The paragon of animals, or something

Sometimes people do things without even thinking about it. I don't mean like how you don't think about all the actions involved in picking up a cup of water and drinking from it. I mean things like running into a burning building to pull people out of it, things that run counter to instinct. If you think about it, selflessness is a pretty amazing thing, considering it goes against the simple preservation of self.

Years ago, there was this bar I went to for karaoke. I don't remember what it was called, only that it was a total dive. There was no shelf for booze, just a small fridge and some other stuff to stack drinks on. They didn't even have a credit card machine. It was, if you will pardon my language, a shithole.

One night, when I was there with some friends, a fight broke out. I was sitting at the bar, and about 10-15 feet away, I heard a crash, and turned to see that some guy had shoved some other guy into a table, knocking it and several chairs over. I was about five sheets to the wind at that point, not wasted, but pretty drunk. This wasn't the first or the last time I've seen a barroom brawl break out, but for some reason I reacted differently to this one. Maybe it was that the bar was relatively empty and there was no one between me and the fight. Maybe it was because the guy who had been knocked over was not fighting back, and it reminded me of the few times I've been involved in an altercation.

The guy who had been shoved was just lying there, and the other guy had jumped on him and was swinging away with impunity. I can't say what made me do it, because I don't remember having any conscious thoughts about it, but the next thing I knew I was standing over both of them. I grabbed the guy on top and yanked him off the other guy with one hand. I'm a pretty big guy, but so was he. I think the only reason I pulled him away with such ease was due to the element of surprise. And he'd probably had much more to drink than I had.

I held the guy behind me at arm's length while I helped the other guy up with my free hand. In hindsight, it was probably a pretty stupid thing to do, turning my back on an aggressive drunk, but as I said, I wasn't really thinking about anything I was doing, just reacting almost by instinct. Fortunately, the guy's friends had sufficiently recovered from their shock at the attack by that point to grab their friend and take him out of the equation. The man who had been attacked got up with my help and dusted himself off. By this point his own friends had gathered around him, and I asked if he was alright. I think he muttered a curt "Yeah," which was the only thing anyone said to me during the entire incident. I went back to my friends while the two guys were led out of the bar by their friends.

Now what made me do that? Both people involved in the fight were total strangers, I had no reason to get involved. It happened far enough away from me that I had been in no danger of being swept up into the melee. And as I mentioned before, wading into fights and breaking them up is not the sort of thing I normally do. So why did I do it that time? I don't know. I'd like to say something like "Somebody had to do something," or "I did what I thought was right," but I never gave any of it any thought at the time. It wasn't until after I'd gotten back to the bar that I started thinking about the whole thing, and wondering what had possessed me to get involved. I didn't have any answers then, and I still have none now. I'd like to think of myself as the kind of person who does such selfless things. Maybe if I find myself in similar circumstances again, and I react the same way, I'll be able to put it in more perspective. For the time being, it just makes me think about the vagaries of human nature, whatever that is.

-Long Days and Pleasant Nights