running. I have to park it.
I bring her to the wall.
-Stand over here against the wall, I tell her. Stay here, and don’t move while I park the car.
I let go of her. She stays there. I jump intothe car, closing the doors, then park a little farther down the street, where the courtyard rejoins the narrow street. I switch off the engine, remove the key and get out, closing and then locking the doors with the remote button. When I look up, she has moved from where I left her. She has succeeded to cross the road and is now walking unsteadily towards me, past her terrace, and on the other side of the road. I go over to her. She is sobbing and dishevelled, clutching her bag to her breast, trying to walk along and lean against the wall at the same time.
-Here, this is where you live, over there, look, number X.
I point to the houses in the courtyard where the man had gone.
-No, she cries out, it’s not, and she cries out loudly. She is starting to panic and I don’t know what to do. Suddenly I hear footsteps running and I look up and I see the man tearing across the courtyard from one of the houses on the right. He runs straight at us and I move away walking back to the car. He runs straight at me and grabs me by the shirt.
-Why is she crying? he asks me, his face in mine. -What did you do to her?
I can’t believe this. I raise my hands in the air, trying to get him to calm down.
-Nothing, I did nothing to her. She’s upset because of you not because of me, man. I did nothing to her.
But he’s too fired up on booze and who knows what else, and he’s got all this anger inside him. Then he notices that she’s still walking on, bouncing off the wall, on down the street. He lets go of my shirt and goes after her and I take this opportunity to zap the car open and move over to the driver’s door. Thing is, my car takes three seconds before the alarm disengages, and while I’m waiting three of the longest seconds I’ve ever waited, Mr Wife-beater-turned-knight-in-shining-armour realises I’m about to leave and he comes tearing back around the car at me just as I’m opening the door. I get it open, but he’s getting really close now and there’s no way I’m letting him get the first move in this time. My hands are up, palms facing him, and I’m saying to him:
-calm down, calm down, but he’s in a real rage. and I’m wondering, Where is all this fucking anger coming from?, and I’m surprised at my calm as he moves into my range, his arms out to grab me as I hit him twice in the face with two palm shots, left and right, then another two, left, right. The left ones are fairly light but with each right I pivot on my left hip, pushing my weight into the blow with my right leg, and they hit home.
He staggers back stunned, raising his arms to his face, looking confused, and I think to myself, -Enough, I don’t want to kill him, and I’ve got time to get into my car. But this is where I make a mistake, because I should keep hitting him, and keep hitting him until he’s no longer a threat.
Instead I misread his condition because he’s only stunned momentarily and suddenly with a roar he puts his head down and charges at me like a bull, crashing his head into my middle, his arms around me before I’ve time to react and pinning me against the door with my left arm only free, my right trapped in his bearhug.
If only I hadn’t opened the door, or if only I’d moved away from the car, because I could just step back and push him down to the ground really easily using his own momentum, but here I am, pinned against a car door by a raging drunk, with only my left arm free. And then, As I’m wondering how to get out of this one, suddenly there is this terrific pressure on my arm and I realise -Fuck, he’s biting me. This fucking animal is actually chewing my forearm.
The pain starts to register, about the same time as he starts to shake his head, he’s actually trying to chew throught the flesh of my arm by shaking his head. And then I realise that this is about as real a life-threatening situation as I’m likely to meet and it’s time to do something decisive. And I’m amazed at how I’m calmly thinking that my left arm is free, so I’ll have to use that. What can I get at? I can go for his left eye, or his left ear. Now, I don’t lke the thought of squeezing out someone’s eye because eyes are a bit squishy, and I’ve always had a kind of freaky horror of eye injuries, so not for his sake, but for mine, I have to go for his ear.
With my left hand I reach around the side of his head, through the gap over his shoulder and taking his ear in my fist I start to twist and twist. The presure on my right forearm relaxes enought for me to get my arm out, and with that my right knee comes up, my arms go out and I thrust him away from me.
He staggers back, and I’m there ready with my hands up again, saying
-Back off, back off.
He does.
And then, he does something that, in spite of the situation, makes me want to laugh. He starts to peel off his upper clothes, the archetypical drunken celtic warrior, tanked up on liquid courage.
-Get into your fucking car! he shouts. Get into your fucking car!
He even points at the car as he’s stripping, in case I don’t know which car is mine.
Now, I know that if he comes at me again I’ll do him serious damage, but I don't know whether he knows it too. This berserker stripping could be just posturing, but the thing is, if I don’t get into the car, he’ll have no choice but to come at me, and I have no witnesses here to what might happen next except his wife, and she’s hardly going to be reliable. This undressing act is giving me an opportunity to defuse the situation.
I take it. My hands are still up. He knows I can use them, that I can fight back effectively. He has had me pinned against a door, his teeth in my arm, and I got out of it. Or maybe he’s too drunk and he really thinks that stripping to the waist is an effective way of engaging in combat. My voice is calm and collected as I say
-Okay, I’m getting into my car, and I’m going to drive away. Just stay there.
And he does, although he’s still struggling with his upper clothes. He makes no move towards me. I jump into the car and hit the locks. Kerlunk. Key into the ignition, twist, the engine roars into life, I throw it into gear just as, with a final fling of Dutch courage, he kicks my door and as I drive away he gets another one in at the rear door.
And now I’m feeling huge relief, but it’s tempered by the throbbing in my arm, and when I pull over a few streets away and pull up my sleeve, there is an ugly circular welt on my inner forearm that shows no blood outside, but lots of bruising inside, and it’s starting to swell.
I go straight to the nearest Garda Station press charges. Turns out the guy is a University Lecturer...
Hannibal Lecturer, as one of my friends remarked!
And that, my friends, is why I don’t drive at nights anymore.