Thinking is dificult. That's why most people judge.

Carl Yung

Songs from an Italian Restaurant

On Monday, October 8, 2001, my fiancé Misha and I went to our favorite Italian restaurant in Breckenridge to grab a bite to eat.

I remember the date because October 7, 2001 was the date that we invaded Afghanistan after 9/11.  It was a country wide ‘fuck you’ to the perpetrators of the attack, and just another reason for all the news stations to continue 24/7 coverage.

Less than four weeks after our national tragedy most restaurants were still fairly empty and this Monday our little Italian restaurant was no exception.

We walked into the nearly vacant restaurant and sat at a high top table in the bar area. Televisions were still running unending footage of the 9/11 attacks, and tonight the entirety of the three televisions in the bar and lounge were all tuned to the news.  We picked out an appetizer as we listened to eyewitness accounts of the torturous experience of the doomed jumpers.

Now it would seem surreal to describe a bar with all three televisions on CNN emitting eyewitness accounts of suicidal jumps, but this was the way it was in October 2001.  The entire nation was experiencing the five stages of grief, and we were all suffering from communal PTSD.  As we would soon find out, some more than others.

There was just one other man sitting at the bar, and after a few minutes of listening to the excruciating accounts, he said something about how the people on the television describing their experience needed to get a life.  I didn’t really know what he meant or who he was talking to, it was just him and us in the bar.  We were confused and annoyed but we ignored him and continued to pick out a couple of appetizers.  A few minutes went by and again he stated out loud how these people were cowards, they needed to suck it up.  He explained that he had killed five people, yet had moved on in his life.

At this point, we attributed his off-the-wall comments as drunk talk, offensive as it was at the time, and we continued to ignore him.

The third time he spoke out loud about the events unfolding on the screens, his comments became more animated and less welcome.  I turned to him and gently said, “Hey man, do you mind? We’re just trying to have a bite to eat. If you could just keep your comments to yourself, that would be awesome.”  At first he seemed to listen, but after a few minutes went by he spouted at the television again.

“These people need to get a life. I’ve killed five people, and I’m not dribbling on like an idiot.”

That was enough for me, and I leaned over to him and calmly but firmly told him to keep his comments to himself. We were just trying to have a nice evening and we were starting to get offended.

It was at that point that the conversation got heated, my fiancé tried to get between us and calm us both down, but he reached across and grabbed my collar and pulled. My barstool tilted and I came off balance.  My fight or flight mode kicked in and as I was falling I swung at him and connected above his right eye. The glasses he was wearing immediately broke in two and flew across the bar. The punch split him open, spun him around, and he landed hard, slumped bleeding on the bar.  It was clear we were now going to be asked to leave.

My fiancé, fairly disgusted with what just transpired, grabbed her jacket as we prepared to get kicked out.

The manager rushed over and to our shocking surprise, rather than kicking us out, he apologetically offered to comp our appetizers and drinks. He apologized profusely and explained that the gentleman was a regular and that they would find him another place to sit.  It was apparent that they had run into this kind of drama before.

We were still trying to figure out what had actually happened when the man, picking up the two pieces of his spectacles mumbled, “I mean, I hit someone with my train.”

We found out later that the man was an engineer for BNSF and had hit a family on vacation in a minivan and killed two parents and three children.  He was reaching out for help . . . and I gave him a knuckle sandwich.  

He had just wanted to talk about his experience to try to work through it. I can’t imagine the mental anguish that this man was suffering at the time. He was so desperate for someone to talk to he threw out dramatic opinions to start a conversation like you would at a sports bar during a big game.

I still think about the situation frequently, and even though it made me angry at the time, I feel incredibly sad about it now. 

When people are hurt, they sometimes act in ways that are incongruent with what you would expect from someone in that situation.  It’s hard to know what people are going through at any given moment. 

Unless . . . you are curious, not judgmental.