Perhaps it is due to my bartending experience or perhaps it is innate, but I have a sonar that enables me to know when trouble is about to escalate.
I just didn't expect to see it in Aleppo.
It is early evening, and I have checked back in to The Baron Hotel. Feeling peckish, I head back to this place where the chicken from the grill is perfect and a fine meal can be had for dirt cheap.
I turn right as I exit the Baron, and then right at the first corner. The place is on the left side of the street. There are a few joints here, but this is the one where you can see the rotisserie in the front window.
Obscure travel tips aside, as I head down the street a kerfuffle breaks out. A man emerges from a small shop holding a boy of 16 or so by the scruff of the neck and he yells across the street. Another man emerges carrying a switch.
Yup. A good old fashioned switch.
Suddenly the much larger man is on the kid and he is whipping him. My guess is that the kid is a shoplifter, and I notice that the guy who is whipping the kid is taking little pleasure in his task.
He is scaring the shit out of the kid, and teaching him a lesson, but he is not beating him mercilessly. He gets in his face and whips his legs a couple of times.
Incident over, I walk down the street with a slight pang of ruthless envy as I consider the punks and losers who permeate my neighbourhood, stealing with impunity and making women afraid, while cops entombed in vehicles focus on pulling over drivers for failing to signal.
It occurs to me that flipping the switch is not always a bad idea.
http://www.goyestoeverything.com
