Tales of Bob Dean #7
It was 2:00 A.M. on a Saturday, and Bob Dean and I had just stumbled out of the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street, after a long evening of gin swigging and recitations of the works of Dylan Thomas, when we happened upon a strange scene!
An elderly woman sat on the curb in front of Mama Buddha’s Chinese Restaurant and Dim Sum House, gnawing upon what appeared to be the entire roasted leg of a pig! She sat in the cigarette butts and the mounds of horseshit from the mounted police, amid the flyers from the fitness clubs and the discarded prophylactics, tearing at the pork with her dentures.
Before he could stop himself, Bob Dean was sprinting across the street with a lust in his eyes the likes of which I had never seen before. He meant to get that woman’s pork, and no force of man or nature would restrain him. Luckily he was able to make it across the road without getting flattened by a passing taxi, although this whole sorry business might have been avoided if he had.
I had known Bob Dean to get himself in trouble over coveted pork before, so I was after him like a shot, but it was too late. Bob Dean gripped at the thigh joint of the leg, and the old woman clutched fast to the ankle bone, and their feral fury would have withered a lesser woman than myself, but even then I knew I was a Big Boss deep within, and against my better judgment, I threw myself into the fray.
I jabbed my fingers into Bob Dean’s eyes, but he bit off my left thumb at the knuckle. I slugged the old lady in the throat with all my strength, but with bullish force she swung out a mighty kick which landed at my tailbone. I sprawled to the floor, splashing through the puddles of vomit and urine, and dashed my head against a mailbox. Bob Dean and the fightingest geezer I’d ever encountered were at it with a refreshed intensity.
The old woman lifted her arms in battle and I saw my chance. I gripped her about the waist, hauled her over my shoulder and slammed her, head-first, into the mailbox. My grip knocked the wind out of her ancient lungs, and she let go of the pork leg. Bob Dean did a celebratory dance, waving his prize around over his head like a helicopter before attacking it with vigor anew.
Minutes later, we had fled the scene and were safely back on the east side where I was to catch my train back to the Bronx. I turned to Bob Dean and asked him, “Bob Dean, I don’t know what got into you back there. That lady was minding her own business, eating her pork. Why’d you have to go crazy like that? Was it the gin? The Dylan Thomas? What made you attack that poor old lady like that? Why are
you so obsessed with taking what isn’t yours?”
“Rev. BIOU, I was overcome by a sense of entitlement. I wanted the glory of the pig to be mine, so I had to take my chance. But true to my pure sense of privilege, I left that lady behind in a mailbox on Hudson Street,” he said to me. “Whereas it is YOU who are still carrying her."