Somehow I forgot to relay this story in my blog. Two Sundays ago it we had a warm Spring-like day with temperatures in the 60s.
It was a great day, so the Cheese and I went down by the water to toss the football around, we both really enjoy this, and I got to do some “Action Jackson†moves. “Action Jackson†moves are named after the movie, and basically consist of running and doing some sort of pansy type of jump while saying “Action Jackson†– I grew up tossing the football like this with friends, and continue the AC tradition for some odd reason.
Anyways after we were done with our game of catch we went for a long stroll back to my place, and then ended up taking a detour to swing on the swings in John Carty Park under the Verrazano Bridge. This particular park has always had its own distinct feel to it that no other park in NYC has, at least to me.
Part of this is due to it being located at the bottom of hill, with the bridge ramps going alongside, up and over its entire length, another part is it is located next to an Army Base so that blocks other residents from using the park – army kids usually play inside the base grounds on their own much cooler parks – we used to sneak in as a kid, and lastly and more importantly this particular park tends to draw much more of the old school creepy Brooklynite type of person – at least that’s how it was when I grew up.
So as we entered the gates to this park that are about 50 feet past the last support posts in the picture – you might recognize this park from the movie Saturday Night Fever. Anyways, as we entered we spotted a guy with a fat rabbit sitting at a bench and table. To be more particular it was a creepy looking middle aged, fat, sweaty, bald guy, sporting a goat tee, who hit a 10 out of 10 on the Beehive Perv Scale petting a fat rabbit sitting at a park table.
As the Cheese and I swung happily until I got motion sickness, which was a first for swings, we watched the pervy rabbit guy sit and watch the kids, and had hoped that at least one of the half dozen or so kids running around were his offspring. I doubt that any of them were his; as it quickly appeared to me that pervy rabbit man was at the park with only his rabbit, his eyes, and the desire for close contact with children. While the Cheese didn’t want to believe this, I am 99% certain that he was.
Scene: Child walking through park sees a pet rabbit, wants to touch pet rabbit, and ask questions about pet rabbit. This is all very innocent since children are by nature curious. Throw in sweaty forehead of pathetic looking fat guy with rabbit and you have a scene of an after school movie.
So as the Cheese and I sat around crashing into each other on swings, a group of ten boys that I appeared to be around the 5th, 6th, or 7th grades came into the park with a basketball. Eight of them were white as can be, two of them were black – one was light skinned black, and the other dark skinned black. At first it appeared that the group of boys flocked to the pervy dude with the rabbit, then as the seconds went by it became apparent that the dark skinned black kid knew what was up and kept walking, while the others all stayed there for minutes playing with the rabbit while pervy looking guy was entirely too close to them for my comfort.
Was the dark skinned black kid the only one taught the “Don’t talk the strangers routine� I doubt it. Was he the only one that was not into seeing a rabbit up close? Probably not; I’m not sure what exactly it was that made that one kid keep walking, but whatever it was it was definite street smarts, and I was glad that at least one kid had some, yet at the same time it gave me a good laugh to see the irony of the entire creepy situation.
(Photo was found on forgotten-ny.com which is a great site about NYC)