macho behavior has a purpose, such defending your village from being sacked by Visigoths

Last night after seeing the late showing of Harry Potter, I found myself on the 6 train sitting near -- not next to, but near -- a drunk old bum* who, in his loud, lengthy ramblings, declared me his girlfriend and called me a variety of female names (Carolyn! Deborah! Heather!) in an attempt to get me to look at him.

At first the ranting was downright jolly, interspersed with a continuous chuckling and an occasional belly-laugh, as though whatever he was talking about was truly the most humorous thing that had happened in weeks. Eventually, however, the ranting became more belligerent, but by that point we were on the express run between 86th St. and 125th St. -- the long stretch right before I get off the train -- and I started eyeing the other passengers, deciding in my head which ones would come to my assistance should the crazy man attack me.

At that point I realized I was glad I lived in Harlem and was sitting in the train car with eight full-grown, mostly middle-aged Hispanic men, most of whom I think would intervene in the case of attack-by-crazy-man. If such a thing happened on the L train, the willowy tattooed boys would just take cameraphone pictures of me getting stabbed, and then maybe one of them would write a poem about seeing a woman die on the L and read it at a Spuyten Duyvil open mic, which would, like, totally get him laid, because he's all sensitive and stuff.

* Asian people are currently underrepresented in the bum population, but maybe this guy should count double.