Check out this email I sent to a friend last night, from my BlackBerry, on the way out of the city:
Hey man, I just did something crazy.
It involves you, actually, because the story starts just as I was
dialing your phone number. I had just got into a car in nyc, a town
car, and I was sitting in traffic on W 51st street.Right when your recording went beep, a black rastafarian crack dealer
black dude in rollwrblades smashed into the back of the town car with
his peanut vendor stand, which he was dragging behind him (it was on
wheels). His friend was sitting on the back of it, and clearly the
extra weight had pushed the cart out of control.The black dude yelled. ‘What the fuck motherfucker’ and ‘you saw me
comin you coulda mooved’ and ‘whadda fuck you gonna do?’So at the exact moment that I was going to say “hi jonny, isorry for
calling so late, hope I didn’t wake you up, but I’ve been working a
lot and I really wanted to chat, and how’s katie and I hope your house
isn’t on a flood plain,” well, at that exact moment, my driver pulled
his car over to the side of the road, threw the gear into park and
stepped onto the sidewalk.I wanted him to get back in so I could go home. But as I listened to
Crack Pimp’s taunts, and as I watched Honest Immigrant Driver survey
the damage to his Chief Source of Income, I started to get angry. Why
shouldn’t Immigrant be upset?So I unbuckled my seat belt (crossing that ‘action barrier of no
return)1, and stepped out of the car. Crack Pimp laughed when he saw
me, with my J Crew khakis and 5 feet 11 inches of pure bone.
“Whiteyman gonna do sometin?”He skated right up to me and stuck his grill in my face. So close I
could see the white globules of spit at the corners of his mouth,
dripping into his sticky beard.For some reason, I smiled. Fuck this asshole, I thought.
“Show some respect.”
“What?”. He couldn’t believe I had spoken. Neither could I.
“You heard me. Apologize to this man.”
He turned to his friend, who was lounging on the peanut cart. “Ya
heard this fool?”When he turned back to face me, I punched him right in the face. As
hard as I could. I ‘m not sure what came over me. An overwhelming
feeling of rage had gripped me and I just acted. In hindsight, I
remember wanting to humiliate and hurt him, to destroy him. But those
are words, so it’s not quite accurate. In reality, my mind was
swirling with rage and animal instinct and I simply let myself go.The punch probably didn’t pack much, but he was on rollerblades so it
actually knocked him sideways, off his feet. He crashed hard to the
pavement, and I saw blood spurt out of his nose into the tire-worn rut
in the middle of the street.The next few minutes are kind of a blur. My driver hocked a fat
loogie on Crack Pimp, who lay there moaning, and then he pulled me
back to the car. I got in. We drove away. No idea what Crack Pimp’s
sidekick did.Now my hand kinda hurts but I’m feeling exhilirated. Like a real man.
Ernest Hemingway. Fuck that guy.
1 Everything after this point is purely a figment of my imagination. In fact, I cowered safely in the backseat while the two men argued. After a good 5 minutes of insults, Honest Immigrant Driver got back in the car and drove me home, muttering the entire way about “low-lifes.”
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