THE BEAT DOWN

21 June
Tuesday
12:10
I looked at the time on my phone again as my piss 'o meter gradually edged towards highly pissed. I mean, I wasn't supposed to stay more than five minutes at the bus terminals but the dude I was waitin’ on, had had my ass there for a lil over ten minutes ...and countin’.

Jus’ as I was thinkin’ of ringin’ his ass up again, he called, beggin’ me to be patient and that he’d come through in the next twenty minutes. I know some time I get ticked off quite easily, so I took a deep cleasin’ breath (oh hell, how cleansin’ can the air at a bus station wit close a thousand souls millin’ around be). I try to pass the time by listenin’ to the lil’ recordings of songs I’d be composin’ (my songs... all unfinished). It’s one of my lil’ distractions, kinda connects me wit’ myself... anyways, if there’s any A&R man readin’ this, am the man you need to discover. Lol!

12:18
Face glued to my writin’ pad, head bobbin’ to the sound of my recordings. Call it narcissistic or whatever you want but there’s somethin’ vain-gloriously calmin’ about listenin’ to the sound of your own voice playin’ back to you... that is freakin’ cathartic! Come to think of it, a playback of your ass doin’ somethin’ you wouldn’t want to see the light of day might jus get your blood pressures up especially if your name is Prince Harry and you’re third in line to the British throne.

I was lost in the groove until some peddler came and stood across my table; I didn't even bother lookin’ at him or what he was tryin’ to sell. I already know how these hustlers operate. They invite themselves into your presence and try to tempt you like the serpent did Eve in the garden a while back. They stand in front of you long enough to get you to give more than a passing look at what they got. Well, I got my own tactic too, I jus' ignore ‘em til they get the message and move the hell on and that was exactly what I did.

About fifty seconds later, the hustler was still standin’ there like some sort of stature; the punk ass jus won’t go away like the proverbial coin. I looked up to see what the homeboy was sellin’ and right there in both his hands were a polythene bag full of lipsticks! For the time it took for my face to travel from the bags in hands to his face, my look switched from your pleasant average Joe smile to that no nonsense Danny Trejo look and the motherfucker promptly got the message. He got out of my sight like a house on fire. I mean, what the fuck, do I look like a lipstick wearin’ nigga? Nigga musta been slightly inebriated to wanna sell me shit like that.

12:23
As I watched the lipstick man go, I noticed somethin’ that got me thinkin’ about what upsets a man’s sanity scale. I've never been certifiably mad but I know there’s always an event that shifts a man’s balance and tips his ass into insanity, right? Y’all ever notice how mad people are always are on about a particular thing? So there I was lookin’ at an old mad man in a torn hat and an ill-fittin’ ragged suit who kept goin’ from folks to folks (I counted eight) askin’ them for what the time was.

That shit got me wonderin’ that may be the man’s obsession wit time’s got some’ to do wit why he went mad! For a few nanoseconds I thought what if the lipstick man was to go mad, would he be goin’ around obsessin’ after lipsticks? Yeah, me and my evil hyperactive mind, right?

12:26
As the old mad hatter moved away from the couple sittin’ on the bench with two other chicks (they had their backs to me), I saw somethin’ that got me sittin’ straight in my chair. The couple were fightin’ or to put it more succinctly, the man was head-buttin’ and slappin’ the woman. It felt unreal and that disturbin’ image wouldn’t let me sit. I stood up and move close to get a good look at the situation. As I got closer, my blood started boilin’, veins were poppin’ up on my arms (that happens when am mad, stressed or excited), I was ready to dumb-slap the motherfucker from the back but he was saved by a call that came through on his phone. He stood and moved away about twenty steps to answer the call. Nigga wasn’t aware of how close he came to a king size bitch slap.

I stood there waitin’ and watchin’ as he talked and laughed on the phone as if it was jus' another day in paradise. Meanwhile, the chick was sittin’ there cryin’. I could tell she was cryin’ from the way her head drooped and how she dabbed the eyes with her wrapper (a wrap-around cloth).

The motherfucker in the red shirt came back like nothin’ was wrong and started whisperin’ in the woman’s ear, I stood there a lil confused like how could this nigga go from the devil in the red dress to a sweet-nothin’-whisperin’ angel in a few minutes? I shrugged and told myself “good thing I wasn't too hasty at dishin’ out that king-size slap at all”.

I went back to my seat but hardly have I sat down than the fool started head-buttin’ the woman again. I grabbed my bag and made for the guy but before I got there, nigga grabbed the lady and began makin’ their way into the right wing of the terminal. As I turned to follow them, three other guys came up to me and said they too have been watchin’ what was goin’ on. As if we’ve rehearsed the move, we marched after the couple, unbeknownst to them…unbeknownst, did y’all catch that? Damn! Who’d have thought a nigga like me would use such an archaic word. Lol!

A step behind the wife batterin’ fool, I finally got the chance to unload a nasty slap on the motherfucker. No word or explanation was needed. As he turned to find out what he hit him, I welcomed his face wit another wrath of god-like smack, bam! Nigga staggered backward, tryna get his balance. The other three guys generously donated a couple more slaps to the wife batterer’s face. The fool tried to explain that chick was his wife but we weren’t tryin’ to hear none of it. Pussy ass nigga started cryin’ to the wife, “Have you seen what you have done now.” I mean, can you believe it, he was blamin’ the wife!
For even hintin’ that the wife was responsible the beat down he was gettin’, I smacked him on the face some more and told the wife, “You better get yourself some help before this man kills you.”

Outro
I know some ladies can really over do shit sometime but whatever happens, no lady should have to endure shit like what that lady took. I mean, it wasn’t enough that the poor chick had to take beatings at the crib, the stupid husband didn’t give a fuck if they were in public, he whooped the wife’s ass wherever!

The irony of the whole thing was, the wife begged for us to spare the schmuck. Some folks came and begged for the fool too. They pro’ly thought we were goin’ to send him to his maker if they let the jungle justice carry on. Anyways, we reluctantly left them (the couples) but guess what I found out later? The man took the wife to a secluded spot and took off where I he left off. Unfortunately for him, one of the guys that was wit us saw what happened and took the fool to the police and they promptly locked his ass up. Another sad irony to the whole episode was that the wife was pro’ly the one who had to post bail for the fool.

12:40
I forgot to mention that I ran into the guy I was waitin’ for at the wife beater’s beat-down.