Strange Criminal vs. Old Indian Lady

Scene of the crime.

So I’m back in LA until Sunday, and drove by my favorite Indian restaurant “Gate of India.” I had to stop and snap a pic, because last year the greatest thing happened here.

I was eating a late lunch, and I hear tapping on the glass which looks out into the street. So I look over, and there’s a man beckoning for me to come outside. I shake my head “no” and go back to my Aloo Gobi.   The man walks around the building and comes in, walks right up to my table (I’m the last patron left in the restaurant) and sits down.

“You want some food?” I asked.

“Nah. I just got out of San Quentin, you know, and I’m just here scopin’ out the neighborhood.”

I’m a little intimidated, and to make myself seem tough I lie.

“Yeah, that’s tough man. My brother’s doin’ 3-5 in Rikers, back in New York.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah, it sucks. You sure you don’t want some of this food?”

The man stands up, and walks over to the front counter where an elderly 5′1″ Indian hostess is looking at a Punjabi magazine. The man puffs out his chest and clenches his fists.

“Give me all the money! All the money!”

The old lady closes her magazine, and puts it down behind that podium every restaurant has in their entrance. She looks up at him and shrugs one shoulder.

“No.”

“You understand me? I said I want ALL THE MONEY!”

She sighs. “No.”

At this point I’m standing with a table knife in my hand, and the two Hispanic kitchen workers come out to see what the raucous is about. Unarmed and outnumbered, the man looks at me, the kitchen workers, then at the old lady, and we all stand there motionless, in silence, for a good 10 seconds.

“FUCK!” The man spins around and runs out the door.

“Do you want to call the police? I can be a witness.” I ask the old lady.

“No.”