That's Assault Brotha...

Mike's bachelor party ended somewhat unceremoniously at Arthur's Tavern with three of us and the groom-to-be having listened to the jazz/funk stylings of Frankie and Off the Hook, a ridiculous band of soul talent who cover the likes of Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Jimi Hendrix, and most trenchantly, Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was the perfect *read wholesome* spot for Mike whose greatest fear is that we would jeopardize his impending marriage by injecting him with heroin and inevitably take him to a whorehouse to sully the future life with his b'sheret.

On 7th Avenue, we are about to part ways, but before we could, we were approached by a complete stranger, who also happened to be a 6'3" linebacker-sized redneck, who put his arm around Mike and asked us where the party was at (at what was now 3:15 in the morning). I humored him first and asked where we should go. His response was that we should go start a fight.

Alright, well who should we fight, my first mistake of a question.

And when an effete gay man who looked like he had only left his apartment to buy a pack of cigarettes came into the redneck's tunnel vision, he pointed at him from the half-block distance and half-asked, THAT GUY?

I'm not sure whether we all said "yeah that guy" or whether it was just one of us or just me, but once it was said, the redneck was off and made a beeline toward the guy, who was armed with nothing but rimless glasses, flip flops, and cargo shorts.

We didn't think anything was really going to happen, but before we knew it, the redneck lowered his shoulder and began to drive this unsuspecting pedestrian backward like a tackling dummy. We looked at each other in disbelief and the redneck who looked like he was going to relent, started getting resistance from his prey who was shouting WHAT THE FUCK??? Without compunction, the redneck finally drove this guy into the sidewalk.

Mike and the other two revelers panicked and bolted for a cab to Brooklyn in utter horror and drove away while I had to walk past the melee to get home. There is no way to describe the look on the redneck's face when he realized what he had just done and tried to drunkenly explain to this poor guy that it had just been a joke and that he had been told to do it.

Meanwhile, everyone on the street was laughing uncontrollably (the fascinated, shock laughter) as this perfectly nice guy who was just on his way to the bodega started screaming at the redneck. GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!

The redneck had this sadness-of-an-admonished-child look on his face as he followed the guy into the store, apologizing and trying to make him laugh. Whether we did the tackling or not, it was almost entirely our fault. And more importantly, now Mike's marriage is no longer pure.