Kingpins
I was eating my lunch in
Squeeky Park on Friday when I heard an angry voice repeatedly shouting,
"Do you understand who the fuck I am?" and "How you gonna disrespect ME?"
I thought to myself, "sweet, somebody pissed-off Julius Peppers!" and peeped
over the fence into the parking lot behind Cosmic Cantina where the yelling
was coming from. The guy yelling was a relatively big dude in a warm-up
suit, but he wasn't Julius Peppers. He looked familiar though. I thought
for a second that he might be Ed Cota, but then I realized that I recognized
him not because he is a prominent athlete, but because he works at Subway.
Apparently, he feels that Sandwich Builder is a position that should command
much fear and respect.
He and five or so of his
buddies were shaking-down five weaselly-looking high school punks for money-owed,
presumably for Cold Cut Combo's, and the guy who wasn't Peppers or Cota
ended up body-slamming two of them onto the tarmac like a so many slices
of grade B salami. Although he obviously meant business, he did this in
a relatively controlled, almost big-brother sort of way, so I didn't think
too much of it, but, just to be on the safe side, I walked to Franklin
Street to see if any cops happened to be standing around. Soon after I
got there, the Peppers impersonator and his gang emerged from the alley
between Coffee Shop and Subway, swarming out onto Franklin Street and fighting
amongst themselves. The two fighting factions divided onto opposite sides
of the street and, after yelling such taunts as "one on one: wha'sup?"
and the old favorite "I'll rock your world" across the four lanes, two
of the combatants met on the double yellow line at mid-street in front
of Subway where one threw down his coat menacingly and the other produced
a brick-sized rock and began chasing him through traffic.
Chapel Hill police arrived
minutes after the scene had returned to normal. I offered to describe some
people, but the officer didn't seem too interested, asking only, "one of
them had dreadlocks- right?", and moving on to the other witness, an older
gentleman who began describing one of the perpetrator's clothes as if they
had been a public disturbance in themselves: "Well he had dem bagga pants
on like the key-ids wear t'day", he recounted, "all fallin' down off his
butt so you could see his DRAWS..." The officer lost interest and wandered
out of sight, leaving me to listen to the other witness editorialize about
what we had just seen: "It don't make no sense", he said, "wit' all the
TERRORISM goin' on, and dey here fightin' in'a street wit' ROCKS like CRAZA
people". "Indeed," I nodded. "Indeed." I excused
myself and began to walk back from lunch. I had gone about twenty feet
when I spotted the guy with dreadlocks relaxing on a stone wall near where
I had eaten my lunch. I paused for a second, then shook my head and continued
to shuffle back to lab.
-------------