...wrong place... you're in the wrong place... that's what the corner said when hap and i walked through the bridge... i kept my head down... knew they were right... knew a stare could mean the emergency room, like billy in my face when i was 9, cracking my head open, raw, his knuckles harder than brass from fighting his burly drunk pops who came home steaming gasolina, jealous, and pissed, flipping the plate of of arroz con pollo that his wife took pains to make... then tossing utensils at her... before billy came in... and billy didn't stop there... took it out on the streets... even on sticky fingers who you didn't even need to look at to piss off... his cinnamon face crimsoned like cayenne, like the barrel of a .9mm from a blast...sticky fingers usually came from behind, the swing of his hand disguised by the length of his arms that flew off his arm socket like a whip, his fingers landing like hot knives on the back of your neck, followed by a wicked heckle and the wallet in your back front sock pocket missing...
...f*^k you looking at son?... i heard, as my eyes dragged over black gum, candy wrapper, foam plates of half eaten chinese food, empty cigar tobacco... i kept it pushing... but hap's head was cocked, looking... he was liquored up, kicked out of his house, ready to die, living with his pregnant chick, and her mom, who lived a block down in the laybyrinth of the north side... hap was from the west side of the bridge... and the two sides had beef...
...you think you hard?... you built like that...?... one of them said... i was walking by myself at this point... hap paused, his timberland's rooted... stood looking at them... under the street lamp, lights like broadway, a shakespearan duel, tybalt and mercutio - sir do you suck your thumb at me - haps india ebony chiseled with lines so dark, tears ran rivulets... his hands inconspicuously behind him, one reaching for the roaster he called excalibur... pulled on like a young arthur...
... i turned back... walked right in between them... placed my palms together... namaste pressed into my heart in salam... took my winter russian fur hat off, revealing thinning silky waves, eyes looking between the 20 something, in the met's fitted cap, his team inching towards us...
...we are worth more... i said... looking between hap and dude... as if they were the only ones there... closed my eyes in meditation... the way i learned from years of sitting in the last car of the r train 2 hours each way... to get to work at the afterschool program in bayridge...
...my meditation didn't rearrange the energy, but kept me from catching the whip of sticky fingers and the brass knuckles of billy on my face, as i heard the hand of dude clench, the sss sounds of his downcoat as his arm swung back, the oncoming swing hiss, like a northeasterly, in the opposite direction of winter...
...and the cry of pride as his fist came in inches from my face, cut through air, and his arm of pride wrap around him like a one armed hug that revealed his large back when i finally opened my eyes... and with all that this path of yogi has taught me, i swung into a vinyasa of kicks...
...man down...
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