They Call Me Mr. Pussy-Face

This post was going to be a short note about a very silly incident. I was leaving work at noon today---summer hours, don't'cha know---and when I passed through the relatively calm Times Square Station to catch the S train across to Grand Central, there was a saxophone player there, busking away. The entrance to the S is one of the places where there's always a musician working. This guy, however, suddenly broke into the theme from "Bonanza." And it wasn't until I got onto the train that I realized, "Hey---he was probably doing that because of how I was dressed! He was reading the crowd and improvising for money! Way to hustle, Saxophone Guy!"

But this charming little anecdote was hurled into the abyss and trampled on a few seconds later when I realized that I was obliged to stand, for the full three-minute S-train journey, next to my first real-life New York Crazy Person.

Comedians talk a lot about the crazy people in New York City, but I honestly haven't seen that much craziness. Either they don't come up into Washington Heights that often, or I'm inured to most of it from having grown up in Tucson, Transient Capital of the Southwest. But this guy was the real deal. For one thing, he was in pajama bottoms. (I thought for a second, "Wait! Maybe they're just light, loose-fitting foreign pants!"---I'm bad with clothes---but a closer glance showed that they were deep blue, and covered with little white stars. Definitely a nighttime motif.) And, in standard Crazy-Guy fastion, he was talking to himself nonstop. It was hard to make out because the train was noisy and he was just muttering, but we were close enough that I got this sample: "I'm here in New York, man, New York--yeah!-- and nobody knows it, but I've got the power, definitely got the power, hey girls, yeah!--and my day, my day's gonna be right around the...yeah! definitely the day, it's like noon..."

But even that was pretty familiar. The thing that freaked me out---and I wish I could've gotten a picture---was that he was covered with tattoos that had weird math symbols all over his body. (Like omega + C + pi = ankh, which ran along his left arm.) And to top it off, he had the word "PUSSY" tattooed on his face. It was smallish writing---I'd guess 18-point type, all caps---and curved from the side of his right cheek to his nose. PUSSY. On his face. I've been trying to make sense of it for hours now and I can't imagine any scenario under which this could have happened. I'm sort of hoping it was a prank his friends played on him after he passed out one time.

LATER:

And by the way, I just have to add that I think it's a shame that "pussy" is considered an insult. Particularly when you consider how many men spend all their time, money and energy in pursuit of pussy, you'd think that having "pussy" written on your face might be the equivalent of having "riches" written on your wrists. But I guess sexism isn't logical. I am, however, afraid that I may have just figured out why Mr. Crazy Guy got the tattoo. It is, in its way, perhaps a rude form of hope.

EVEN LATER:

Do you think if I use the word "pussy" one more time it'll affect my Google ranking? Fingers crossed!