…His hands were all over her.   He was trying to take off her clothing..! I was completely incredulous… I acted without thinking.   There was a heavy timber sandwich board, leaning against the wall, and I picked it up, with both hands, and bashed the indecent cretin on the back of the head with it…

I slide into the passenger seat, and kick a hole in the garbage in the footwell, so I can squeeze my legs into the car.
“Thanks for picking me up” I say.
“That’s no trouble.  No trouble at all” the driver replies.
He’s a small man with a big grey beard, varnished with nicotine.   He looks about sixty, or seventy.  He’s wearing a faded brown suit jacket over an old t-shirt. 

“I hitchhiked a good deal in my youth.   Couldn’t afford a car.   I borrowed this one from my son, for the weekend.  I’ve never had any money.   What fucking good is it?   Eh?   I’m not an idiot, of course, although many might disagree.    I have a PhD in mathematics.    But I can’t keep a job.   Never could. 

Cigarette?  No?
  
My first job after I graduated, I interned with a researcher.   He was a wonderfully clever chap.   I admired him a great deal, but he was an awful human being, as it turned out.   An absolute bastard.   And after three weeks, putting up with his rages, and his sarcasm, and his foul body odour, I’m afraid I told him so.     
He stuck his head out of his office, and screamed at me.   Some trivial task I had neglected.  His face was red, bellowing at me as if he were a headmaster and I was a naughty school boy.   I stood up, picked up my jacket, and marched out.  
I turned at the door, and said to him.   ‘l’m afraid I must resign, sir.   I have an adequate knowledge of your character by now, after these last few weeks, and it is my opinion, not hastily arrived at, that you are an abominable bastard.   Working for you one more day would be an unbearable strain.   Good luck, and goodbye.’

The next job I had was in a restaurant.   The chef was a great, burly, beast of a man.  An alcoholic, and a revolting lecher.   He was constantly harassing the waitresses: squeezing their buttocks and grabbing at them.   In just one month, I witnessed at least four separate incidents which would, had the young women involved chosen to speak out, no doubt have landed the chef in court.   They were all terrified of losing their jobs of course, so they would merely fake smiles, and carry on, under the humiliation of his relentless advances. 

I stepped out into the lane to have a cigarette one night, and I found the chef grappling with a young woman who had only started working there the previous week.   The poor girl was helpless.  He had her backed up against the wall, and his hands were all over her.  He was trying to take off her clothing!   I was almost unable to believe my eyes at first.   I was completely incredulous.   When I got over my initial shock, I acted without thinking.   There was a heavy timber sandwich board, leaning against the wall, and I picked it up, with both hands, and bashed the indecent cretin on the back of the head with it.   He fell down on his face.  He was a much bigger man than me, so I gave him one more good crack with the sandwich board, just to satisfy myself that he would stay down.   
I asked the young lady if she was alright, and she looked at me as if I was the one who had attacked her.   She screamed, and ran inside the kitchen, as if I was a danger to her, when I had probably just prevented her being raped.  

The matter was reported to the police.    I was fired.   Not the chef.   No.   He continued to work there.   Meanwhile, I was dragged before the court, charged with assault.  Can you believe it?   

I conducted my own defence.  In my closing statement, I pointed out to the court, that if I had acted in the same way in self defence, I would never have had any trouble.   What about defence of a female?   What about chivalry?   Eh?   My mother raised me to open doors, and pull out chairs.  
No doubt, the magistrate was a misogynist.  I was given a suspended sentence, and a very stern dressing down.
What sort of a world is this? 

Well, I never intervened on behalf of a female after that experience, I can assure you.  I was not about to go to prison to preserve the honor of some soft headed bimbo.   
I disavowed violence, but I continued to speak my mind, though, much to my own detriment.   

I was jobless for a while. I’ve never minded unemployment. When I ran out of money, I found myself some work as a tutor. 
At first I was very pleased at the opportunity to have an influence on young minds.  But I’m afraid that I was expected to behave more as a babysitter than an instructor. 

My young pupils were outrageously ill-mannered.   Because they were not at school, but in their parent’s homes, they acted as if I were some sort of domestic servant.    They were petulant, and uncooperative.  They were afflicted with a revolting sense of entitlement, which is, forgive me for saying so, so typical of your generation.  They expected me, not to give them instruction, but rather to perform their tasks for them.  They babbled, and swore, and whined insufferably, and when I told them to shut up, and get their heads out of their arseholes, their parents sacked me. 

Cigarette?

I am outspoken, certainly.   But listen: I have been thrown out of jobs for merely being silent!    I had an employer when I was working in newspapers, who clearly was mentally retarded in some way.    I could see it within the time it took for him to interview me for the position.   He would stride into the office where we were all toiling away at our typewriters, and stand behind me, and below at the top of his strident, nasal voice.  ‘Use English, mate!   I can’t even read this story.   What the hell is wrong with using normal words.   Your copy reads like a god-damn thesaurus.  Re-write this, and make it so I can understand what the hell you’re on about.’

Well, I’d learned my lesson by then.   No use debating a moron.   Better to keep my mouth shut.  And that is what I did.   I stayed silent.   I continued to work, as if he were not in the room.   He mocked me, and gave my assignments to other reporters.   I simply acted as though he did not exist.   

My colleagues were thrilled at my dissent, but naturally not one of them had spine enough to stand with me.   They would sidle past me in the kitchen and mumble their sympathy, but not one of them ever joined me in protest.  ‘Yes sir, no sir, I’ll have it on your desk in an hour, sir.  May I kiss your arse sir?’   They were pathetically cowed. 
Meanwhile, I contributed the only material in that office that was untainted by his cretinous criticism. And he never published a word I wrote.  The publication was unreadable rubbish. 
Within a fortnight, he gave me the sack.

Do you smoke?    No? Well, good for you young man.

The best advice I can give you, if you wish to make a successful career, and become wealthy is: act the fool.   Cower with fear.   Contradict nobody.  
What good does a man do by standing upon his principles, eh?  What sort of a preparation for life is an education?  

They shouldn’t be giving graduates degrees.   If they want them to be successful in this world they should be giving them frontal lobotomies.”

 
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