Forget About Horses, We Ride Elephants In These Here Yankee Parts

In the past few days, I've met the three most exentrique characters I've yet to encounter in New York City: a gay Asian cowboy, an "invisible elephant" researcher, and a obese hobo lady who thought I was going to kill her with an ax. I think the subtitle of this post would thus be "A Few Musings on Crazy People." Let me explain:

-1-

I made the decision a few weeks ago to purchase cowboy boots with my birthday money, probably something to do with my affinity for alt-country or whatever. I Googled, did some research, found a place with a wicked cool name - Whiskeydust - only to call and find out it had closed for business the day before. However, the nice lady on the phone recommened a place called Stylish Shoe near Washington Sqaure Park, so with my Sunday off I made it a mission to complete some serious boot shopping. The store, though you could never know by its title, was boot heaven, straight out of Back to the Future 3, and when I found myself overwhelmed with too many options, I asked for help, thinking some retired good ol' boy from a ranch would come out from behind those old timey swinging bar doors and ask, "Whataya need, partner?"

Instead, I was met with a gay Asian man listening to Rage Against The Machine. Working in a Country & Western attire store. Something was not right.

Sure, maybe you can go all Brokeback and conenct gays and cowboys, but Asians don't exactly work into that equation quite as much. And cowboys they definitely don't listen to anarchist mainstream metal. Nonetheless, the "cowboy" asked for my shoe size, price range, and color preference, gave me a quick look up and down, and returned with a box and a promise - "These will be the boots you're going to fall in love with." He pulled out, of course, the perfect boot, and after he taught me how to get them in my jeans, he went off to let me "be with the shoe." He changed the Rage Against the Machine to some satellite radio world pop station, and by that time I really had no idea what the fuck was going on with this man anymore. But as I walked around the store, it was obvious that this crazy, strange, telepathic wizard of a cowboy was doing what he needed to be doing in life, and I was in love with the boots on my feet. I tried on a few pairs just for the hell of it, but my heart was already taken, and as I gave the man my money, I knew I was where I needed to be in life myself - in the most diverse, wonderous place around where every notion of expectations can be shattered with a bit of talent and determination. It should be noted, however, that the cowboy's wall of autographed pictures of 1980s hip-hop stars really solified such an idea in my head.

-2-

On my way to get the aforementioned cowboy boots, I walked by a table full of elephant paintings. Elephants are my favorite animal, and oddly enough, I had already bought another piece of elephant artwork, of sorts, a few days earlier, so I stopped to look around. The following conversation recounts the 15 minutes I spent with the elephant artist, an unnamed man who clearly enjoys smoking meth:

Meth Man: "Sunday special, white boy! Half off! I make this shit, I price it, half-off, anything you want. $10!"

Me: "Ok, thanks."

Meth Man: "You like elephants?"

Me: "Yeah, they're my favorite animal, actually."

Meth Man: "What you know about elephants, white boy?!"

Me" Um, well, lots of things I guess. What do you know?"

Meth Man: "I know about the invisible elephant."

Me: "Oh. That's nice."

Meth Man: "You don't believe me, white boy. But you know what, I'm gonna prove it to you. You got a piece of paper?"

Me: "Um, yeah, actually." (Reaches into bag and pulls out a scrap sheet of paper.)

Meth Man: "Here's a pen, boy. You better right this down. I'm going to tell you the name of the invisible elephant. And then you gonna go home, Google this shit, and then you gonna believe me. Ok? Ready? Ok. Here you go. Loxodanta. That's L-O-X-O-D-O-N-T-A. Loxodonta. Three words. Africana. Now I know you can spell that, white boy. And the last one. Cyclopsis. C-Y-C-L-O-T-S-I-S. Cyclopsis."

Me: "Um, do you mean Cyclotsis?"

Meth Man: "No! Cyclopsis. C-Y-C-L-O-T-S-I-S. Loxodonta Africana Cyclopsis."

Me: "Ok, I'll have to check that out. So, have you, um, seen the invisible elephant?"

Meth Man: "Hell no! That shit materializes and then dissapears right before your eyes. How could I see that? But I researched 'em. In Kenya."

Me: "Well then, that's pretty neat."

Meth Man: "Half-off, white boy! $10. I charge what I want."

Me: "Well, just let me look for a bit."

Meth Man: "Ok, but don't you tell me that you ain't got no money. All you white people say you ain't got no money. Now I know better. We the ones that don't have money. So when all you white people don't have money, I know the world's going to shit. So if you don't want something, just let me know. I made these. I know they are pretty. I know they're masterpieces. This one, see, special edition. Everybody wanna know how I do it. But I ain't going to tell ya, even if you buy it, but I'm just saying, I know it's good. They damn good. So don't tell me you ain't got no money. I know better. You ain't going to hurt my feelings, cause I know these masterpieces. So you just buy or don't, don't give me no bull crap."

So I didn't give him any crap, and now I have this artwork hanging in the bathroom:


And as you can tell from the provided link, the Loxodonta Africana Cyclopsis is just the scientific name for your common fucking African elephant. So hey, the guy at least knows his elephants, but I still feel a bit cheated.

-3-

After said boot shopping, I headed to the subway. Earlier in the day I had stopped by a costume store and bought an ax for our Halloween interpretation of the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf - I was going to be the pig who built his house out of sticks, so naturally, I was dressing up like a lumberjack. So here I was in the subway, all shopped out with comic books and boots and an ax and all this good stuff, tired of carrying all this crap, so I just sat down on the bench in the subway station and started cramming it all in one bag. And then this woman behind me screams and starts yelling, "Boy, what you doing with that ax?" I turn around to find a large woman sprawled out on the bench behind me, a box of chicken fingers on her stomach, pointing at me as she licks honey mustard off her other hand. And so I laugh kind of apologetically and say, "Oh, it's just for Halloween, plastic, you know, not real at all. No need to worry."

That was not the right thing to say, apparently.

The chicken finger lady starts yelling at me, "Boy don't you laugh at me! I don't know what you is going to do with that ax. I don't care if it's plastic. How am I supposed to know? Don't you be laughing at me. You shouldn't be saying all this shit. You should be saying - because what you should not be saying is, 'Oh, sorry, it's Halloween, candy all this crap.' Cause what you should be saying is, cause you better not laugh at me, you should say, 'Oh, sorry ma'am, are you ok? Can I do anything for you? Cause I'm sure you have no money to buy yourself some cigarettes or a cup of coffee or food. Can I buy you a cup of coffee, cause I am so sorry I laughed at you.' Cause boy, I ain't got no money to eat. You better get me something now, boy. Get me something to eat."

And she continued this speech, even as I wandered onto the A train and she sat there munching on the giant box of chicken fingers that she kept on top of her engorged belly, calling me boy and asking me to buy her more fucking food.

-FIN-