My favorite homeless fight

The New York City subway is like a human zoo. Usually not quite as interesting as a freak show, but generally worth the time we spend staring at each other. Every now and then, you get a good show.

A while back, I was on the 6 train going downtown when a fight broke out between the homeless man sitting across from me, and Jesus. I don’t know what Jesus had done to provoke the argument, but clearly the homeless dude did not want to get into it with him. He kept saying “Don’t do this Jesus, I don’t want to fight you. Leave it alone, Jesus!” Jesus was not leaving it alone, though, and finally the guy stood up and shouted “OK, fine, Jesus! You wanna fuck with me? Let’s go! Let’s GO!” What happened next was almost dancing, and almost fighting, and luckily he had enough room to do what he needed to do.

I loved this not because of how crazy it was, but because of how sane the guy was trying to be about it. It was pretty clear that Jesus was stirring the shit, and the homeless guy kept trying to diffuse the situation. I think Tyler Perry would agree that sometimes Jesus won’t let you take the peaceful path — you have to fight. Or dance. Whatever that was.