Subject: Friends I Made in NY
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Date: Tue Jan 11 2000 - 21:42:16 EST
I'm having a hard time deciding how to write about this...hmmm...
Let me give you a description person by person.
1. Hakeem. Sold me a two dollar paper at Penn Station. Said he was a
homeless guy and needed to eat. I gave him a five after he said he had the
change. He then BSed with me a bit and started to walk away. I said, "Hey,
where's my change?" "C'mon, man, I need to eat." "I just gave you a five."
"That money ain't my money, it goes to the shelter." "You get money."
"Suppose I ran away. What would you do?" "I'd let you go, it ain't worth
chasing you for three dollars."
At that point he gave me $1.25 in change. I said, "Where's the rest?" Then
he gave me another dollar in quarters. I said, of course, "Where's the
rest?" "Here, lemme show you something," and he sticks his hand out. I drop
all the quarters in his hand. "If I got down on my knees and kissed your
feet, what would you say?" "I'd say, give me my change." "Suppose I did
THIS" and then he takes the quarters and licks them :)
I say, "I don't care. Give me my change." He then Acts like he puts the
quarters in his mouth and swallows them. I say, "You didn't do that." "Yes I
did." I say, "Then I'm going to follow you around until you crap, and pick
it out of your crap." This really gets him, so he starts telling me about
what he'd like to do to the various woman walking by. While I express
agreement with his taste, I have to take exception to a very large blonde cop
who, he says, "will keep him warm in the winter and make him sweat in the
summer."
I say I can't argue with that.
I'm leaving out the very precise descriptions of What he Wanted to Do with
the Women, how, and where.
He then tells me his brother married a white woman. "What did he do that
for?" "I don't know." "Is she alright or a bitch?" "She's a bitch, man.
She picks fights." "Sorry about that..."
Now, at this point, he walks over to a trashcan and picks out another
newspaper. He gives it to me, says we're even, and starts to walk away. I
tell him Yep and slap him on the back.
Not long after this, Elizabeth walks up. What I expected, an attractive
young woman. For some reason I pictured her blonde so, of course, she had
very short, dark brown hair :), and is rather tall (a very nice, dancerish,
elegant kind of tall, by the way). (I was dying to run into Hakeem after
meeting Elizabeth and Mattis, simply for the sake of me walking up to him and
asking him if he felt like he needed to crap anytime soon.)
Elizabeth, right off the bat, shows me her banana and her smile. Pretty much
simultaneously. I was leaning against a column, my backpack on the ground,
with a banana on top of it and my copy of Raise High standing up on top of
it, and she brought her copy of Franny and Zooey.
We talked a bit while I stood watch at the entrance from 34th and 7th.
Eventually she started touring around looking for Mattis. She finally
returned with him, beaming while he was talking to her.
Now, I'm going to refrain from describing the more personal details we
learned of each other because that's up to Them to tell you. All I will say
about Mattis is that he is a genuine sweetheart kind of guy, late 40ish.
Woody Allen with a life.
We all talked for awhile right there in Penn Station, two of us holding
bananas (one of us knowing better), and eventually Mattis said he had to get
back to work. He didn't have long. So he walked us up to the street and
directed us to Starbuck's. I thought we should go there just in case other
listmembers showed up.
So Elizabeth and I walked over to Starbuck's, and upon entering I asked the
man at the counter if he saw anyone come in holding a banana. He chuckled a
bit and said "No," then took our order after I informed him that E and I were
starting a New Cult.
After that I had a wonderful hour or so learning about Elizabeth's family and
history and everything else. It was very nice, and I'll never read Mattis'
or E's posts the same again :)
Mattis had asked what our plans were after he left -- were we going to the
Museum of Natural History? Elizabeth had to leave by noon or so, so we spent
all our time at Starbucks, but it sounded like a wonderful idea to me. I
figured I'd go there, see the dinosaurs and the canoe, rub some F-yous off
the wall and overall enjoy the scenery.
So I caught a cab. My next friend in NYC.
I didn't get his name because he didn't stop talking long enough for me to
ask. He was a West African who came to the States four years ago, arriving
here only knowing how to speak French. He won a Green Card in a US Sponsored
lottery, filled out the piles of paperwork, and left. He is able to send 300
a month to his extended family back home (eight people, including his
wife--no kids of his own), and feed them all very well, plus pay for some
education. He learned English well enough in about six months then started
learning how to use computers. He was driving a cab.
The man makes enough money to take three months off out of the year and fly
back to West Africa and just loaf around with his wife, without compromising
his support of them. He says you can do it if you work hard and don't screw
around. The guy had a five year plan that included getting his wife educated
and set up in her own business, getting their house built (finishing it this
summer, hopefully), then maybe having kids.
Good lord. I was impressed. I let him know. I gave him ten dollars for the
7 dollar cab fare.
Now, by the time I walked into the Museum of Natural History (the curb was
littered with school children ;) ), I was Tired of Spending Money. I didn't
want to pay ten dollars to go in. But I am going to take my kids back there
sometime this summer, and that's a definite plan. I was impressed with what
I saw.
I just strolled about Central Park a bit...saw the Shakespeare Garden (not
much this time of year), walked into some neato castle, then decided to head
home. I ate a hot dog then WALKED, yes, Walked, all the way back to Penn
Station from the Museum of Natural history carrying my backpack. I was
serious when I said I didn't want to spend any more money.
I deserve to be carried everywhere else for the rest of my life.
Love the city, though ;)
You guys better show up next time we meet. We talked about Tim and Scottie
behind their backs. I said that Scottie is like me -- annoyed at the entire
human race for some very specific reasons. Reasons involving lower case
letters in the wrong places. I won't say what we said about Tim ;) (but it
was nice.)
On the train I read Raise High :).
Jim
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