On the sidewalks of New York with Lance Mannion, strolling pervert

When I visit towns and cities, I like to take pictures of doorways, signs, windows, and storefronts.  I don't know why.  The pictures are never as interesting as whatever it was that made me interested enough to take the pictures in the first place.  But I keep taking them, in hopes that one of them will tell me why I thought it was important to record it.

Yesterday, I was in the city and after I was done doing what I had to do and seeing the people I had to see, I took a stroll around Greenwich Village.  By the time I left town, I had at least twenty pictures stored away of doorways, signs, windows, and storefronts.  I also had the memory of an experience I'd never had before.  I got called a pervert.

Ok, I have been called a pervert before, more than a few times, in fact, but it was always a special occasion, in private, between friends, and meant as a compliment.  This was the first time I'd been called a pervert in public by a stranger I wasn't trying to impress.

Happened like this.  I was strolling through the West Village, stopping here and there to take my pictures of doorways, signs, windows, and storefronts, like this one of Sam's Grocery.

And these.  Psychic Reading by Donna.

McKenna's Pub and the store above boasting "Engraving On Premises."

I would have liked to have gone in and taken a look around Hogs & Heifers Saloon, but I couldn't find a door.

Over on Gansevroot there wasn't much going on and the sun was brutal.

Back on West 14th, I came across a service I could use, being in constant need of relief from pain, stress, tension, fatigue and insomnia, although since they close at 9:30 PM and insomnia tends to kick in sometime after midnight I can't see they'd be much use that way.

By and by---and I swear that's almost certainly the first time I've resorted to that transition in my life---by and by I came to Woody McHale's Bar & Grill, which is below street level and has a beautiful carved wooden sign that is about all I could see of the place from the sidewalk.  Naturally, I stopped to take a picture and as I did an angry female voice shouted up from the area.

"Pervert!"

Startled, I looked over the railing for the woman and the pervert accosting her.  Reflexively the gentleman, I was ready to come to her aid should aid be required.

"Fuck you, you pervert!"

The furious face looking back up at me belonged to a woman in her late thirties with a long, sharp nose, a muddy looking tan, and white-blond highlights in her henna-colored hair.  There was another woman with her, and I supposed there might be female perverts out and about accosting other women, but this second woman was looking at me with an expression not quite as angry as the other woman's but every bit as indignant.  Both women held cigarettes, which explained what they were doing standing outside the bar.

"Get the fuck out of here!" the first woman shouted and I realized she was talking to me.  "Fucking pervert!"

Foolishly, my first reaction was to assume that I was talking to a non-crazy person and try to figure out what I'd done to offend her.  "I'm sorry.  Are you talking to me?"

"Of course I'm talking to you, you fucking pervert!  Get the fuck out of here!"

"I'm just---"

"I know what you're doing!  Pervert!  Go fuck yourself!"

I wasn't getting my head around this.  I couldn't understand why she thought I was a pervert for taking a picture of a sign.  I held up my camera.  "Lady, all I'm doing is taking a picture."

"Why don't you go home to do that, go home and jerk off, you pervert!"

"Lady, really, I'm just taking a picture."

"Fucking pervert."

A young guy, dark brown skin, shaved-head, neatly dressed, probably gay, came up the stairs from the bar door.  I looked at him with a look of appeal in my eyes, as if asking him what the deal was with this crazy woman.  He said, "I agree with her.  You're a pervert."  And off he went.

"You heard him, pervert!  Now get the fuck away from here!"

It began to sink in.  Don't know why I was so slow on the uptake.  She thought I was taking a picture of her, although God knows why she thought only a pervert would want her photograph.  I gave her a good look for the first time.  She was moderately attractive, I guess, in a somewhat worn around the edges kind of way.  Have to take into account that she wasn't at her best with her face twisted up with anger and hatred like that.  But once I realized what she was objecting to I got angry.  The nerve of her thinking I was a pervert.  The nerve of her thinking I was taking I was taking her picture when all I was doing was taking a picture of a wooden sign.  And the nerve of her thinking that if I was sneaking around Manhattan snapping photographs of strange women for my perverted pleasures she was someone I'd want a picture of!  Lady, I wanted to say, today I saw a young blonde who was as beautiful as a model, who might even have been a model, made more beautiful by her being six months pregnant.  I saw a waitress at an outdoor cafe who looked like a young Marissa Tomei.  I saw a goddess of a woman from India over six feet tall, all legs, in gauzy white blouse unbuttoned down to her chest and up to her diaphragm.  I saw countless other women far more beautiful than you and if I was tempted to take any pictures of strange women for my perverted pleasures I'd have taken every one of theirs twenty times before I even looked twice at you!  But I didn't take their pictures!  I took pictures like this one of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe instead!

What kind of pervert goes around taking pictures of churches?

All this went through my head.  And I actually felt a need to explain myself to her.  I wanted her to know how wrong she was about me.  I wanted---and I couldn't believe it and still can't, because what did her opinion matter---an apology.

I caught myself.  Great, I thought.  I'm as crazy as she is.

So what I did was step up closer to the railing, raise my camera, and take another picture of the sign.

"Good day," I said cheerfully when I was done.

"Fuck off!" she said, with somewhat less energy than the previous times.  "Fuck you and fuck off."

I strolled away.

It occurred to me while I was writing this.  Is there something about Woody's I should know?  Is there a reason patrons might assume a touristy-looking middle-aged guy hanging around out front with a camera was taking pictures of something other than the pretty sign and for reasons other than he just thought it was a pretty sign?

It is a pretty sign.

Looks like a nice enough place too, if you can get past the angry woman there on the right.

Comments

[Linkmeister]

Coulda been worse. She could have accused you of being one of them Homeland Security no-goods.

[julia]

At a guess, she's from elsewhere and she's hanging out in the meatpacking district because that's where the kind of person she's always seen herself as hangs out.

Ironically, that person has issues with people from elsewhere.

[Maria]

Nice.

--and welcome to her world. Not a fun place, was it?

(Hope you otherwise enjoyed your time in the city!)

[Jaquandor]

[Beavis and Butthead]

Heh heh. That sign says "Woody".

[/Beavis and Butthead]

[Rana]

That's the kind of reaction I'm always worried about when I'm out taking pictures - I think you handled it perfectly!

Some people are just crazy, ya know?

[Mike Schilling]

True story:

My second year of college, I took a philosophy class with a couple of friends. Introduction to epistemology, the standard Decartes, Hume, and Kant (the Prolegomena, not the Critique of Pure Reason, which would have been way over our heads.) Fascinating stuff for math and science majors who'd never thought about any of this before.

So three of us are sitting in my dorm room, arguing about whether the weirdnesses of relativity and quantum mechanics invalidate the Prolegomena's explanation of why physics seems intuitive, when a female friend knocks on the door. "What's the big discussion about?"

I tell her (in all innocence), "Oh, we're talking about Kant."

Some time after her abrupt departure, I tracked her down and explained the situation, but I don't think anything ever erased the vivid impression that moment had formed.

[Daniel]

I'm more curious about the dude who agreed with her. What was his deal? Was this just his way of not getting involved?

[muddy]

He was probably the server, trying to increase or at least preserve his tip.

[actor212]

Lance, this is the world of the New Yorker who can't afford to get out of town on Labor Day weekend.

They get stinking drunk and rowdy with the tourists.

Of course, you have some insight into why she can't afford to get out of town on Labor Day weekend now.

She was teasing you in her fashion, probably expecting you to be dumb enough to create a scene, so her date could "act like a man". You handled it well.

Next time, let me know you're in town. I'll be your lens sherpa/bodyguard, because nobody says anything to me.

[calling all toasters]

Dude, she's just an average New Yorker. Don't stand near the tracks when the subway's coming, if you know what I mean.

[Zach]

Lol for some reason that old Bill Murray line comes to mind --'Fuck off buddy, I'm a scientist.'

"Fuck off lady, I'm a tourist."

Easier said in retrospect of course, and of course she'd have been sure not to get the joke.