AA: Oh, I’m talking? Okay.
My roommate—let’s call him Bob—was always eating spinach and doing push-ups and hoping somebody would mess with him. Always kind of angry, but hey. That’s the way it is.
One night, he’s particularly angry. He goes out on the street, and I’m like, “Uh oh. This is not good. I better go out and find him and bring him home.” He was living in a tent in my backyard.
So I go out looking for him, and I see him coming down Frenchmen just two or three blocks away. But he’s in a good mood! So I’m thinking, “Well, that’s—all right, well, hey. Actually, let’s just go out and hang out and go to the bars and have a good time.” Since he wasn’t in a bad mood or anything. He didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t see any blood. It all looked good, right?
So we turn around. We’re walking down Frenchmen.
Now, I’ve gotta tell you about this girl who’d been hitting on me for years. She’s completely, totally insane. I’m serious. Always causing trouble. I want nothing to do with her, but it doesn’t matter. She’d be screaming my name from two blocks away, screaming my name with her boyfriend right next to her, and he’s extremely jealous of me. He’s a real crackhead psychopath. Takes two to tango.
I totally avoid this woman every time I get a chance. To give you an example, one day she’d come knocking on my door when I was going out to Croissant D’Or for breakfast to meet some prospective customers to buy paintings. She’s wearing a trench coat. I’m not thinking too much, but it’s kinda like buttoned down low, but whatever, I don’t know what’s going on. I’m thinking about the paintings.
She follows me into Croissant D’Or, right, and sits down at the table across from me. By this time, she’s got the trench coat wide open. She’s got nothing on underneath.
I’m like, oh boy. So of course, I make a quick retreat. And I’d been meeting these customers… that was the end of that story. Needless to say, I try and avoid this girl as much as humanly possible.
Anyways, Bob and I are walking down Frenchmen, and there he is, the boyfriend, walking towards us. He comes straight up to me and goes, “What have you been doing with my old lady?” He’s drunk.
I’m like, “Dude, I want nothing to do with your crazy girlfriend. Let’s just get that straight.”
He goes, “You better not.” He turns around and starts walking in front of us with his back to us.
Now Bob’s like, “Huh. What’s up with that?”
Uh oh.
I go, “I have no idea what’s up with that. He’s just a crackhead. Let’s just forget about it.”
He goes, “Man, well… He better not mess with us.”
The boyfriend hears us saying stuff about him. He turns around, and comes straight, swings his arm back to punch me in the face.
Now, Bob’s in his element. This is what he’s been looking for out here all night, and there it is. Right in front of us. He steps between us, whips out a knife, sticks it to the guy’s throat, grabs him by the shirt, and says one of the best lines I’ve heard in a fight, or maybe of all time.
He says, “I will cut you long, wide and continuously. I will cut you so bad your mama won’t know you. I will throw you in a garbage can and you will smell like crawfish.”
All the while, he’s backing the guy down the street with the knife to his neck. The dude was only tying to punch me in the face, and now he’s white as a ghost. Bob’s gonna take him out.
He makes the guy sit down on that bench, the one that was always in front of the Apple Barrel. All the people who were hanging out on the bench clear out in a hurry, because Bob’s going, “Hey, man, I’m going to take you out right here. This a good spot for you, man.”
I’m like, “Bob! You’ve got to stop this! The police are gonna take all of us, and I didn’t do nothin’!” I don’t know what to do.
Luckily, this friend of ours comes along and she grabs Bob and hugs him to her, and she manages to drag him away from the dude.
All three of us are now looking at the guy sitting on the bench. Bob goes, “Don’t you move from that bench. If you move from that bench, I will cut you.”
The three of us, we lean against the poles and watch this guy for like a half an hour. He didn’t move from that bench.
Anyway, that’s my story. There aren’t that many knife fights on Frenchmen Street anymore.
