My Run in With a Crazy Man
So…we pull into the quiet mountain town of Flagstaff, AZ on the 3rd night of the Droppin Science Tour. We finally run into the club after the promoter finally answers his phone. I can’t blame him though, our GPS wouldn’t work, so I figure it had something to do with the cutty nature of the locale itself. Boom. We get to the club, and I’m hungry so I ask promoter dude where we can get some food. He instructs us to check out this Thai spot. Cool.
Holiday (our background singer) and I dip around the corner to check out some vittles. As soon as we step in the door, we’re met with the strange stare of a white dude looking mildly homeless. Whatever. We grab menus and probe thru the menu. As I pass over the curry section, I still feel this dude’s eyes on us. I look up at him, and suddenly he says “I wanna apologize..”. Huh? At this point it’s starting to feel like the twilight zone. He says “I wanna shake your hand”. I look at his hand and see that it’s pretty grimy. I opt for the pound, responding “All good”, trying to play off the ackwardness as much as possible. But when he says “All good? How can it be all good?! It’s not all good!”, I realize that this dude is a real wack job.
I look at Holiday, who’s face is mirroring my own discomfort and try to get back to the menu. I decide that I’m going to focus on ordering and getting up outta this joint. I order Tom Kha Gai, Thai iced tea, and veggie rolls to crazy man’s snickers. Holiday walks to the bathroom, and I grab some local rag to distract myself from his incessant commentary. I really wasn’t trying to hear him, but couldn’t help but be disturbed by the lunatics commentary… “they’re good at sports”, “someone’s gonna get shot, you can stop it if you want to”. At this point, I was starting to reach my tolerance level for the bullshit.
As I thumbed thru the weekly, crazy man turned all the way around and stared at me brazenly with a surly grin. I felt as if he definitely wanted conflict. As I fought off the now boiling nature of my blood, I looked at him in his wild eyes and said, “Why are you staring at me?”. He didn’t answer. He just continued to gloat with his deranged expression. Okay. I’ve had enough. I swiftly moved to one of the nearby waiters and asked if he knew this guy because he was harassing me. Waiter dude was cool, and proceeded to usher the madman out of the spot. This is where it truly gets strange.
The next thing I know, the flashing lights of a cop car are blinking throughout the tiny restaurant. I look outside and see crazy man getting hemmed up by the popo. Huh?? It seems that as soon as he went outside he punched a car and ran into the middle of the street at precisely the moment that Mr. Officer was driving by. Wow…karma is a bitch. As the red and blue flashes thru the front of the Thai spot, a small crowd begins to hover around the growing spectacle. When the cop starts to search crazy man, things go haywire as crazy suddenly starts fighting back. He’s immediately slammed down to the pavement and yoked up. At that point, one of the patrons sitting at the bar runs out to assist crazy dude. Go figure?
Captain save ‘em comes back in and states “I had to help a brother out.”. I’m thinking “Thats your brother?? Weak.”. I grab my food and we start striking back to the venue. We walk by the fiasco as crazy man shouts epithets at the cops as he sits bound and cuffed.
I can’t help but think that the whole bizarre scene is because of me. Or more accurately, because of my response. Something was testing me, to see how I would respond to some fool who was obviously searching for conflict. Once his energy was deflected, he was left to his own self destructive tendencies, and I was no longer a part of his drama.
The morale of the story: Never give your energy to beings who don’t deserve it.
