Crossing Van Ness two days ago, I walked past a man with a crutch under one arm. "You don't have anybody to hold your hand on a Sunday?" he called out to me. "Somebody needs to get their ass whupped! You tell him I said that." By this point I was laughing. "You tell him. You tell him you met a nice black man who wasn't hitting on you or nothing and he said that was a shame, and he needs to get his ass whupped. And if he wants to talk about that, he can come right down here to Pronto Pizza and I'll tell him about it. Somebody needs to get his ass whupped. You tell him."
"I will." I said, "I'll do that." But I didn't.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
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Even if it's not nearly as beautiful (nor as sad), let me share a story about what happened to me when I tried to cross a street last week:
ReplyDeleteWhile crossing the Landsberger Straße four days ago, the traffic light went from green to red. I continued on my way to the other side, of course, when a black BMW came around the corner at, let's say, 45 mph. The car stopped right in front of me with screaming brakes. The driver opened the window and with a heavy Bavarian accent he shouted something at me that roughly translates to "move your fat ass, you bastard".
I just looked at his funny sunglasses, laughed, and said: "I'm sure it must be very difficult for someone like you to drive in the big city. All those traffic lights and four-lane-streets... I'm really sorry if that's too much for you."
Then he got out of the car.
And I ran away, as fast as I could and hid in a "Penny" supermarket for the next 30 minutes....
(I really had to suppress the desire to alter the ending of the story to make it sound a little more heroic)
I hope you're doing okay back in San Francisco.
Klaus