I had a strange, unsettling encounter yesterday. I took the afternoon off and went down Cowley Road. For those of you not familiar with Oxford, Cowley Road is one of the main thoroughfares into the city and is our most multi-cultural street. I love it - I love its ethnic diversity, and I love the fact that it still has an identity, with lots of different independent shops. I don't want to buy anything from most of them, but it's so much better than the town centre, where if you don't want a cup of coffee or a mobile phone there isn't much for you. Anyway, I was approaching a zebra crossing and I could see this bloke walking towards it, but I worked out that if I sped up I could get across without inconveniencing him, and that's what I did. I was probably leaving the crossing just as he was stepping onto it. He certainly didn't have to pull back, or even change his pace. In retrospect I think he'd been striding purposefully towards it, like some pedestrians do, as if he should just be able to walk straight out like it was an extension of the pavement. But no matter, the point is I really didn't cause him any inconvenience. Nevertheless as he crossed behind me he shouted out "Prick". It annoyed me - I'd seen him, I'd judged it accordingly, there was no issue. So I called over to him, did he have a problem. He started shouting back at me, so I got off my bike and went over to the pavement where he now was. He started hurling abuse at me, and I started barking back that he hadn't even been on the crossing when I went over it. He was being pretty aggressive, swearing a lot, and I wasn't swearing but talking loudly, and it became apparent fairly quickly that it was going nowhere, so I got on my bike and left. He called something after me - something including the abuse "four-eyed", which seemed anachronistic and comical in that environment - and I made a gesture and rode off.
As I cycled further down the road, I started to get annoyed with myself. I knew it would prey on my mind for the rest of the afternoon, spoil what had been a really pleasant afternoon up to that point. I don't like losing it, I always feel like I've let myself down. And - being a bit hippy about it - I don't like being responsible for a bit more negativity and ill-feeling in the world. Plus, being a do-gooder left-wing liberal, it bothered me that he might think my having a go at him was motivated by race - he was an Asian guy, probably about 30, wearing a sort of lace hat which I guessed was indicative of some faith or other. So I thought I would go back down the other side of the road, see if I could see him, and say sorry for losing my temper. I didn't feel like I'd been at fault in any real way - not on the crossing, not really by reacting to being called a prick and defending myself - but I was genuinely sorry that I'd lost my temper. I figured that one of two things would happen - most likely he'd say something like "You're still a prick" and ignore me, or less likely he might make some grudging comment that met me halfway. I didn't care which, what mattered to me was that I got it out of my system. So I cycled back up, and did indeed see him. I beckoned him over and started to say "Look, back then (gesturing up the road to where it had happened), I'm sorry I - " and that was about as far as I got before he started yelling abuse at me. Really aggressive, threatening stuff. I was really taken aback, but thought that he could only have assumed that I'd come back for more as it were. He was moving towards me now, and thinking that he just couldn't have registered what I'd said, I repeated "No, I'm trying to say sorry - " at which point, still ranting, he pushed me hard in the chest. I was standing astride my bike, and it wasn't a 'squaring up' sort of push, it was an attempt to shove me off my bike into the road. Realising that this guy was not to be reasoned with and it was time to get out of there I made to cycle away, and at the same time a passer-by intervened and tried to hold him back, but not before he managed to punch me hard on the side of the head.
It was a genuinely shocking moment. I can't remember the last time I got hit in anger. I'm not sure it's ever happened in my adult life. To be hackneyed for a moment, it had all happened so fast - the entire incident from the crossing to the punch must have been five minutes tops - and it was really disconcerting that such a level of rage could appear from nowhere.
I cycled a few yards up the road, then stopped to get myself together. He'd hit me on the ear and it had dislodged my glasses, and I was worried that he'd bent them. As I took them off to check, four Asian lads passed me who had clearly seen the whole thing. They were young guys, maybe 20, and with the best will in the world I might, under normal circumstances, have found them a bit intimidating even had I not just had that happen to me. But here's the thing - they were all concerned, and asked how I was. I briefly explained to them what had happened, just so they knew I hadn't somehow deserved the part they'd seen. "He's got a screw loose," one of them said, which at the time I took to have been a comment on what they'd seen, but now I wonder whether the guy is known round there as a loose cannon. And here's the weird, sweet, funny, sad, I don't know what part of the whole episode. One of them said "We apologise on his behalf". I didn't know what to make of that. Did they, as I suspect, think that I would take the incident as a reason to go off and work up a grudge against the Asian community of East Oxford? (They weren't to know that I am less inclined to extrapolate an opinion of a society from the acts of an individual than anyone I know.) Did they just feel some collective sense of responsibility for their neighbourhood? I don't know, but it was a truly touching moment at the end of a weird, unnerving incident. They had no need and no reason to apologise for the thug who had hit me, but I think it was beautiful that they did. Within the space of a couple of minutes I'd been reminded that the world is full of yobbish scumbags, and then before that could take root that it is also full of decent, compassionate people.
