My friend Larry broke his hip in a sidewalk fall a few months ago and was convalescing in his East Village apartment in New York City.
He had just graduated from a walker to a cane, and he decided he wanted to celebrate by venturing out for brunch in the neighborhood.
The venerable Ukrainian restaurant, Veselka, was just two blocks from his apartment and although it’s always packed on Saturdays we decided it was the closest place near him with decent food.
I lead the way into Veselka’s crowded entrance area and added our name to the waiting list for a table for two. We were told it would be about 15 minutes.
Larry shuffled over to an empty counter stool near the front of the restaurant to rest his hip as he lightly leaned on his cane and waited. I was standing next him as we surveyed the busy scene and exchanged greetings with the manager, Gary, who I’ve known for a few years.
After five minutes, a man walked in who was about our age, around 60, slightly heavyset with a scowl on his face and the fed up look of a local. He glanced around for a second, then walked up to Larry and said with a pinch of salt, “Hey, you just waiting around or you going to sit there?”
Larry responded that he was waiting for a table, to which Angry Local said, “Then how about getting up so I can eat something?”
Larry didn’t say anything back, but I did: “Hey, he’s hurt, can’t you see the cane?”
Angry Local: “Calm the fuck down, buddy, alright? No, I didn’t see the cane.”
That made me angrier: “He just broke his hip a few days ago, and he’s using the counter seat to rest his leg, is that a problem?”
Angry Local: “Fucking relax, okay, I didn’t see it.” Turning to Larry, “Sit back down if you want.”
But Larry was already off the stool and limping over to an empty chair near the entrance placed there for elderly people to sit and wait.
I exchanged lethal looks with Angry Local and we both muttered profanities at each other as he took the counter stool and I headed toward my friend.
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I exchanged lethal looks with Angry Local and we both muttered profanities at each other as he took the counter stool and I headed toward my friend.
I was furious now, sending dagger sharp stares at Angry Local while Larry tried to calm me down, saying he didn’t care and no big deal. Then I started getting pissed at my friend for giving up the counter stool, saying that the guy had made a fool out of us, he was an asshole and fuck him.
Larry kept talking in quieter tones, but I was too worked up by that point, swearing out loud and plotting my revenge. I told Larry I needed to step outside to cool down and I proceeded to pace the sidewalk in front of Veselka’s big front window, occasionally peering in at Angry Local with as much “Go Fuck Yourself” in my eyes as I could muster. He was peering back at me with the same intent.
I took the measure of the man through the window, thought he was probably a bit weaker and slower than I was, and considered going back in and getting in his face again, but rejected that as stupid and possibly dangerous. Then I remembered my manager friend Gary, and wondered if I could convince him or someone on his waitstaff to “taint” Angry Local’s food. Spitting in it was what I had in mind. But I realized that that was immature and taking it a step too far.
I was now so agitated and angry, I became aware that the incident was going to ruin my lunch with Larry, and probably the rest of my day if I didn’t get a hold of myself and turn the heat down on my emotions. I didn’t want to be mired in a shitty day.
That’s when I recalled a wise friend, whose pulse always seemed to run at the pace of a tortoise, counseling that it was best to ask for help when we felt at our craziest. He never specified who to direct the appeal to, but just do it. Just ask for help.
So that’s what I did. I leaned against Veselka’s front window glass, took a few deep breaths and said something like this inside my head, “I can’t spend my day like this, it will ruin my lunch with Larry and make me miserable for the rest of the afternoon. Help me.”
Instantly I heard back, “Buy him lunch.”
I quickly opened my eyes. I thought about this. Then my inner dialogue went into overdrive: “What?! Fuck that, buy him lunch? Are you kidding, he’s a fucking asshole and there’s no way.”
Again, quietly inside my head: “Buy him lunch.”
I started to argue again, refusing this ridiculous idea, enumerating the many reasons why it made no sense.
I’m not sure who I was arguing with. Myself? A wiser side of myself? Some unnamed inner teacher? I’ll never know, but after a few seconds my resistance began to simmer and, while I hated the idea of buying Angry Local’s lunch, I was also starting to admire the disorienting power of it.
A few more slow breaths and, then, with resolve, I went back inside. I was feeling calmer and I resisted looking over at Angry Local so I wouldn’t heat up again.
I apologized perfunctorily to Larry, then two minutes later we were ushered to our table about 15 feet from where Angry Local was sitting at the counter, his back to me and mine to him.
As soon as we ordered, I called manager Gary over to the table, pointed out Angry Local at the counter, and told him I wanted to buy the guy lunch.
“Oh, that’s very nice,” Gary said. “You know that guy? He comes in quite a bit.”
I said, no, but that we had talked and I wanted to buy his lunch, so please bring me his bill when he finished and I’d take care of it and please don’t tell him it was me.
Larry overhead the exchange and after the manager walked away said, “Wait, what, you’re buying him lunch? Why would you buy that guy lunch, that’s absurd.”
“I know it is,” I told him, but I explained that I had gotten really worked up and that I needed to make peace with myself and him so I wouldn’t be angry all day, and that was the way I was going to do it.
Larry didn’t get it, and said I was crazy, but dropped it fairly quickly and although I was aware of a lingering buzz in my body from all the adrenaline that had coursed through it minutes before, I was noticeably calmer.
Twenty minutes went by and Gary came over with Angry Local’s bill for $14 and change. I gave him a $20 bill and told him to keep the difference for the waiter, and he said again that it was very nice of me to buy the man’s lunch.
Five minutes later, Larry looked over my shoulder and said, “He’s coming over here.”
I felt myself brace a bit, the hair on my neck rising, and around a row of tables to my right came Angry Local, moving slowly, looking our way, perplexed and slightly sheepish. He walked directly to me and put out his hand to shake.
“That was a classy move,” he said, in a not angry way at all as I stood up. “You didn’t have to do that, but that was a really classy gesture.”
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“That was a classy move,” he said, in a not angry way at all as I stood up. “You didn’t have to do that, but that was a really classy gesture.”
I shook his hand and told him that I had pushed too hard and that I was sorry and wanted to make it up to him. Angry Local said that it was maybe him who went overboard and thanks and, again, that I was classy.
“That was a real New York moment, wow, I’ll never forget it,” he said.
He proceeded to talk for another minute, said he was a writer, lived in the neighborhood, mentioned that 10 years ago we probably would have stepped outside to take care of business, like guys do. I laughed.
Larry, a cartoonist, started talking about Dondi, maybe because Angry Local said he was friends with Irwin Hasen, the creator of the comic strip, and I just listened feeling strange while thinking that this guy who I wanted to smash in the teeth a half hour before was probably a decent guy, a writer, too, and friendly enough.
Then he started to turn and leave and I sat back down and Less Angry Local said once more as he pointed his finger at me, “You’re a classy guy, that was really something.”
And with that, the battlefield was abandoned and the fight was over.
I never caught the guy’s name.
Photo courtesy of author