Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The hero takes a stand

About a week or so ago, I was leaving work and it was very late, around midnight. As I made my way to the parking garage, I could hear someone yelling very loudly. As I got closer, I realized it was a man (a large man) yelling at a homeless guy. The man was berating him at the top of his lungs and the considerably-smaller and relatively-frail homeless guy was literally cowering. Meanwhile, the big guy's wife or girlfriend is trying to restrain him, stepping in front of him and pleading, "can we just go please?" Apparently the big dude had given the homeless guy a dollar and he had either asked for more or not shown what the big guy expected in the form of gratitude, based on me hearing him say "you should take the dollar I gave you and say thank you, you worthless piece of shit!" Granted, I can certainly see where somebody might take umbrage to someone ignoring the commonly accepted theorem that 'Beggars can't be choosers' but I'm not sure it should make someone that angry. Maybe the homeless guy was truly in a desperate situation and really needed another dollar. Then again, maybe he spit on the big guy's wife's shoes. I don't know, I didn't see the whole thing. But I have a feeling that it was a case of the big guy going off on an out-of-proportion tirade to satisfy his ego or release frustration over other stuff in his life or to impress his lady (and if that was the idea, it was obviously a failure). At any rate, the poor homeless guy was clearly terrified, in genuine fear for his safety. As I mentioned Monday, I tend to avoid these unpleasant situations, but I'm actually not a complete coward.
When I got off the elevator on the rooftop level where I was parked, I could hear the big guy still yelling. Enough was enough already. I went over to the edge to yell at him and the fun began...
"Hey, shut up and leave that guy alone."
"What did you say?!?"
"You heard me, jagoff. I said shut up. Nobody wants to hear it."
"Mind your own business, asshole!"
Suddenly, I was amused. Like the way a monkey up in a tree messing with a lion on the ground is amused.
"Come up here and make me!"
"Come down here and I'll kick your ass!!"
"I will pee on your head, you big dummy."
"I'm coming up there!!"
"I already told you to shut up, you idiot. You suck and you're ugly."
We went back and forth on that level a few times, me giggling like a 10-year-old, before he broke away from the woman who had successfully restrained him up to that point and ran to the elevator. That's when I started to laugh really hard.

Because I don't know if he was so stupid that he didn't know how elevators work or if he was so mad that he simply forgot, but you can be as angry as you want and run as fast as you can to to an elevator but you are going to end up standing there while the elevator sl-o-o-o-wly gets to your floor, where the doors sl-o-o-o-wly open, you jump inside and furiously mash the button while waiting for the doors to sl-o-o-o-wly close and then wait for it to sl-o-o-o-wly get to the desired floor while being serenaded by a cheesy instrumental version of "The Girl From Ipanema". It doesn't matter how angry you are, you can't rage-run an elevator.

Still, he would make his way up eventually and would almost certainly be in a very foul mood when he arrived. So I went to my vehicle, got inside and waited. I didn't want him to see me take off and I figured with it being dark, unless he went car-to-car and peered inside each one, he wouldn't see me and would just get back in the elevator and go downstairs, which would free me up to resume chirping at him. Plus, I was having a lot of fun. I felt like a 10-year-old, in a good way!
The elevator doors opened and he came storming out which made me squeal like a little girl ("Eeeeeee! Here he comes!"). Of course, he didn't see anyone and instead of getting back in the elevator and going downstairs, he started going car to car and peering inside! Oh shit! I was still laughing but now I knew I'd have to make a break for it. I had to be strategic though. I didn't want him to be close enough where he might think he could catch me on foot. What if he tripped and cracked his skull and seriously hurt himself or some other stupid, tragic outcome that could get me in actual trouble?
Eventually, he was about equal distance from me and the down ramp so I made my move, windows down, screaming with hysterical laughter as I drove off.
I thought I had gotten away cleanly until I got to the ground floor, and waiting at the exit gate was the woman he had been with! Uh-oh! I pulled up and she said, "Did you see anybody up there, walking around and looking for someone?" I replied, "Yeah, he's up there chasing some crazy person around. You should go up there and get him before someone gets hurt." She muttered, "Oh ferchrissakes..." and stormed off to the elevator as I headed home.

Does this count as helping the homeless?

2 comments:

Jeff Hickmott said...

Clark, you're virtually a saint. One can only hope that the big yelling guy, once he calmed down (my guess is that he still hasn't), saw the funny side and then experienced an epiphany (or satori, if you're into Zen) whereby he saw the error of his ways and silently thanked you, the anonymous taunting man, before either vowing to be a nicer person from that moment on, or topping himself. Either way, result.

Anonymous said...

Brooksie! I'll get you a can of pepper spray for next time. Keep up the good work! ~nucksie