Last week we went to the beach in Denia, which is about an hour and a half south of Valencia. My wife, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and I stopped in at an Italian/Spanish restaurant along the boardwalk for lunch and a fight broke out between a British guy and a Spanish guy. The Spanish guy was in his 60's and the British guy was in his late 20's/early 30's. The British guy had been standing near a parking spot to hold it while his wife/girlfriend drove around to get back into position to get the car parked. They had evidently overshot it the first time so she was going around the loop to bring it back in. As this happened an older Spanish couple moved in to park in the spot. The British guy started yelling at the Spanish guy in English. The Spanish guy nudged his car past the British guy and nestled it into position. All the while the British guy was still shouting at him and banging on the hood of his car. The Spanish guy and his wife got out of their car and seemed either oblivious to the enraged gentleman pounding on the hood of their car or just indifferent. It was after he got the door shut that he acknowledged the angry man. The Spanish guy did that thing that usually involves a flailing of arms while pointing at random objects up there, over there and down on the ground all the while making motions to bump chests. His motions were accompanied by his screaming back at the British guy in Spanish. The British guy continued to pound on the hood of the Spanish guy’s car while shouting expletives in English as the Spanish guy continued to flail his arms about while responding with expletives in Spanish. It all resembled an absurd theatrical dance performance. I imagined that if I hadn’t been able to understand either language I would assume that they were singing a song while the British man pounded out the rhythm and the Spanish guy danced.
The next action however put to rest any confusion of interpretive dance as the British guy reached up and grabbed a beer bottle off of one of the tables on the terrace of the restaurant and without any hesitation or afterthought proceeded to smash the bottle right across the side of the Spanish guy’s head. It wasn’t like the movies in the sense that the bottle didn’t disintegrate. It simply broke in half and then fell to the ground. But the blood was immediate. It was bright red and it splattered across the table and the ground below the man. The blow had knocked the Spanish guy to his knees, but to his credit he immediately pulled himself up to his feet. The cooks and waiters, all Eastern Europeans, (just letting you know since I’ve already started classifying characters by lineage) ran out from the back to hold down the British guy while the old Spanish guy's wife called the police. A younger couple had been sitting next to the munitions table and the lady there had the Spanish man’s blood on her shoe. She immediately took off her shoe and held it up for the now restrained British guy to see. The Spanish man stood there dazed resting on the shoulder of his wife while blood poured down from behind his ear.
Immediately following the melee someone had called the police and we could hear their sirens coming towards us. The young lady with the bloody shoe and the Spanish man’s wife positioned him out to the edge of the parked cars for easy ambulance pick-up. The police and the ambulance drove right past us. The Spanish guy who was gushing blood out of the side of his head ran across the street and hailed a taxi, on his own accord, to get to the hospital. (I was quite honestly amazed at the man’s clarity and mobility considering what had just taken place…I reiterate, he was not a young man.) The taxi driver was hesitant to take him (probably taking into consideration that getting blood out of the upholstery is not an easy task) when a few lagging motorcycle police became aware of him and called in the more ambitious police unit and ambulance to come back.
