Which story is better?
I was in the apartment next door on the phone and he wouldn’t let me talk to her.
About fourteen hours later he said, “Why do you want to talk with her?”
I said, “I just want to make sure she’s alright.”
He said, “Alright.”
She finally got on the phone. I said to her, “This is the police.”
She said, “Yeah?”
I said, “What is wrong with you! Shut up!”
“But he said…”
“I don’t care!” I was screaming. We’re not suposed to lose control like that, but I was screaming at her. “I don’t care what he said! Agree with anything he says! The idea is to get you and your child out of that apartment!”
“But he said…”
When she said that to me, I gott more crazy, and started just screaming at her. Finally, she started crying. It shook me that I lost control there. I backed down.
I said, “I’m sorry. Let’s agree with anything he says, because we’re not going to let him do all this stuff. Just agree so we can get him out.”
He put the gun down and started talking about coming out, saying, “When I get her, I’m going to do this.”
And she’d start, “No you’re not!” And then the fight would start all over again.
I finally talked him into coming out. Coming out came be very dangerous.
I told him that day, “you have to listen to everything I tell you to do. You can’t deviate because there are so many cops out in this hall and they all have guns.”
When they come out they can often seem quite calm, but when they see weapons all over they freak.
She just kept with the mouth. By the time this guy came out 14 hours had passed since it started. When he did I was screaming final instructions. We were in a housing project. -I knew on the phone he was mad at me the whole last hour.
He came out backwards, like I instructed. They handcuffed him. When he turned around he gave me such a violent look. I touched his arm, told him everything was going to be alright. He pulled away. He was MAD!
“I did this joke, saying, ‘If I can’t beat the guy up, I’d sue the bastard.’”
From the audience came a yell. “Hey, Jew-boy!”
In a beat the comic replied, “Listen, pal. I wouldn’t need my lawyer for you, OK? Knock it off.”
Again came the taunt, “Jew-boy!”
It was a hot moment as the comic turned to him, “You know, look at the size of you, you big Aryan man you. I’ll be honest with you. You’d probably kick the shit out of me. There’s really nothing I could do. And, yet, I feel bad for you, because I know that’s not somethng you learned in college, how to hate Jews. So it must be something you learned at home around the dinner table. Your father, working for a rich Jewish man, saying ‘Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew-boy’. Yeah, you’d kick the shit out of me.”
As the comic scanned the audience his eyes settled on a table of black students.
“Hey you black dudes out there! If he hates Jews, you know what he thinks about you guys. Would you take that shit? ” With their attention riveted on him, he asked, “Could you do me a favor? Will you escort this asshole out of here?”
“You got it, brother!” came the reply.
The black students stood up as a group of ten and turned to the taunter. One of them said, “Get your motherfucking ass out!”
“I said, ‘Thank you.’ They walked this guy right out the door. I called to him as he left, ‘Take it easy.’”