Oh, Julian!
After seeing my favorite Broadway show I have ever seen (Oh, Mary!, starring Maya Rudolph), I was unusually open to the world. Filled with joy and sharing it with the world.
Walking toward the subway, a man in Times Square hands me a flier for his music. I take it and keep walking. He catches up and says, “you won’t shake a black man’s hand?” I shake his hand and keep going. He says, “what’s the hurry?” I say, “I gotta catch the train.” He says, “wait, I gotta sign it.”
Another guy says, “keep walking, it’s a scam.”
The flier-hander retorts: “what’s a scam? A scam is my dick in your mouth!”
I give back the flier and keep walking. I ask the guy who warned me, “what’s the scam?”
“He asks you for money and acts intimidating.”
This wasn’t a random encounter. It’s a scripted hustle running a reciprocity ladder:
- The “free” flier creates obligation.
- The handshake escalates it.
- “I gotta sign it” – him writing my name – makes it mine.
- Then the ask plus some menace closes it.
I don’t think the lesson is to keep my joy closed. What a sad, sad world that would be.
The last time I had my joy open in Midtown Manhattan, someone punched me in the chest.
I think the lesson is something closer to: be fast, funny, or fight. I shook his hand; we would have escalated further. I’m pretty speedy: would simply sprinting have been my move?
The scam and the sadness: that’s the toll for living in the greatest city in the world.
Oh, New York!
Julian Wise 