Canadutch
Our friend Erwin has been here visiting for the past two days. He’s an old friend of Xander and I that we met on the net and have known for about 12 years now. He is a Dutchie too but sadly lives all the way in Germany so we don’t get to see him that often.
Last night we were going to go catch a movie and War of the Worlds was completely sold out so we couldn’t get seats, so we decided to go get some dinner and chill out instead. On our way home we were waiting for the tram, I was sitting down and the two guys were standing facing me. I looked between them and saw a couple walking on the other side of the tracks, heading towards the tram stop on the other side. I didn’t really pay too much attention to them, they were a nicely dressed black couple. It looked like they were coming from some kind of gathering or something.
Then, so quick I almost though I imagined it… *** WHACK *** .. He punched her.
I thought my eyeballs were going to fall out of my head. My hands went up to my face in shock and I said “Oh my god!!”. The guys heard the crack and turned around to look, but it was already over. I told them that the guy just hit her and sat there in shock. No sooner did I tell them than he did it again, and again, and again… Just walking along punching this woman as if it was as natural as breathing. I was completely gobsmacked… pardon the pun.
I told Xander to call the police but he was hesitant. He and Erwin said that there was nothing the police would/could do. I know the Dutch police are fairly useless but I thought surely even they wouldn’t be able to just let something like this happen, so after some arguing Xander finally called them and told them what was taking place.
It seemed like forever before we saw any police cars. The woman was sitting on the bench in the tram stop and he was standing over her, screaming and punching her… the only time he stopped was when he turned to take a piss against the glass wall on the side of the shelter. It was such a helpless feeling standing there watching him do that to her. He would scream and scream and even from the distance we were at we could feel the tension rising in him and could predict that any minute his fists would start flying.
She just sat there, holding bloody tissues to her face. You would think that instinct would cause her to lift her arms to shield her head and face but the most I saw her do was turn her head slightly. I don’t know if she was as out of it as he was or if she was just so used to it she didn’t have any defense left in her. She just took it though, without trying to protect herself at all.
Every time I go out to the city center here in Rotterdam, I see more muscled up troublemakers than you can shake a stick at. I stood there just hoping and praying that a group of big, angry looking men would walk by and see him beating her, and give him a beating of his own. Sadly, that didn’t happen. We saw a police car coming down the street and flagged them down. The police that were on the way from our call weren’t far behind..
When they went up to him he got quite mouthy with them, so they were not exactly gentle when pushing him up against the wall to handcuff him. Ironically, the same one he pissed on just a few minutes earlier.
They carted him away in one car, and her in the other… leaving us standing there wondering who these people were, what happened to cause him to want to hurt her so badly and what she will be facing tomorrow or whenever the police release him.
I spent the entire tram ride home trying not to vomit. I don’t know if it was because I was so shaken by the sight of this beating, or I just ate too much.
