I have never in my life had difficulty with the cops. I had difficulty with the cops, that's not...no actually I didn't have difficulty with the cops. I was once sitting home in my house, and a lot of cars pulled up around the house. They shined in searchlights, and I heard a voice over the loudspeaker say "We have your house surrounded. This is the New York public library" They wanted their books back, y'know, and the little librarian was lobbing grenades over the house. I came out with my hands up, y'know, kicking the book ahead of me. They took me down to the main branch on Fifth Avenue in New York, and they took away my glasses for a year.
And I was thinking, when I lived in my apartment in the brownstone building in New York, we were constantly getting robbed all the time. It was a very big feature of the neighbourhood, y'know. Guys would break in and steal, and my apartment was robbed about four times in two years, y'know, it really got to be a bad thing, and I didn't know what to do about it, so finally I put on my door, a little blue and white sticker that said "We gave". Figure that would end it brilliantly, but it didn't, 'cause a man in my building, Mr. Russo was held up late at night, two very big guys got him with a bottle and a stick in the lobby, y'know, and they wanted all his cash, and Russo like a jerk tried to sign for it for tax purposes, whatever it is, y'know. They hit him with tremendous shot across the frontal lobe, y'know, real smack in the head, and he fell to the lobby in a fetal position, y'know. He lay there until his lease ran out, y'know. He's never been the same since the smack in the head, y'know. He smiles a lot now. He laughs out of context occasionally. He's not as perceptive as the average tree stump, y'know.
Everybody in the building panicked, they said that I'm small and that I should go and build myself up, in case I get into trouble, I could defend myself, so I went to Vic Tannings, this was a long time ago, I went for three weeks, and I lifted and I bent and I squatted. Nothing happend to me at all, y'know, nothing grew or anything, and I figure it's ridiculous, why don't I forget about it and give Vic Tanning the cash., and I ask him if he'll walk me home nights.
However, there is a kid in my building, a little odd kid named Leon, and Leon takes karate lessons. Leon is always walking with his hand cocked at a right angle, like this, y'know, and everyone said that I should learn Judo, 'cause I'd be an animal, but Judo to me has always been a thing of the bigger your opponent is, the bigger the beating he is gonna give you, y'know. And then my good friends told me, in the back of Esquire magazine, you can send away for a fountain pen that shoots teargas. It's a real fountain pen, and it secretes a gaseous billow, y'know, really great pen, seven and a half dollars. I send away. It comes in the mail, two weeks later in a plain brown wrapper, y'know. I unscrew it, I put in the teargas cartridges (pop), I clip it in my breast pocket, y'know (click), I go out, a long time ago this was, some friends of mine had a surprise autopsy, and I'm invited for the evening, y'know.
I'm coming home by myself, two o'clock in the morning, and it's pitch black and I'm all alone, and standing in my lobby is...a neanderthal man, with the eyebrow ridges, y'know, and the hairy knuckles like this, y'know. He had just learned to walk erect that morning, I think. Came right to my house in search of the secret of fire, y'know. A tree-swinger in the lobby at two o'clock in the morning. A mouth breather looking at me, like (breathes heavily), y'know. I took my watch out and I dangled it in front of him, y'know, 'cause they're mullified by shiny objects sometimes. He ate it. I tried to impress him and I backed off and I pulled out my teargas pen, and I pressed the trigger, and some ink trickled down my shirt. I made a mental note to call Esquire and tell them 'cause, I'm standing in the lobby, two o'clock in the morning, y'know, with a product of a broken home, y'know. I had a fountain pen in my hand, I tried writing on him with it, y'know. He came for me, and he started to tapdance on my windpipe, so very quickly, I lapsed into the old Navajo Indian trick of screaming and begging.
I get into an amazing amount of, ah, physical encounters for someone my size. About thirteen weeks ago, I had my shoes shined against my will. Tremendous shoeshine boy, said to me "I'm shining your shoes". "Yes you are" I said. He did give me an execellent shine though, I might add, but they were suede shoes.
