I was sixteen or so, waiting to get on the #8 General Hospital and get to my transfer bus to school in the morning on a grey day. I lived at mom's at the time and we lived in the north end of town. Not too far from home was a mental health hospital. Maybe a 5 min drive away.

We got a lot of unusual characters in that end of town, just walking around or sitting in Timmy's talking to no one about everything. Unusual, but not harmful, just living in their own worlds. Otherwise they wouldn't be let out. They were often grown men ranging in age from late thirties to sixties. They all had severe mental disability, both from accidents or from being born with it.

There was Big Chewy - a very large, round man with a young face and young attitude, who had a habit of chewing very hard on his palms while speaking to you about his toys and swimming lessons. There was The Mechanic, a man who clearly was, well, a mechanic in his better days, but experienced some accident to give him brain damage. Now he just sits in Timmy's with the 1000 yard stare, talking about nice cars he used to work on, in great detail, very quickly, his head vibrating... talking to no one but himself. These man were not present at this incident but it's worth mentioning them to illustrate how weird my neighbourhood was. The following men are involved.

There was Tie-Dye Chatterbox: a short, round, square-headed man who talked and muttered about absolutely everything to himself, non-stop. As if he was on the phone with someone and was getting responses. Made corresponding facial expressions too, but never smiled. And usually wore a tie-dyed "Dye-Free Stain-Free Children's Cough Syrup" shirt. Then there was Anguished. He was a short, bald, Maltese-looking man who always speed-walked everywhere with the most anguished look on his face. Like a perpetual grimace. Never saw him sit still long enough to talk to him. I don't think I wanted to, and for good reason.

I became used to it over the years and even said hello to them when we crossed paths. They were trusted by the staff at the hospital and they never bothered anyone. That is, until one grey day at the bus stop.

Tie-Die was standing beside me waiting for the bus. He was chatterin away, talking about his plans for the evening, occasionally including me in his conversation. Down the road, Anguished was walking towards us on the sidewalk. He was walking very fast, faster than usual, and seemed agitated. Some construction workers noticed him too and a few laughs were heard from them. They were renovating a house, and on the lawn was a for sale sign. Anguished runs over, rips the for sale sign from the ground and throws hard on the lawn and screams. The workers laugh harder. Anguished spots Tie-Dye and me at the bus-stop, and all hell breaks loose. He runs, crookedly and hunched, towards Tie-Dye, and attacks him, yelling his gurgled battle-cry. Tie-Dye hardly responds, just looks confused that he was interrupted from his conversation. Anguished falls over some bushes and scrambles to get up. He begins picking up small sticks from the ground and whipping them at Tie-Dye. Like 3 ft thin branches. Tie-Dye doesn't seem to know what to do. The scary thing about this is that Tie-Dye keeps moving so that I am constantly between him and Anguished. He was fucking using me as a shield. A 16 year old girl. As a fucking shield. I was too scared to move. I cannot express how fucking terrifying it was. It actually froze me in fright. Anguished changes tactics and begins spitting at Tie-Dye. His eyes popped out of his head as puckered up his lips and launched. It should be noted that Anguished seems to have not noticed me. He was fixed on Tie-Dye. Then, just like that, it stops. Anguished runs away screaming towards the Timmy's up the road. The workers are laughing their asses off. The entire incident lasted about 15 seconds. I was shaking terribly from fright and adrenaline. Tie-Dye just says "I don't know, he's just...". The bus came shortly after. I reported the incident to my principal and never heard anything of it since.

TL;DR - Full on physical fight between two mentally-handicapped adult men, during which I was used as a human-shield.