New York City: Shoot the Freak

A few weeks ago, after traveling to Houston for U2 and the Festival of Meat, I journeyed northeast to New York City, where I once lived for about a year and a half about five years back. I stayed with two of my best friends from Harding, Adam and Maria, who have a sweet apartment in a mafia-controlled neighborhood in Brooklyn (great Italian restaurants around there). From their back window you can see the Verazanno Narrows Bridge linking Brooklyn and Staten Island, and from the front you can just glimpse the Statue of Liberty.
As I've said before, New York is my favorite city ever. There are very few American cities that are unique, that have such an individual flavor that you could not mistake it for anywhere else (and yes, while I love Nashville to death, I wouldn't put it on that list). I love NYC's diversity, its energy, its architecture. When I come home from a visit to NYC and get asked what I did while I was there, there are inevitable looks of disappointment with my answer. I don't really do anything touristy up there. I mainly enjoy walking around and exploring the streets of Manhattan. I discover so many new things each time. On every block there's a new restaurant/bar/store to try or explore, something that gets put on a list in the back of my head that probably will never be fulfilled.
I love the freakiness of the East Village. I love wandering through Washington Square, and am always secretly disappointed if I'm not at least once asked if I want to buy illegal substances. I'll usually wander through the maze of the West Village, the only part of Manhattan Island not on a grid system, then over toward Union Square and The Strand. Uptown, Central Park is probably my favorite place in the city. It is such a beautiful oasis of green after the grime and gray (and odors) of the rest of the city. I'll start on the east side at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and meander southwest to Columbus Circle. From there it is on down Broadway to Times Square, a crush of neon and people that unfortunately becomes more homogenized with each visit (Applebee's? You come to NYC to eat at Applebee's?).

Anyway, on a Saturday, it was unseasonably warm and sunny for November so Adam, Maria, their two obscenely cute children Manassah Grace and Jasper (ages 2 and 3-4 months respectively), and I decided to head over to Coney Island for the day. We spent the morning at the New York Aquarium (fantastic aquarium, by the way), had Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs for lunch, and strolled the boardwalk. Even though it was very springlike (thanks global warming!), since it was still November most of the attractions and amusements were shut down for the winter. However, one of the only games open on the boardwalk that day was Shoot the Freak.
This a picture of Shoot the Freak. The basic concept of shooting the freak is you get a high-powered rifle filled with paintballs. In front of you, in a debris-strewn lot, stands a man dressed in padded clothing and wearing a faceshield. He is the freak, whom you get to shoot. No skill involved.
A carny guy with a thick Brooklyn accent stands at the front with a megaphone enticing passersby:
"Come on up and shoot the freak! He's defenseless, you have a gun! What could be more fun than that?!"
I listened to the carny guy while behind me the kids played on the syringe and glass-shard strewn beach. About this time a couple with about a ten year old boy walked by:
"Hey dad! Let your kid come and shoot the freak! I'll give him a gun and he can shoot the freak in the face, what could be more American than that?"
Of course with a sales pitch like that, the father couldn't refuse, so he forked over the money (five dollars for fifteen shots if I remember correctly), and the boy shouldered the rifle. I walked over to watch, curious to see what the Freak would do. I guess I expected the Freak to make a game out of it, to run around, or at least hide behind some trash. However he just stood there in clear sight and let the kid shoot him at about a ten foot range. Maybe he felt he had to give the kid a clean shot.
"Fantastic, kid! What a great shot, you got him right in the head!"
The kid smiled and put down the gun. The dad, looking a bit embarrassed, took him by the shoulder and walked away. I wasn't sure what to think. The carny turned his attention to a group of about three teenage girls:
"Come on girls and shoot the freak! You're armed, he's defenseless. Its all-American!"

A short time later the kids were tired so it was time to head home. As I mentioned a little earlier, M.G. and Jasper are obscenely cute kids, and, after much begging and pleading from their parents, I took some pictures of them to post to prove that fact. Unfortunately, the next morning we walked a couple of blocks over to watch the NYC marathoners run by, and I used the rest of my film on them. The pictures of the children are still in my camera, as yet undeveloped. But rest assured, they are coming. Someday.