Sunday, May 29, 2005

Dodging .45 Caps in NYC, Part Deux

Unlike Lucas' much awaited Star Wars III, hopefully this second and final installment of "New York Minute" won't be sorely disappointing and riddled with corny dialogues.

When we last met our unassuming hero, he was caught in a crossfire of .45 caps at the basement of NYC's hell-hole - the Port Authority Bus Station...

a short recap to bring you back to the scene:

4 am: A massive caucasian male, standing roughly at around 6ft with dirty salt and pepper dreadlocks and a overworn moss green trenchcoat walks into the cafe. No one except for a few people take notice of him or the 9mm pistol he's holding in his right hand. Almost in a whisper he says "I'm so fucking pissed off, I'm going to shoot every one of you mother fuckers overhere". No one really responds. Needless to say, I was shit scared - I didn't really want to die in a cafeteria in a shady NYC bus station, there had to be a better way. With most eyes on him now, this maniac marches upto an old chinese (he could be Korean or Japanese or Thai, I couldn't really tell) guy who was eating a hotdog, picked him by the collar and askedhim "how much money you got huh, how much money you got?"

...END RECAP

The poor Asian gentleman was too scared to react and kept staring at Mr. Dreadlocks. Dreadlocks says, "so you dont have any money huh? I'll show you what money is." and saying so he opens the tote bag he was carrying and starts taking out wads of ten dollar bills (well they looked like $10 bills anyway) and starts placing them on the table. "See, this is what you call money, asshole" He then pushes the Asian gentleman back into his seat, slumps into the closest chair and starts crying. In between sobs he bawls out "What the fuck am I doing here? I'm supposed to in fucking Florida, what the fuck am I doing in NYC surrounded by you assholes!" In the mean time the transit guards have come back and try to appease this dude. For some reason, as if on cue, some dude's 2-in-1 starts playing that oldie Rick Springfield song "Jessie's Girl".

The cops start sweet talking Dreadlocks (interestingly the radio starts playing "Wake me up before you go go"!). The cops tell him "Sir, just take it easy, throw the gun away, stay calm, we'll put u on a bus to florida pronto, just don't do anything rash and all..." Dreadlocks, fortunately decides to acquisce and slides his gun across the table, and the moment he does that, these two cops come in and beat the crap out of the dude with their night sticks...all to the tune of "wake me up before u go go"! It was a pretty insane scene. then they (the cops) take the gun and the money, put it back into the tote bag and took Dreadlocks away...that's the last I got to see these guys.

Then after a while, after all th excitement and adrenalin has subsided, I order some breakfast and try to get back to my book, when this fairly old gentleman, in a gaudy yellowing jacket and and brown sunglasses came and sat opposite me at my table and started dinking my coffee. I noticed that the entire left side of this guys face was burnt and scarred. Before I could react, the man spoke first.

"So you think New York is a dangerous place, huh?" Slightly taken aback, I manage a shrug. "Obviously, you've never been to New Jersey" he continued. "You see these scars on my face? I didn't have these last weekend. I had just come out from a bar last friday night after enjoying a good evening of drinking and I was walking back home when these two muggers cam from behind, stabbed me in the back and threw acid on my face before making off with my wallet." (insert appropriate face of shock) "but these muggers, these muggers I can deal with, the real bastards are the ones who work in government hospitals. When I woke up, i was in this hospital and a couple of days later when they were ready to discharge me, i got my clothes and all back, and guess what, they'd cleaned out my little waist pouch which had all my credit cards and some cash...gone...all empty. but the worst part was, wait, check this..." (he opens the bag he was carrying and takes out a tweed jacket and holds it up and it's been cut quite neatly in two) "...they cut my brand new tweed jacket in half! So i go to the doctor and ask him, why the fuck did he cut my jacket in half? and he says that when i came in i was bleeding profusely and that they had to get the jacket off so he cut it. and i tell him, well if u can't fucking take three buttons off, you shouldn't call yourself a fucking doctor in the first place!" and saying so he picks up what was left of my coffee and bids me good morning and goes off...

I won't describe my reaction. I just quickly finished breakfast and spent the next hour till my bus cam in, in the toilet, trying to get some sleep and generally being safe. Well needless to say I came back to college "shaken but not stirred" and in my unshaven and unclean condition went directly to work (I was still an hour late, but my employeer decided not to dock my pay after she heard my story...)

I know there weren't any lightsabers or starfighters but I'm still working on creating my own brand of merchandise and licensed characters that i can market...

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Cleaning the Room

By the end of the year, our room had become the largest landfill in a twenty mile radius. T-shirts, jackets, jeans, soiled panties (yes, we had frequent guests in our room), shoes, socks, fluff, large packets of cereal stolen from the dining hall kitchens, several empty bottles of Jack Daniels, junk mail, midterm papers, we had everything in our closet. Only regular sprays of room freshener had kept the room livable. Then on the eve of our departure as James and I began cleaning the room, we found Jeremiah.

After clearing of the top layer of junk and clothing with nostalgia, we found a bearded face amidst our clothing. In the bad light I thought it was probably a left over mask from Halloween, but as we dug deeper we found a couple of hands, a torso and even two legs and lo, there was Jeremiah!

James was the first to recover from the shock as he tried, much to Jeremiah’s dismay, to pull Jeremiah out of the closet. He looked like a chipped version of John Cleese on crack with a crazy thick beard and unkempt hair and a tattered jacket that smelt like sewage pipes. The worst part was we had never met this person before.

“Who the fuck are you? What the fuck are you doing in our closet?” James asked.

Still shielding his eyes from the light of our bedroom, the man managed to murmur “Jeremiah”. That’s how we got to know his name.

Jeremiah had been living in our closet for the past three months without our knowledge, underneath our heap of clothes and junk. He had been feeding off all the food that’s usually strewn about the room after a good raid at the dining hall kitchens…I don’t have anything to say, nothing, I’m still recovering. Gives a whole new meaning to ‘what lies beneath’ doesn’t it?