Gypo, Mike, a Chicken and Me.

The night before Christmas the temperature had dropped to about 5-degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was howling in what seemed like every direction at once. It was howling down north off a bend in the river, and then, once bent, it howled in from the east and hit me cross-ways. It seemed to spin me around like I was a dervish with vertigo.

I dressed against the chill in a hunting jacket my parents gave me some thirty years ago. I never liked it but can't get rid of things that have a purpose.

It's a bright red woolen jacket crammed with synthetic fiberfill. It even has elasticized cartridge holders in the deep front pockets in case some sort of spell comes over me and I suddenly decide to start hunting grouse. I even put on a down-filled baseball cap with elephantine earflaps and a muff-like object that shrouded my neck better than any scarf ever could.

I was dressed that way because I had volunteered to brave the cold and run about a mile uptown to buy a superbly spiced chicken from a Peruvian restaurant that's so busy they take hours to deliver a bird to your home. So, we ordered ahead and up I Siberia'd uptown to pick up our dinner.

In the dark and the howl and the cold of the night before Christmas, the city was as empty as a plutocrat's heart. Walking uptown I think I saw only two or three other people. Walking back home, Peruvian chicken in hand I saw no one and heard only the whoosh of the swirling winds. It was a night where it seemed like the winds were speaking directly to me. "You idiot," they howled. "Why are you out tonight. Go curl up with a hardcover woman and a softback book."

I thought of a scene from one of my favorite movies, The Informer, directed by the unsurpassed John Ford. In it, the great Victor McLaglen was tailed by a "wanted" poster he rips down like I was tailed by that malevolent wind. I walked through the chill, the wind following me like that poster followed McLaglen's Gypo Nolan, and I felt just as tough, or almost as tough, since no one was as tough as Gypo.

Through the night, I walked listening behind me for footsteps belonging to a knife belonging to a mugger. I did what New Yorkers of my vintage had taught themselves to do as survival 101. If someone grabs me from behind, how can I annihilate them? Back in 1977, at Columbia at 3AM one morning I was attacked and beat away my assailant with a hard-cover copy of Defoe's "Moll Flanders," swung like David with a tote bag swung his sling at Goliath.

All I had with me was a chicken cut into eighths, some red beans, saffron rice and my wife's avocado salad. Still I thought of Gypo Nolan from The Informer, but more I thought of Ralph Meeker who played Mike Hammer in Mickey Spillane's "Kiss Me Deadly." The man knew how to defend himself, even if the only weapon he had with him was a box of popcorn. 

I thought about swinging that bird against an assault should someone sneak up on me, shiv in hand. I listened for footsteps above those coyote winds. I was ready to give whoever asked for it the husky smack of a grilled breast in the kishkas.

In any event, the chicken and I made it home just fine. I hung up my old hunting jacket and my down cap and dug into the bird.

In all, I've made it through another night, another day in the city, and another chicken.

Oh, and another year of not flipping the bird.