I looked down to avoid eye contact with him and began to nervously fidget. Glancing up a few seconds later (hoping his attention had been diverted by something or someone else) I saw him still staring straight at me. The salacious grin on his stubbly face made me more than a little uncomfortable.
I so wanted to stare back at the man, to show him he didn't frighten me. But, even if I had been able to maintain eye contact, I'm certain he would have seen through my display of false bravado.
Have you ever met someone who made you feel like you were an object, not a person... someone who intimidated you and knew they were intimidating you – and relished it?
That's how I felt. Even though people were crowded around us it felt like he and I were the only ones in the elevator.
Without warning the elevator jolted upwards and, at the exact same time, Crew Cut started inching his way towards me.
My pulse quickened.
I tried to back up but I was already up against the rear wall of the elevator. There was nowhere to go.
From the corner of my eye I saw Mike, whom I'd completely forgotten about, move even closer to me and wrap his arm around my waist. Crew Cut didn’t notice Mike or, if he did, he didn’t care. Turning sideways the big man burrowed through another guy who had been standing in front of him – he was heading straight for me.
My heart was beating hard. I wanted to move toward Mike, to scoot against him. But, suddenly, Mike wasn’t by my side any longer.
Moving in front of me, Mike stepped forward and unceremoniously pushed a man out of his way. The man, who'd been chatting up a young girl, turned and glared at the side of Mike's head.
In a sharp, loud voice he reprimanded Mike, “What the fuck are you doing, asshole?”
Only a few in the crowd seemed to notice the outburst but even they didn't pay much attention to what was taking place and continued talking to others.
With an aggressive shove the man leaned into Mike's shoulder in an attempt to regain his spot. Without even acknowledging the push, Mike took a half step forward and stopped. Standing directly in his path, he stared into the eyes of Crew Cut.
I couldn’t see the front of Mike's face but I did see the side of his lip and the bottom of his nostril. They were twitching – like a silent snarl.
For a moment everything stopped. Time froze.
A scenario went through my mind where Mike and Crew Cut began fighting. The situation in my imagination ended with Mike bloodied and on the floor.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to pull Mike out of the way and hope the doors opened before Crew Cut reached us. But, I couldn’t. There wouldn’t have been enough time. Besides, I knew Mike well enough to know he would have ignored my pleas and that any attempt to manhandle him would have simply been ignored.
Slowly, time began going forward again.
Even while he was still making his way towards me, Crew Cut’s face tilted slightly down to look at Mike. Their eyes locked and something – puzzlement, I think – washed over the big man's face as he looked at the snarling man before him.
Then, Mike took a quarter-step forward, his eyes never leaving the man’s face.
Hesitation replaced puzzlement. Crew Cut’s forward momentum stalled. The two men in front of me were locked in a staring contest.
An evil grin appeared on the larger man’s face and, slightly shaking his head from side to side (as if he knew what the outcome of a confrontation would mean for anyone standing in his way), he started to step forward once more.
Remembering the thought of Mike being bloodied, I cringed.
Without any hesitation whatsoever, Mike stepped forward at the same time as Crew Cut. I saw an expression of incredulity on Crew Cut’s face. But, he stopped in mid-step.
Less than two feet separated the men when the doors to the elevator opened. The others in the elevator, oblivious to any conflict (with the exception of the man Mike had rudely pushed out of the way – who flipped his middle finger into the air without looking back), began filing out.
Mike didn’t move. His expression, from what I could see, never changed.
Crew Cut’s face went blank and he side-stepped out of the car with everyone else – the look on his face gave me the impression of someone who didn't really know why they were walking away but that they were really happy to be doing so.
Just before the doors closed Crew Cut looked once more at me and then at Mike. Then it was over.
Mike turned to me, winked and moved back to my side. He took my hand in his and we rode the rest of the way to our floor in silence. Even though I was, literally, shaking, Mike seemed to have already forgotten about the incident.
Less than a minute later we were at our room. He opened the door and allowed me to go in first. I raced inside and tossed the jacket I was wearing in the air. I didn’t care where it landed.
In my ‘real life’ I would never have ‘littered’ a room by chunking clothes willy-nilly in such a devil-may-care fashion. But this was a vacation from reality – a tiny microcosm of what I wish could be my regular life. Also, my nervousness had diminished and I felt a burst of energy brought on by all the adrenaline pumping into my veins.
I spun around and asked Mike, “What would you have done if that guy had kept coming?”
His answer was as nonchalant and as
