Yesterday, as I was about to head home, I was standing at a the tram stop on the Prinsengracht and I noticed that the tram was standing, immovable, down the street on the Leidseplein. I’ve lived here long enough to know what that means; the tram would be crammed full with people, and seeing as how there were a bunch of people standing next to me waiting for the tram, I had half a mind to walk instead. When the tram approached, I figured I could give it a try, to see if I could squeeze myself in. I had a pretty brutal training a few hours previous, and while I could have, I wasn’t so keen on walking. When I reached the door there was some commotion as a stout, wide-eyed guy was yelling a string of obscenities, in Dutch, to a British girl, probably no more than 20 years old. She was part of a group of nine people, all roughly the same age, who were very startled at the man, and had no idea what he was saying or why he was angry at the girl. They ignored him — or tried to, at least — but it became impossible when he started spitting on her. He was calling her a filthy whore, and kept yelling that he was a muslim. One of the guys in the group with the girl was looking at him with a bit of trepidation and didn’t really know what to do. He had seen what I had seen, the wide eyed, cocaine induced craziness. I told the guy to just ignore him and not to worry. They all moved into tram, and it seemed he wasn’t getting on. I squeezed myself in after the British group, and right before the door closed the guy was trying to get in. I tried to block him a bit, in the hope that he’d think the tram was empty and not get on. I wasn’t looking forward to being subjected to more of his lunatic ravings. Sadly, he managed to push onto the tram before the doors closed, and he had found a new target; me.
He was a dusky looking guy, but I couldn’t quite say where he was from. Anywhere from any of the Maghreb, or near eastern was my guess. Anyway, he started goading me, but in a really odd way. He was telling me he was Turkish, but everytime he stated that, he ended it with “right?” as if he wanted me to confirm that he was Turkish. I gave him a non-committal response, and he kept on pressing, saying “I’ve got black hair, right, so I’m Turkish, right?” It became clear to me that he was trying to get me to appear racist, by generalising anyone with his looks as Turkish. He was getting very aggressive as I remained non-committal, trying to get him to acknowledge him without opening myself up for more confrontation. I had surreptitiously taken my mouth-guard from my bag; if this guy was going to become physical, I wasn’t going to lose any teeth over it. He kept telling me that I was white, which I am, but I couldn’t figure out whether he was making a statement or an accusation, it was all rather strange. By now, the British guy I had spoken to earlier, telling him to remain calm and ignore him, was simultaneously thanking me for taking his focus off of them, and in particular, the girl he was with, as well as telling me to remain calm. I was very calm, but I guess he had spotted the mouthguard. :)
All the while, my body was getting ready to fight. I was a little worried at the cramped environment and was wondering whether he was carrying any weapons. Adrenaline was pumping in preparation and oddly enough, I was getting to the point where I was relishing the idea of fighting him. When he finally got off at a particular tram-stop he gave me one final, fierce look and I tried to keep the passive, disinterested look on my face that I had kept all throughout the encounter. I guess he was sizing me up one final time. He was half my size and about a decade older, so I wasn’t so worried about that, but more the dilated pupils and the wild, drug-fueled look he had. Luckily, he decided to leave it at that. When he was gone a sigh of relief went through the people surrounding us, and the British group kept on thanking me, which was kind of cool in a superhero sort of way. When I got off the tram, the adrenaline come-down was pretty bad. I was shaking because I couldn’t quite find a good place to vent the built-up aggression I had inside of me. A few phone-calls later and I was fine again.