moves

I found myself in a cab up in Harlem on Sunday night. I wasn't anticipating anything that happened on Sunday, so being in a cab on 141st Street fit right into everything else I was just rolling with.

So there we sat: my friend, our cabbie who spoke Russian mostly, and me. We were waiting to turn right when the man for whom we waited to cross the street had a problem with the fact that we had pulled perhaps a few inches too far forward. Let's describe man.

He was something of a little fellow, perhaps homeless, perhaps just not up on his luck. He was balding slightly, with dirt smeared on his skin in some places and his blue work pants and t-shirt were soiled and torn. He had a bit of a hunch going and never walked fully forward, rather he sort of hunched and listed from side to side, turning enough that it eventually equaled forward progress. He was clearly agitated before he got to front bumper of the cab, which had offended the stripes crosswalk.

By the time he reached the cab, he had had enough of the world and was just through with all of it. He began running around the side of the car and then back to the front, waving his arms. He would take a few steps, stop, wave his arms, take a few more steps and repeat the process. He leaned in to yell at the driver through the windshield, but was careful not to touch the car, jumping around instead as if he would be electrocuted should his skin touch the hood. Back and forth, side to side he ran and jumped and waved and it ran out of funny pretty quickly, until we were ready to nudge him out of the way with the car. I mean, I was ready to nudge him with the car. I don't know if anyone else would want to be on record as saying they were ready to run some lunatic over for a right turn, but I'm pretty sure they were.

This went on for way, way too long and I finally yelled out

"Jesus dude....make a move already".

I was getting irritated until I stopped and realized that the other people in the car had fallen out laughing. Yeah, I just challenged a pocket man of questionable sanity to a fight from inside a car. This of course, sparked an entire spin-off into what would have happened if the dude squared up, whether or not any of us would have wanted to touch him to fight him, whether or not it would take an actual punch or just the threat of a punch for him to fall down (assuming he was drunk) and how long that would keep us from our own drinks and a timely arrival at the bar.

I still think nudging with the car would have been the way to go. Avoid contact, make a strong point without actually injuring him, never have to leave the vehicle. Spic and span.

If he had wanted to fight though, I could have taken him.