Breaks My Heart

A man should never have to go through this...



A promising professional boxer and three-time Daily News Golden Gloves champion was shot to death early Saturday after getting into a fight at a Bronx bodega, police said.

Ronney (Venezuela) Vargas, 20, a junior middleweight who turned professional last year, was pistol-whipped and then shot in the chest in his car in East Tremont.

Vargas' death comes just as the Bronx native's undefeated professional career was taking off, making him one of the city's hottest boxing prospects.

"He had a future," said his distraught father, German Vargas, 52. "They didn't just kill a boxer, they killed a champ."

Police said Vargas and five friends got into a beef with two couples at the 2001 Delicatessen on Clinton Ave. about 3:30 a.m.

A police source said the men became enraged after they noticed Vargas chatting with their girlfriends.

"It was a dispute over some females," the police source said. "He talked to the wrong girls, and the boyfriend didn't like it. It was senseless. Stupid."

The dispute so enraged the men that when Vargas and his buddies drove off in a Honda Accord, they followed close behind in a white car.

Several blocks away, on Hughes Ave., the suspects pulled up and blocked Vargas' car.

Then a man came to Vargas' driver-side window and pistol-whipped him before shooting him in the chest.

Cops said Vargas tried to drive off backward, sideswiping several cars before he got out of the vehicle and collapsed in the street.

"His friend got on his knees and held him in his arms, like a mother rocks a baby," said a woman who watched the shooting from her apartment window. "He said, 'Don't die on me.'"

Vargas was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. Police haven't made an arrest.

A dramatic surveillance video obtained by The News shows the scene of the shooting, including Vargas' car careening backward and his friends frantically calling for help afterward.

The victim's older brother, Ronald Vargas, 24, suspects the boxer's good looks and rising profile contributed to his murder.

"He was famous in the neighborhood," the brother said. "They called him 'Venezuela.' He was good-looking. He was on his way up."

Vargas, who trained at the Webster Police Athletic League in the Bronx, made his professional debut in 2007 after earning Golden Gloves titles in 2005, 2006 and 2007. He had a stellar 8-0 record with six knockouts since turning pro.

"He was a good kid. You don't believe it's real," said Michael O'Connor, who worked with Vargas at the Webster PAL.

He lived with his father and two brothers in the South Bronx.

"I love my block," Vargas said during an interview in January. "I love the people around here. Everyone knows each other, so it's hard for me to move out and start my life somewhere else."

Summer

There are people sitting on folding chairs in a half-circle around an old stone fireplace that is the last remnants of a house that stood here during the Civil War. The fire gently paints the stone with its orange light, as the fireflies do drunken dances through the cool, humid air. I sip on whiskey-laced coffee as friends throw cupfuls gasoline into the fire, enraging it but for moments before the night swallows it again. These summer nights are tearing by.

The other night I was at Giants Stadium for the Springsteen concert, another defining moment of my life to be sure. He sang with flair and fury, with the urgent beauty that only passionate men can create. When he ended, he sang to us the three songs that he knows are for New Jersey, and Jersey alone.

As the crowd howled the lyrics to "Jersey Girl" under the view of the peaks of the massive cranes that are building the next Giants Stadium and young couples made out by the cavernous lights that steal the darkness from us, all I could think of was that I wish she was here, and that oh, amigos, life is beautiful... fleetingly so, but beautiful nonetheless...

Go see it

Just saw "Dark Knight", the Batman movie.

It's one of the five best movies I've ever seen. The monologues on truth and justice intertwined with Heath Ledger's immortal performance makes for a beautiful piece of legendary proportions.

Wow. Just wow... and I'm not even a comic book nerd.

Shockey and Estelle

I am so glad that that weeping, whiny bitch Jeremy Shockey has been sent to New Orleans where he can flood them with his tears instead of his touchdowns, just like he did in NY. Good riddance.

On another note, it upsets me that Estelle Getty died. I got so many text messages today from assorted people about this because they all know that I've watched the Golden Girls since I was a little kid (thanks Grandma).

Estelle, we will always remember you as that tough talking Sigi grandma that you were. Hope God greets you with open arms... and we know that if he doesn't, you'll smack the shit out of him.

"In the spirit of the Irish people, Osama bin Laden, you can kiss my royal Irish ass" - FDNY Firefighter Michael Moran




The Empire State building was red, white, and blue last night.

When I was a little kid, I remember walking by the World Trade Centers with my grandmother, and asking her why they had those massive cement planters in front of the lobby, taking up most of the entrance.

"That's so you can't drive a car with a bomb in it through the building."

I was not a stupid kid, even at that age; it's arguable that actually, I was smarter than. There were no naive thoughts about why someone would want to do such a thing... I knew politics. I knew war. I knew terrorism.

But also, what I knew, was that they didn't happen in America. I knew bombs went off in places like Israel, or Croatia, Chechnya. I didn't know it would happen to us.

As I looked across the river last night, again feeling that cool breeze come off the water... sometimes it's hard for me to comprehend that 9/11 really happened. It's hard to look at that skyline that I've lived next to my whole life and realize that something like that truly went on, and that I saw it, an 18-year-old kid smoking a cigarette in his pickup truck with friends, listening to the radio, wondering if we were going to war...

It still brings tears to my eyes.

Hoboken is Decadent and Depraved (Version 2.0)

The night is oppressively hot, and the only thing that keeps it tolerable is the winds coming in off of New York Harbour. The heavy bass of the drums land in time as Santana's guitar notes drift out of the bar and ride the currents; whoever sings "Maria, Maria" is serenading the streets of this town that is so often packed with wandering masses of overdressed men and women but is tonight a ghost town; empty, echoing, hazy, a reminder that the state forgets everything but the Shore during the Glorious Fourth.


View of NY from across the river...





"She don't believe in shootin stars, but she believe in shoes and cars...."

She is about my height in her heels, wearing a black dress with her long blond hair strewn about. She is cute, but my friend's girlfriend tells me that she would be ugly with short hair; evidently this is a measuring stick for good looking women.

All I really want to do in this town is go to a damn rooftop bar, because I'd imagine that drinking on a rooftop would be entertaining (at least as long as I stayed away from the edge). Of course, that doesn't seem to be happening on this night.

It's been about a month and a half since I've been drunk and my tolerance is lower than ever. The beers hit me quick and furious as shots of Jameson come over the top, doing damage like check hooks from an infighter. One great curved, wall is tiled in gold and looks like it should be covered by a waterfall; cone-shaped lights with an oriental feel hang lazily over the bar, bathing the bartenders in red lights.

She walked up to my buddy immediately after we got there, and started her game. It's a street hustle on a higher class; she flips her hair, twirling it around her neck, bats her eyelashes. She talks to him for a while, and I'm momentarily jealous. Ten minutes later he wanders back over.

"Fuckin girl came out and asked me, 'You gonna' buy me a drink?'"

"You did I guess?" I ask.

"Yea. What the hell am I gonna' say? That's like ten bucks for one of them, but I had to."

Later on it looks like his ten bucks might get him somewhere, as he's sitting on a couch talking to her, trying to work his way in.

Again, he appears after twenty minutes this time.

"Said she had to go home," he says. "Says she was a model. Had a photoshoot early tomorrow."

"On a Sunday huh?"

"Yea... she was full of shit. That's OK though, cause I was an accountant tonight."

---- --- -- ---- --- - -- - - - -

This town is remarkable; I bitch about it but I love it, and in all my hypocritical glory I will end up living here at some point. A writer for the New York Sun once wrote a series of articles on the Mafia violence that owned the Hoboken waterfront, leading to the movie that changed the way people perceived "corruption".

Line after line of old factories still sit here, strewn amongst the row houses that have become some of the most expensive property in the state. Bars, restaurants, and expensive stores line the streets during the day, and the lights go dim for the drinking crowds that rule the nights. All of this, while the heavy multicolored lights of New York City loom across the river, the eyes of the great bustling metropolis with blinking bulbs that brawl with the darkness.

People come out to this town to see each other, to be seen, like celebrities do at a Laker's game. Not that anyone knows anyone, mind you- it's certainly not the kind of place where you see old high school friends... Bruce Springsteen does not sing about Hoboken bars, Kanye West does. Things like that used to grate on me, but that anger isn't there anymore. I have much to lose, and by getting blind drunk at town bars, I'm only setting myself up for the inevitable arrest on a multitude of charges.

It doesn't mean who I am has changed at all, mind you. I'll always laugh at girls like that one who conned my buddy out of a drink, and any man that wears capris is going to get a "Where's the flood, asshole?" comment from me; it's my nature.

Regardless of that, the thing I really like, and cannot find anywhere else except for NYC, is the feeling I get when I'm there. It's one of the few times that my overactive mind never feels like it's missing something. I'm across the river from perhaps the greatest city in the world, and likely with some very interesting people. I'm in good bars with beautiful women, and the world is, for however fleeting, at my feet.

This has been important to me in the last few months, because there has been a nagging emptiness that was there in heavy formality last night. I've dealt with it by sobering up, which is a hell of a change for me... but feeling decent physically has still left me hurting. It's not a straight depression- no, I'm too lively for that.

What it is is a strange existential feeling that simply says, "Is this it?"

I don't have a job so much as a career now, and all my sights are set on that burning city across the river. I've got a car that's far nicer than anything I should own, I get a decent amount of women, and I have no true worries of any sort... but it's missing. The only time I feel good is when I'm lifting or boxing (my only respites in this troubling world) and even those have had to take the backseat since I separated my shoulder.

Other than that, I'm just sitting and wondering, constantly, what I'm doing, where I'm going, how my life is going to be. I hear US Census projections for 2040, and realize that I'll be 56 then. A year older than my grandfather when he died, 34 years older than Ryer when he died. Throw 20 more years on that, and I probably won't be around anymore. Someone will then likely be bitching and moaning about how badly I fucked'em up by dying.

For months, there have been no answers. Drunk, sober, from every height to every depth, there have been no answers. Not in the grimiest strip clubs of the Newark ghetto to the swankiest Hoboken bar, not from the hilly highlands of West Milford to the sand at the Shore. Nothing.

I blew the cigarette smoke out through my mouth in the shape of an "O" when I was on the streets... big holes in the center of the smoke..

I'm assuming this feeling is the reason that women by three thousand dollar purses and guys buy Maserati's.

Red, White, And Bruce- The Campaign to Get the Boss Elected to Governor

BELMAR, N.J.— What started off as typical day at the beach nearly ended in horror for a Bayonne couple and their young daughter, if not for the heroics of one man who put his life on the line to make sure the young girl was safe.

27-year-old Andrea Calamazarotti came to Belmar on Monday with her daughter, Nikki, and her boyfriend of three-and-a-half weeks, Tony, to celebrate, amongst other things, the Fourth of July holiday.

“Well, you know, me and Anthony have been dating for almost a month, and I thought that maybe we should do something special to celebrate…this is my longest relationship in a long time and I wanted to go out, you know? It’s been tough, because he got laid off from the lumber yard a couple of months ago, and my job at the tanning salon has barely been getting me enough money to get a babysitter and go get drunk on a Thursday! Can you imagine?” the blonde Andrea said, snapping her gum incessantly as she talked to the Belmar Sun.

Sure enough, where do all hardworking or laid-off New Jerseyans go when they’re down on their luck? The Jersey shore. And so Andrea and Tony loaded up Tony’s mid-80’s Lexus and drove down to Belmar to enjoy a few days of sun and fun on the beach.

However, the fun almost ended abruptly when the ocean’s dangerous currents reminded beachgoers that while the Shore may be fun, attention must always be paid, especially to little children.

Tony, who is a solid 230 lbs. at nearly 5‘4” and for some reason shows heavy acne scarring on his shoulder and back area, was incredulous at the events, even taking off his sunglasses to look at reporters at one point.

“So, uh, Michelle went to go get me a beer and left me with the kid. I mean, I mean Andrea. Andrea went to get me a beer… ahh, you’re not gonna’ print that right?”

“Anyway, I mean, can you believe they don’t serve beer on the beach? You gotta’ walk all the way the fuck down to Point Pleasant to that place… that, uh… Tiki Bar! Yea, that’s it, to get a beer on the beach. Anyways, I’m smoking a cigarette, watchin’ the kid play in the water and shit, and I go to bury the butt in the sand cause you know they can give you a ticket for that shit, when all of a sudden I hear screaming. So I figure some bitch may in trouble, so I take my shirt off and run down the beach looking for who’s screaming.”

Although no one is quite sure where Tony actually ran too, Andrea came back to her towel and Glamour magazine only to find the lifeguard lamenting at water’s edge as Nikki was getting swept into the ocean.

“I asked her, ‘What the fuck? Why aren’t you going in to save her? And the lifeguard, she just said she forgot her orange floating thing and that without that she couldn’t do anything because she didn’t actually know how to swim.”

The lifeguard, when questioned later, declined to comment, saying only, “They only teach us how to blow whistles- what the fuck do you people want from me?”

“But that’s when HE came,” says Andrea, a bright light appearing in her dull eyes. “It was Bruce Springsteen. He pulled right onto the beach in a red Ford Roadster, and asked me, really calmly, if there was a problem.”

“I told him, ‘Oh my gawd, my daughter’s caught in a riptide’. I pointed out to her, but by the time I did he was already in the water.”

Witnesses allege that the Mr. Springsteen swam in boots and jeans approximately two-and-a-half miles out to sea in order to save the poor wailing girl and swam with her back to shore. Some also say that he managed to grab a wounded seagull that was later found to have the popular candy pop-rox in its stomach, and at least one observer has said that he pushed a stuck party boat off a sandbar.

“I don’t care about any of that. He brought her back to me,” says the thankful Andrea, who now holds her daughter close at all times, having bought one of those retractable children’s leashes that West Virginians are prone to use.

“I’ll never let her go again. Bruce, you’ve got my vote.”

Tony has not yet been found, but it has been alleged that a fight at the nearby bar “Bar B” later that night was started by a short, shirtless, Italian looking man with bad tribal tattoos who was wearing sunglasses.

Although the local Irish cops say that this description has them looking for a “needle in a haystack of needles” in the words of Sgt. Cahill, it is possible that there is a connection between the two events.

Local Republicans have said that it is likely that this was simply a publicity stunt, and have even questioned if Ms. Calamazarotti was paid to let her daughter out of her sight. They have also questioned the existence of “Tony” at all.

Local Democrats were quoted as calling them “assholes.”

Shallow End of the Gene Pool

So how come the girls who are smart are either cunts or they're ugly, and the girls that are hot can barely concentrate on one thing for more than three fuckin seconds? Is this a genetic thing?

I mean, damnit, I got the total package here! I may have a boozing problem and be prone to throwing my life to the gutter once in a while, but I'm a dangerously good lookin fella who is smarter than shit and has the body of damn welterweight fighter. Not to mention, women don't know how misguided I am until after it's too late.

Of course, I've only met a handful of girls that can keep up (and are good looking at the same time) in the quarter century that I've been punched into this place.

Maybe it's time to do what colleges do when they want a better football team and lower the admission standards?

I've already given up looking for brains- I'm going purely for looks nowadays; I've come to the conclusion that as soon as any woman looks at me and opens her mouth to speak, my life becomes miserable.

As a result, my strong deductive reason has lead me to believe that if a woman never says anything of consequence, then my life will never be miserable. They keep talking about shiny things or what song is on the radio, and I'm fine. And like most men, I'd rather have a good looking dumb girl than an ugly smart one... although it is getting to the point now where I really wonder how ridiculously idiotic someone can be and still function day-to-day in life successfully (and I think by "successfully" I just mean feed and clothe themselves and end up in the same place they woke up).

Do I sound bitter? I'm not. It's more incredulous, I guess. People are strange fuckin creatures.

On the bright side, I found out that not only can I change the colors on the display of my Mustang, but I can make my own colors by combining the three primaries on the display.

Between that and the marvelous creation called "interior ambient lighting", I swear this car is like a damn fireworks display. I don't so much want to drive it as just sit in it with my sunglasses on and sling people the six shooter all day as they drive by. Maybe I should be a cop. That's what they do, ain't it?

Hey Trash... man i'm drunk....and that poison, it's thick... trying to resist... it's like motherfucking cancer... she's under my goddamn skin..

Bragging

I am tired. I say my obligatory goodbyes, and begin making my way out of the bar that I frequent so often.

I parked down the block some because the cops pass by there a lot less often, and if I am a bit merry when I walk out, I've got a better chance surviving coming out of down here. As I walk, I see a guy fall into step with me behind me.

He's far too drunk to mean any harm, and if he did I'd end his day very quickly because I'm sober as a priest and on my guard.

"Hey bro.. you need a ride?" I ask.

"Ahh, I'm walkin home dude, I live like, I don't know, down there, not far. It ain't bad."

"You sure?" I ask.

"Ahhh well.... if you don't mind..."

Being as I walked three miles last Saturday morning trying to get home, I feel this poor bastard. It was an hour before someone I knew pulled over and told me to get in because I was obviously too drunk too function, even at 8 in the morning.

"C'mon fucker. It's over here."

As we walk into the vacant lot, he asks, "Which one's yours?"

I point to her. She's silver and the light is gleaming off every corner, and it's clear in my mind that I've replaced women with material things and I am fucking FINE with that.

He opens his gaze through drunken eyes. "Wow... nice ride man," he says, a kind of stunned sound in his voice.

"Goddamn right," I say with a grin. "You puke in her, and I'll kill you."

I say it with a smile, and he half-laughs, like he knows I'm kidding...kind of.

Later on I will gun it through a red light even though I shouldn't, but I can't help it.

I did what I went to the bar to do, and even did a good deed on the way, and walked out sober. Some days, you feel like you ate your goddamn Wheaties.

Who'd have thought...

When I had initially looked at the twisted scrap metal that has become my once glorious black Dodge truck, I could only shake my head as I blew smoke out of my nose and mouth simultaneously. My mother thought I would cry when they towed her away, the shattered wreckage the constant reminder of why women should not be allowed to drive.

She's come around the corner hard, and hadn't seen my poor old girl parked on the road. She's lucky to be alive.

But if there's one thing that can make life a little bit better, and make you realize that certain things are blessings in disguise, it's looking at the brand new silver Mustang that resides where your old girl once was. Leather interior, old school grill, and a purring engine... and it's like the movies, when the lights fade out in the background and "Blue Moon" starts playing and the object of your affection comes to the forefront of the scene and your heart skips a couple dozen beats.

I've got my Eleanor now... and my God, she is straight fuckin' pimpin.

Someone in my family looked at me, and looked at the car, and shook their head. "You know, as you get older, the guido's startin' to come out in you more and more."

"Oh I know. It's horrific... but I can't help it... all I need now is that red pepper thing that those fuckers hang in their rear window."

"It's a horn."

"Whatever."

The Dangerous Fat men

I have heard in the past few elections that there are people in this ridiculous mess of a country who like to decide who to vote for "when we're at the polls."

What? What?

Are there really such despicable retards alive in this country that will vote on such short notice and decide which way to go as they're pulling the lever? That's like deciding whether or not to shoot someone as you pull the trigger. Stop pretending you've been paying attention, stop acting like the three minutes of the debate you watched last Tuesday gives you any right to have your vote count equal to mine. That polling lever is dangerous, like a hairpin trigger on a .45 in the hands of a cop at a protest: STEP AWAY FROM THE FUTURE, YOU FATTENED MADMAN RETARD AMERICAN, YOU! Cast away your FOXNews coloured glasses and your McDonald's bag of D grade meat! Open those glazed over American Idol eyes!

I respect people who belong to parties; at least they're trying to pay attention. Sure, both are both horsefucked messes of American politics, most folks probably agree more with one than the other. And I respect Republicans- it's hard to respect such scum, but you do have to respect pure evil when you see it just based on the fact that it's proven to you that it's actually there, and yes, it's that fucking evil.

What I cannot respect is the rambling mass of loons who vote for people based on who they think they would have a better time at a barbeque with, or who they think would change their tire for them if they were stuck. Let me save you the trouble- none of them would would change your tire; McCain especially can't change your tire because it would crush him, and if you have a Jeep you're out of luck because he can't raise his arms high enough to get the tire off the tailgate.

And all of them would get drunk at your barbeque, piss on your table, shoot your dog ("Inadvertently," says the spokeswoman), and then fly your wife to Vegas and get her drunk off of dirty martinis before they banged her. Let's not forget that they are not only "politicians", but they are also "rich", and the last thing that rich care about is your macaroni salad or the roofing nail in your tire or that your wife hates dirty martinies. It's all a means to an end.

I am supporting Obama. He too would probably try and bang your wife, and he might eventually be convicted of some heinous crime that only a politician would think that he could get away with. But I doubt it. He has some kind of honesty in his voice, some sense of urgentness and importantness and swagger that makes you think if another September 11 came around, he might actually be able to handle it instead of riding his tricycle around the White House lawn with cap guns and a WWII helmet over his eyes trying to catch evildoers in the bushes.

He might not send kids to die in the desert sands of countries of foreign countries. He might realize the absolute, resolute ridiculousness of the contradiction in terms that is "preemptive war," something so bizarre and asinine that it could only come from the "President" who invented the word, "irregardless."

I said a while ago that a storm is coming; I was wrong. The storm is here, the torrents of blood and death and horror are here, and the future of this country sways as the ground shakes with the artillery fire in the dunes. Our future is a drunken Jenga game that the billionaires toy with, and every step nearer to the election we get, another piece is drawn out by their long, wicked fingers.

I don't care who you vote for, but if you vote Republican, you have no right to complain when my generation eventually lights you on fire and puts it out with a chain.

Quick vote for all you motherfuckers that read this: 2008 black Dodge Charger, or 2008 Black Ford Mustang?

These are my choices. I'll explain later.

The Ballad of the Hanged Men

There's a lot of "Mikes."

Probably millions in the US... maybe more. There's probably another million in Ireland. Hell, I'm sure there's millions in other countries; they've all got their linguistic variations of how you say it; Miguel in Spanish, Mikkel in German, Mícheál in Gaelic. However, in all languages, it means the same: it is to be named after the mighty archangel, the warrior of God who cast Satan out of Paradise so long ago, entombing him in his fiery pit.

Somewhere, 35 years ago, in a county in New Jersey, a mother gave birth to a son, and gave him this strong name. She probably had hopes and dreams, like all good mothers do; she probably prayed that he might be like the other millions of Mikes, the ones that had good jobs in offices, young wives, and would raise good, compassionate children that would lead good, strong lives.

But that was not the path that was to be taken for this lad.

I see him now, doing the diddy-bopping shuffle that only people with chained legs learn, as he steps down from the jury box and towards the defense table. The orange jumpsuit stops around his elbows, and his arms are heavily tattooed. He's got a cross on the back of his neck just above the collar line, and his eyes are sunken in that heroin-throttled way.

As I look around the courtroom, I can see it all. I see the kid from Cali with poofy yellowed hair who's wearing daddy's suit; he's probably hear for a DUI. I see the cracked out hood rat who was on the lam for a decade until they finally caught her with large amounts of some drug or another. I see the thick black guy sitting in front of me, his hair wound in tight cornrows. He's waiting for his turn.

And there I sit, with my collared shirt, leather jacket, and small pad to write the notes out, and I am just thankful that for once I'm staying on this side of the bench. I remember how it was to have court dates hanging over your head; it's always in front of you, like when you see a great rising storm in the distance but, for now, only feel the wind slowly getting colder. When you laugh, it's there, and it ends your glee abrubtly. When you're having sex, there's still a part of you that knows when the moment is over with her, your court date will be there. When you're drunk, you'll talk about it. But only when you're drunk.

35 years ago, Mike's mother never knew that this is where he would be. She didn't know that he'd make all the wrong choices, and become a product of the system, in and out of jail for a laundry list of violations. She didn't know he'd be all inked up, the needle's veteran, and begging a judge for mercy... again. I wonder what she would think.

After his case, they bring my boy in.; I'm hear to write about him. He is of average height, skinny, shaved head, white-trash looking. He stands accused of molesting a child multiple times. He looks right at me, and his eyes aren't like the rest of these guys; they aren't sad, they aren't regretful, and they aren't hopeful.

No. These are cold pin prics of ice. It chills me, makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise, and immediately I know that he is guilty and wish that men like him were executed. Slowly. Mercilessly.

I think that if I could kill him with my bare hands, I would do it. If I could twist that scrawny neck 'till the body went limp, and watch them the ravens eat him, I would do that too.

I wonder if his mother is in hell for having him, or if she knew not what was happening when she gave birth to this incarnation of evil.

I wonder how God handles such things.

When in New Jersey...

We're throwing a baseball around in a friends's backyard, playing some kind of accuracy game that does not bode well with my "Wild Thing" arm (like a rocket, but watch the car windows).

Another friend from high school is fixing something on the patio table. He went to college in South Carolina, and has only been coming around again since graduating. Another guy is drunk in a lawn chair and mumbling.

During a bullshit conversation, the guy at the table begins cursing about in frustration.

Then he says it, under his breath, so low that we almost don't hear it: "This sucks almost as much as Bruce Springsteen."

In shock, I miss the ball, but don't bother looking for it. I look right at him, and then at the thrower; he's staring at Table guy. The drunk in the chair is also staring, mouth agape, and then shakes his head as if clearing out the fog and says, "The fuck did you just say?"

Table guy looks at us, an incredulous look on his face. "Jesus Christ, I was kidding."

A tense second goes by.

"Oh.... You gotta be careful with that kinda shit," I say.

"No shit," he laughs. "Forgot I was back in Jersey."