The entrance to the Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn's Park Slope.
While I was about to enter the Flatbush Avenue Popeye's to snag a hard-earned lunch — I had suffered with the usual post-dialysis nausea/puking last night and was unable to really eat anything until a minor bite near midnight, plus I skipped today's breakfast, so I was famished — I saw a 20-something black couple approaching. I noted the girl's outstanding black thigh boots and politely said to her "I like your boots!" at which she smiled and said "Thank you!"
Those
of you who know me in the world outside of this blog know how I behave
with women, specifically that I am always polite and gentlemanly.
(Unless it's with my close female friends, who can be a raunchy lot, so
then all bets are off.) That is how I comported myself with the
aforementioned young lady, and she was cool with it. Her boyfriend,
however, took umbrage at me having the temerity to address his
girlfriend. Decked-out a Jim Lee X-Men shirt and a backwards Mets hat,
he stopped, puffed himself up in a (failed) attempt at intimidation, and
put on his most (sad) attempt at a threatening tone as he said "That's MY girl, bro."
If
such a response had been warranted, I would have let it go, but instead
I channeled all of my zen calm and serene aura and let his attempted
intimidation roll off of me like water from a swan. I was decked out in
black from head to toe, sporting a huge Shaw Brothers emblem surmounted
with a black gi, and equipped with a collapsible hiking pole that serves
as my urban equivalent to a staff. The guy, upon stopping to really
look at the man he had just tried to put the frighteners into, noted my
gi, but I'm pretty sure he was too young or too culturally uninformed to
get the significance of the Shaw Brothers crest. (When it comes to the
Shaw Brothers, you love it, live it or both. You do not represent in
those colors unless you feel it.)
Yer Bunche, on the loose on the streets of Park Slope.
With
a Yoda-like sweetness-but-firmness, I responded to him with "I was not
hitting on her. I was stating that I like her boots. I meant no offense.
I'm old enough to be her dad. And are you really threatened by someone
complimenting her fashion sense?" I awaited his response, but all that
came was a look of surprise and confusion. At that, he turned and
resumed walking away, but his girlfriend got the last word. She scowled
at him and said "Why you gotta be such a hostile asshole? To which I
asked myself internally, to her, "Why YOU gotta be with such a hostile
asshole?"
Following that exchange I simply enjoyed my lunch.😊
