Marching with the transsexual, gay, non-binary, and transvestite members of the feared MS-12.5 gang (who wear pin berets) whose leaf blowers and rainbow painted machetes glinted in the early morning sun peeking through the New York skyscrapers onto the famous protest site Union Square, Latinas from Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica shouted through bullhorns: "No Respecto, No Puta."
The early morning noises of New Yorkers getting on buses, subways, ubers, taxis, and e-bikes traveling at 50 miles per hours in bike lanes through red lights with riders delivering loads of Zabar's bagels, bialies, locks, and knishes to the Upper East and West Sides--riders who can't speak anything but Spanish, but whose favorite movie is "West Side Story," and keep all the orthopedic hospitals and orthopedists earning tons of money and eating at Delmonicos when they aren't driving out to the Hamptons with their mistresses for the weekend in their Mercedes.
The Senoritas, Latinas, Chicanas (most of whom identified somewhere in the sexual alphabet of LGBTQ+) kept chanting "No Respecto. No Puta" as altacockers in yarmulkes asked each other if that was Yiddish.
Above the crashes and screams that followed elderly women, with bones as hollow as a poltican's promises, being crashed into by drivers on 200 pound bikes carrying the best kosher delicacies--bikers who can't read safety or traffic signs in any language singing "Everything's Free in America" and still sporting a woodie from last night's rerun with Natalie Wood and Chita Rivera--were New School, NYU, Columbia University, and Hunter College students pouring into the streets and joining the chant in solidarity: "No Respecto, No Puta."
As Puerto Rican mothers pushed their babies enjoying their first bottles of cokes of the day, Chinese men rushing onto the subways after grabbing their first teas and warm bean buns between the night shifts they've just come off on their way to their day jobs saving for their children to go to the nation's top universities after earning a straight A average at Bronx Science or Stuyvesant and getting 800 on the SATs and conducting original research on some subatomic particle that has MIT professors awed only to realize that Affirmative Action will stop their kids admission to Harvard or Stanford like last year's bird flu, Jewish mothers wondered how long it would be until all NYC's special high schools were made "open admission" like City College was in the 1970s.
"Worked real well at City College," said one woman dragging her cart with bags full of food from Fine Fare to another.
"Oy," the second responded carrying the day's first corn rye and bialies from Russ and Daughter's with a mint tea iced donut the size of a Volkswagen tire, such a deal that was. "May the putz who put the city colleges on open admission inherit a hotel with a thousand rooms and die in every one of them. I remember during those years that a graduate from a yeshiva who knew the Torah like the back of his hand, but couldn't tell the difference between kasha and wontons wandered into an advanced physics test, was given an exam paper, aced it and got into CalTech. He's some kind of big shot now at NASA, married a shiksa, blond, blue eyes (you know the whole Jewish boy wet dream)--won't work out--this girl buys bread that falls apart if you just look at it, never had pastrami, and think's that when her poor husband says he misses Gus's big pickle he's a fagela. Oy vey, what would my grandmother who came here from Bialystock say? All these gentiles our children are marrying."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," the second woman said as she continued checking her watch to make sure that she wasn't so late in getting back to her 50 story building that one elevator would soon become the shabbat elevator stopping on every floor until Saturday night. "Everything's such a mess in this country. My son in law in Florida, the podiatrist, he's afraid that that crazy goy governor is going to outlaw circumcision because he thinks it's some kind of sex change procedure. Oy vey
what's next? These politicians are messing everything up. When are we going to have a Jew in the White House? I mean we've had some great gentiles, like FDR, but what I really worry about is what kind of bread they're eating in the Oval Office? They don't a corn rye from Idi Amin! Not like my mamala's bread, I'm sure. I'll bet the President thinks a 'challah' is a New Yorker's word for yelling. Oy vey, what do we do if we get a Jewish president, and the kitchen doesn't make the White House kosher? Oh those last few presidents and all that fast food they were eating, no matzoh ball soup, just cheeseburgers, bacon and egg breakfast sandwiches--enough to make my grandfather the Rabbi, bless his soul, in his grave in Lithuania, may he Rest In Peace, roll over in his grave! Do you know that I once passed Eleanor Roosevelt walking down to the subway near Washington Square? Now there was a lady who should have been President. She knew who she was and wasn't afraid of nothing. These politicians don't know from nothing!"
"I've got to get over to Economy Candy soon; my grandson in New Jersey loves their Turkish roll. He's such a sweet boy, always studying, always studying. Takes piano too. Oh, I'm so thankful that's he's too busy to be confused about what he was born with between his gatkes. These girls and boys now, so much confusion. What's the big problem?
You're born a boy, you're a boy. You're born a girl, you're a girl. Does Macy's ask Bloomingdale's? Now my sister-in-law, Esther, the accountant's wife, she gone now bless her soul, may she Rest In peace, rest, her son comes home from medical school and says, 'Hey ma, I'm getting married.' 'That's wonderful who's the lucky girl? He pauses and says, "I'm not marrying a girl.' Now it's her turn to pause, and after a while says, 'Is he Jewish?' 'Of course, ma, what kind of person do you think I am?' 'Well, that's okay then. Let's start the invitations this weekend, and plan the menu. We've got to have that whitefish they catered at your cousin's wedding."
"Sounds like everything worked out, great," responded the first. "Why everybody is so worked up about what they are, want to be, think they are, who does what with who. Oh, my aunt Miriam, buried in a small town outside Vienna before the war, bless her soul, may she rest in peace, now she was a Mensch. All this pronoun stuff: they, them, me, you, him, her. Oy Vey! Miriam was a great teacher, but she never would have put up with this bathroom craziness! Boys who want to watch girls shower, and get away with it by saying something about "binary" or "non-binary" or "trans" or whatever. Why if a boy when I was in high school walked into the girl's locker room when I was taking a shower, I would have killed him. No, that's crazy. Now my Simon, bless his soul, may he rest in peace he was my first. I called him my big kishka because he was so well endowed (hung like a horse)--Oy could he send me to the moon. Every Saturday morning while the kids were still asleep. Well you don't want to hear about all that!
"No problem," said the second woman, "By the way, what's your name? I'm Betty." "My name's Lois. It's nice to meet you." said the first. Hey, I've got a joke I think that crazy goy down in Tallahassee would like: What do you call a Jewish baby who isn't circumcised? A girl! That just cracks me up. I learned it from my Uncle Louis, bless his soul, may he Rest In peace. By the way what's this march and all this stuff in Union Square this morning. The bullhorns terrified my cat and now she'll hide between my mattress and box springs the rest of the day--we'll at least until she smells the glatt kosher chicken I'm bringing home."
"Well it goes like this, Lois. These marchers are fed up with all this, 'grab 'em by the you know what business.' So they rounded up all the people from the housing project by the river, all these university kids, and whoever wanted to join them to protest. The guys are these trans something gay guys from this fierce south of the border gang MS whatever. Usually they're on this big macho thing, but they're from the--whatever those letters "LGsomethingQ+. Anyway, such a deal, the machetes I can deal with, but the leaf blowers have left me deaf. Bertha, my friend across the hall, she came outside into the path of a leaf blower and broke her hip. Blew her right off her feet--poor gal and she's been taking Prolia since I don't know when. Still isn't feeling much better. Tried to look up the company the guy worked for, but they're out of business. I guess your familiar with them. Anyway these girls aren't going to "put out" as my granddaughter says until they get more respect. Well, No Respecto, No Puta to you whatever that means. Shabbat Shalom and great meeting you.
The women parted, but the marchers were now occupying Union Square and eating all kinds of free food from the Caribbean market on Delancy.
One butch looking Latina got to the raised platform in the middle of the square and began a shout and call back:
"What do straight muchachos want?"
"Puta," shouted the crowd.
"What are they gonna get?"
"Nada" shouted the crowd.
This went on for about half an hour until every Chicano in the five boroughs heard it and got woodies like the poor guys in Lysistrata.
A couple of undocumented Guatemalans sitting on a park bench nearby looked like they'd just seen Sheriff Arapaio.
One said to the other, "Not going to be much of a weekend man--those Senoritas are cutting off our Cohones, man. I've been blowing all week and now I was really looking forward to one of those Chiquitas playing a tune on my burrito."
"Yeah, man," the second said. "These Latinas come to this country and hang out with these gringa chicks, and the next thing it's harder to get puta than a green card."
"Es verdad," the first responded. "Back in Caracas, man s**t I was getting more puta than there were immigrants swimming the Rio Grande. Those Chiquitas were ringing my bells and making my burrito happier than a Chicano driving a taxi. By the way have you seen "West Side Story?"
"Oh yeah, man," the second said, "but those are Puerto Ricans. They don't have to do nothing to stay in this country, but their chicks are hot--must be all the coke they drink as babies. Some s**t about the Spanish-American War got them a free pass to hang with these gringos and not need papers or jobs or anything. They just living the life with these Americanos. Never had to swim the Rio Grande, hide out in the dessert, pay a coyote. How does a Latino get so lucky?'
They talked for a while as the crowd broke up and the MS-12 pink berets made their plans for the evening.
Two of them headed off to Chelsea where most of the non-binary Latinos and transsexuals hang out at a drag queen bar.
The queens were hot there, and the drinks were great.
Lots of warm tortilla chips on the table, and the bathrooms were big enough to get all the action you wanted (free KY).
The ICE officers never came in--except the gay ones, and everyone knew them anyway from crossing the border.
The police who stopped by were hotter than Port Authority in July and great with their handcuffs.
The billy clubs and tazers rocked if you were into S and M so all was bueno.
One Latino at the bar remarked to the other, "It's great to be gay isn't it. All that no puta stuff. Who wants it, anyway. I get all the corn hole I want here and don't have to deal with any politics. Have you tried "tea bagging?"
"Yeah man," said the other, "but it scares me a little because it makes me think of the Tea Party and all loco Arapaio crazies who want to send us back. Would would happen to all the grass if we weren't here, and who would bring in all the illegal drugs? Well sure we kill all their grass and their roofs leak like a President giving a Russian model a golden shower in Moscow, but it's all bueno."
"Yeah, man, these f*****g gringos don't do s**t. Where would they be without us? Let's get our own movement going: 'No Respecto, No Corn Hole,' that will shake everybody up."
Fill in the Rio Grande, Mr. Gorbachev and tear down that wall!
