TWO TALES OF URBAN MOXIE

I. Old Lady on a Walker

       A decrepit, bent-over old lady in a green dress and a pillbox hat was trying to make it across 7^th Avenue at 23^rd street.  Of course she moved very slowly and the light changed before she could get all the way across, and so she was stuck about half-way out in the street as cars whizzed around her.  Still, eyes set straight ahead, she struggled determinedly on, step by step toward the curb.

         A bread truck roared around the corner and headed straight for her.  It looked like he was going to plow her down, but instead he slammed on his brakes, stopping mere feet from her and laying on his horn.

            The old lady started, then stopped dead in her tracks, straightened herself up, and turned to face the trucker.  “Fuck you!” she said, and gave him the finger.

II. Old Man and a Motorcycle

            A bit farther down 7^th Avenue, at the corner of 21^st Street, a biker came roaring down the Avenue on his chopper—you could hear him coming for blocks—and sat idling at the light.  He was hugely fat, hairy, tattooed, with a tiny helmet atop his head.  The thunderous rumbling of his engine shattered the relative calm of the morning.

            An older man, somewhat disheveled in t-shirt and jeans, was walking along, and when he heard the chopper he stuck his fingers in his ears.  A look of intense irritation on his face, he strode right over to the curb and yelled, “Hey asshole, you think you got it loud enough?”

            The biker turned and looked at the older man.  He couldn’t hear over the din of his bike.  “Excuse me?” he yelled back.

            “You think you’ve got it loud enough, asshole?” the old man repeated.

            The biker shook his head in disbelief and, as the light changed, put the chopper in gear and roared off. (Ed Hamilton)