Stalking for Peace
Monday was another horrible work day, so long and annoying that I vowed once I left the 7 train I would purchase a tallboy from the local bodega and drink it as I forded Newtown Creek. Of course, as soon as the larcenous side of my brain hatched this plan, the law-abiding side panicked. See, I firmly believe that one is a law breaker or one is not. If you think you can get away with things, or you truly don't give a shit one way or another, you live your life accordingly. If not, you live in constant fear of getting caught up in the criminal justice system, even if your only offense is jaywalking. I belong to the latter category. Many laws that others flout with reckless abandon, I adhere to strenuously, more out of fear of Murphy's Law than anything else.
Foolishly, I heeded my Fuck The Pigs impulse. I did not get caught. I did, however, remember that I don't like beer in cans. And that I don't like Budweiser, period. And that walking and drinking beer at the same time is the expressway to heartburn. Plus, the bodega I went to must have been operating on half power this hot, humid day, because my beer was barely cold. I wound up taking only a few illicit sips on the Pulaski Bridge. All in all, it was a waste of my stomach and a hard-earned buck-fifty.
I got back to the neighborhood a little past midnight. Tired as I was, I needed to move my car immediately to avoid further brushes with the law. I walked down the last block of Green Street, a weird little block with abandoned shopping carts and wild weeds shooting from the ground, and I saw a potentially legal spot blocked up with a bunch of wooden garbage; old pallets and such from a nearby warehouse. So I cleared the refuse, throwing it on the curb and kicking it with my tired feet. But by the time I retrieved my car, I pulled up to the spot just in time to see an asswipe Honda Accord with Florida plates take the space I made. At the end of this very long day, pissed is not the word I'd use to describe how I felt. I managed to park not too far away, but this was an issue of principle.
So I did what all Americans seeking justice have done throughout the years: I stalked. Thoughtless Accord Man strutted--I swear he strutted, the motherfucker--from his car and down Green Street. He had a horrible hipster white boy fro, and his step was light and springy. He put his left hand in his jeans pocket, his over-washed novelty tee almost see-through white. I hated this man instantly, even more so when he strutted his Keep On Truckin' walk down my street. The thought that he could possibly live on my block, or even know someone on it, filled me with a deep and fiery rage.
But I'm better now, at peace with the world and its beings. So much so that I was able to create this beauteous Photoshop pun: Shea Guevara
.