Page 4 of Brendan (The Doherty Mafia)
I wanted to cry. I screamed and thrashed while his friends laughed and he fondled me all over. Just as I expected, nobody at the bar seemed to have heard me scream. Nobody was going to come to my rescue.
I thought he was going to drag me to the toilets right then. His grip was strong and the more I fought him, the more excited he got.
And then this guy appeared out of nowhere.
I barely even had a chance to look at his face before he pulled the man off me and punched him in the face. His friends jumped off their chairs, meaning to attack the guy who came to my rescue. But then, another guy showed up.
I had fallen to the floor and I stayed there, backing into a corner while I watched the scene unfold. I could still feel that man’s paws all over me. I still had tears rolling down my cheeks. I wanted to be home. I wanted to be with Davey, have him curled in my arms. Even when all this was happening to me, I thought about protecting him.
The two guys wrestled with the three remaining men from the table. The guy who came to my rescue, and his friend—were clearly physically superior. They were both tall and muscular with short crew cuts and bulging biceps. They were the kinds of guys you didn’t mess with. The kinds of guys I knew to stay away from because I didn’t trust them. And yet, of all the people in the bar, they were the ones who came to my rescue.
I wanted to catch a good glimpse of the one who had pulled me off but he was too involved with the wrestling. At one point, he even took a punch in the face and it looked like his nose started to bleed. I winced in response to that, even though it seemed like he was unaffected by it.
Then the bar security arrived. Finally.
Two losers who wouldn’t have been able to break up the fight single-handedly if they didn’t have help from Rocky and some of the other staff.
The men were pulled apart. The guy knocked out on the floor was finally coming-to.
Ironically, it was the two guys who fought for me who were being pushed out of the bar. They were the ones who had started the fight. I scrambled to get off the floor and come to their defense. Even though I knew it wouldn’t matter. Ultimately, I would get the blame from Rocky for causing a scene and upsetting paying customers.
As they walked out, the tall hot guy who came to my rescue threw me one last look. Then he winked.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Rocky shouted after me as I made my way through the crowd towards the door.
I was tempted to just quit. Right there and then. I was so close to pulling off my name tag and throwing it to the floor. I had just been physically and sexually assaulted by his customers, and he wanted me to continue going about my job like nothing happened?
“Fuck you, fucking Rocky,” I hissed under my breath as I walked out of the bar. I still had to think of Davey. I couldn’t afford to lose my job over this. Davey’s dental appointment was coming up. How was I going to pay for it if I lost my job that night?
I came out of the bar, hoping that the two guys hadn’t disappeared already.
Even though I was a little afraid of them, I wanted to thank them for what they had done. Besides, one of them had his nose bleeding and may have needed medical attention. And all this was because of me. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done anything like that for me.
I looked down the sidewalk and finally saw them, walking away. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and they seemed to be laughing. This was a joke to them? They could have gotten seriously injured.
“Hey!” I shouted in their direction.
The one who threw the first punch looked over his shoulder at me and stopped in his tracks. His friend stopped too.
“Hey yourself,” he called back.
I made my way towards them.
“Thank you…for what you guys did back there,” I said. I still had to shout because they were some distance away from me.
They broke away from each other’s shoulders.
“Someone should have stepped in sooner,” he replied. “You okay?”
Those two simple words—you okay—seemed like a soothing balm over my burning skin. Nobody ever asked me that. I didn’t have anybody in my life who would bother with those words. Not even my mom who had her own life to deal with.
My eyes filled with tears and I desperately didn’t want to cry.
“Yeah…yeah, I think so. I’m fine,” I replied, fumbling with my words.
