My Story of Distraction

Because I simply cannot function at the moment, I'm going to retell to you the story, "Samson and Tedronai and the Mystical Juggalo Tranny."

Elan and I were having our rehearsal in the back of Cafe Marmalade, outdoors under the tin roof where the smokers smoke. The sun was sort of beaming through in a nice way between the parked cars around us. The temperature was mild, but still warm, and it seemed like it would be a nice quiet place, where we wouldn't bother anyone smoking, nor would they bother us. So we sat. We had our guitars and a set of bongos, a tambourine, even a little shaker with "UNITY" emblazoned upon it. Not only were we obviously the kind of granola-eating indie kids who would practice their love songs behind a locally owned Cafe, we were borderline hippie. It's a shame we didn't play a Mamas and the Papas song, and then take a major hit off a "peace pipe."

We would sometimes take breaks between songs to talk about the added percussion, or bring up a non-sequitur story. It was on one of these breaks that we looked over and heard this:

"IF YOU GIT HIT BAY A CAR, IT AIN'T MAH FAULT."

Wha-wha-what?

The vignette accompanying this gem was as such. Two people, I think with dwarfism, in wheeled chairs, rolling across the slightly hillish parking entrance to the Cafe, of their own accord. A silver station wagon stopping before them. A man, in a leather jacket and something resembling either sheer gauchos or a black linen skirt, calling this phrase out to them, and almost chasing after them in the way he completely disregarded the silver station wagon.

Elan and I exchanged a look like, "Seriously?" Both of us couldn't believe our ears. We wrote it off as the strangest thing we'd both ever heard, and got back to our conversation. Some small amount of time passed, and these people came to sit near the ashtrays and smoke, and this man, this strange man, started rolling his own cigarette.

I should note to you that this man was only half in drag. Only half. He was wearing a skirt and he had makeup on. It was poorly put on, too. Badly outlined lipstick, a poorly coordinated shade of green eyeshadow.

The mystical juggalo tranny would speak to us in non-sequiturs. Sort of. The first thing he said to us was that he bet he could play a song the both of us didn't even know. We exchanged a look, said "probably," and tried to just ignore him without being jerks. He seemed like he was trying to one-up us. Like he was trying to get us to leave, when if it was that dire a situation to him, he could always have gone to the front of the Cafe, because that is also a designated spot for the use of tobacco products. 

He went on about how he could play musical instruments and we, being naive, thought that he was speaking to the handicapped woman, not us. Apparently he really, really wanted our attention. 

The next strange thing he said to us was, "Hey. I can do an impression, wanna hear it?" Elan and I just wanted to be as polite as possible. We didn't want to start shit with this guy. We did the only thing we could to make him leave. We invited him to do his impression. This guy then, oh my God, it was the strangest thing. He stood up and started prowling the parking area, giving us the occasional laser-looks and, with a gruff voice, said some stream of threatening things. I thought maybe he was for realsies threatening us. 

But he wasn't. He asked if he knew who he was mimicking. Neither Elan nor I knew. We told him we were puzzled and as a hint, he told us it was a wrestler. Still nothing. Elan and I don't look like the kind of people who watch wrestling. We're indie kid hippies. The mystical juggalo tranny eventually told us, after trying to coax the answer out of us by giving us obscure hints like, "was featured in Spider-Man." Nudge, nudge. Elbow. Elbow.

Every encounter with this man was exactly that strange. Whether he was telling us about his dexterity on musical instruments, or explaining his multi-ethnic heritage, we had the uncomfortable feeling beneath our bums that this man would knife us if we didn't say exactly the right things.

Which was extremely hard to do when we were holding back laughter.

The real coup de gras was the statement made by this man, stalking back and forth like a nervous cat, having walked away from the area for many minutes and returned. He asked us, "Hey. Do you know who we're at war with right now?" Um. No. Yes. What's the question? We told him yes, Iraq, and he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Iraq. And do you know where my great-grandfather's from?" Is it Iraq? It was.

He then said this, which was basically the cherry atop my week:

"But I ain't tellin' no one cause if the government finds that out? They're gonna throw my ass back over there."