In and Around a(n angry) Shout

There we were, the picture of blithe respectability. We ambled out of ScotMid carrying a total of eighteen bedding plants, (three assorted varieties: Petunias, Busy Lizzies & Marigolds). A surprising threat. I was dressed in yellow for fuck’ssake. We crossed the road, the sun bouncing around our smiling faces. As we were reaching the other side we both noticed a small creature in a flannel shirt gape eagerly fixed on us. His bright vacuous eyes unnerving to say the least, stunned us into a somewhat guarded silence. I’ve never seen such a wide & empty gaze, it was impossible not to meet his eyes. Thankfully the man was heading in the opposite direction to us and although I always feel a certain amount of guilt when you decide on little evidence that a person is a threat (and I did have little evidence- a gaze, that’s all I had remember). Still, I was relieved he was being intense in a different direction. Shit. He was actually changing course, worryingly quickly and, yes, he was matching it with ours- typical. I went to get the keys out of my pocket to open the front door. He was right behind us. Now as the 'man', I 'wasn’t' scared but certainly apprehensive and perhaps curious. We stopped at my front door, the man continued. Until he realised and he duly reversed. I glanced at him, now comfortably close to safety: he was pacing around anxiously, pretending not to be looking at me & Rosie & the bedding plants. Perhaps he wanted to try and get into the block. I opened the door and both of us went inside, one eye very firmly on the danger. He looked very nervous. The door slowly started to squeeze him out of view. “Keep yer meuwth shu’ next time ye walk past me. Ye Fuckin Cunt!” That was unexpected. I’m sure I’d expected something, but it wasn’t that. A quick stab would have been less of a surprise. You might say an angry shout was a far better outcome. And in most ways you’d be right. In some ways, though, a stab has its advantages. For one, almost the instant it was too late, I wished I’d gone out and said something. This always happens, the ‘boy-hindsight’: you didn’t do anything at the time then after playing it over in your head relentlessly you tell everyone what you would’ve done (even though you didn’t and everyone has seen so) or what you’ll do next time it happens (which it won’t). On top of that you justify why the ‘opponent’ was less dignified and therefore not worth the effort as well as why you wouldn’t really have done anything about it at that particular moment, often with a lame excuse about how you ‘hadn’t really heard what he’d said’ or ‘before you knew it he’d gone’. This might eat away at your dignity in a way, a very, very small way, but nonetheless. This really doesn’t apply to me however: He was mad, the door was practically shut already and if it hadn’t I really would’ve given him hell. I hadn't said a fucking thing to him anyway.