bad behavior

Pineapple Street
Originally uploaded by madabandon.I was sitting in my car around 5 pm, waiting until I could leave it safely without getting a ticket. A silver Subaru pulled into the space in front of me. Normally this young guy parks in motorcycle at the first space on this block (where the Subaru was) and he was in the process of moving the bike when the Subaru pulled in. It seems that the Subaru driver, lawyerly-looking thirty-something guy, was bothered by the fact that the young cute guy was putting the bike in front of his car, and he unleashed a string of profanity-laced invective at the young guy. And guess what? The young guy is black. I was shocked by the anger of the thirty-something guy; there was nothing wrong with the guy parking his bike there. I got out of my car--I had been sitting with the window open talking to a neighbor--to observe, and to be present to try and cool things in case a fight started. But the young guy said "I am not going to stoop to your level and yell at you like you did to me. But I am taking down your license plate in case you try to knock over my bike." I know the bike guy in passing; he loves Mabel and we say hi to each other on the street. He is really cute and a nice guy; he works as the super in a small coop building down the street from mine. If he had been white, the Subaru guy would not have at him that way.

Sometimes this neighborhood, filled more and more with wealthy snotty lawyers and bankers, disgusts me. It did not used to, in the early years that I lived here. I want NYC to go back in time, when there was more crime, when white lawyers fled with their pregnant wives to the suburbs, and people didn't expect NYC, even Brooklyn Heights, to be like lily-white Scarsdale. I hope the bike falls over and smashes the Subaru.