Before Time Square NYC became a huge Disney logo, I had the pleasure of living there.  It was a fertile place – teaming with all kinds of wild subculture. There were porn theatres and strip clubs and little diners with sprawling counter tops and greasy short order cooks. Coffee came in one size and one flavor: COFFEE. There was laughter and menace and every raw emotion in between. NYC is the original concrete jungle.

One thing that caught my eye regularly: young Latino men walking around with something lump-like in the back pocket of their low-hanging Levis. Like a golf ball or something, hard, round and sticking out.  It was always a rather jarring element to their silhouettes.

So I asked my neighbor Jose what the deal was with the pocket packers.  He told me they weren’t golf balls, but limes.  Fresh ones. Carried by virile young men, so that when they’re in bed with a woman, they can squeeze the juice on her genitals.

WTF? Right?

It’s so that if she recoils in any kind of pain they know she has open sores or an infection.

Let’s see your iPhone do that.

Remember: this was shortly before any PR awareness of STD’s and AIDS but I’m guessing this is some kind of VERY old knowledge.

My first reaction was—-Damn. Fucking animals.

My second reaction was—-Wait, these motherfuckers are smart…Law of the Jungle smart.

Don’t give me any shit about rubbers here. Remember.  This was pre AIDS and consenting adults with animalistic sexual attractions. Good shit.  The female knows her safe time of the month and the male no more wants to wear a rubber than Yo Yo Ma wants to wear mittens playing the cello.

Meanwhile, forty blocks downtown, some knuckle head with glasses and a briefcase is banging his secretary or picking up a hooker and then taking some serious jungle cooties back to his pampered wife in Connecticut. Stupid civilized asshole is not going to make it in the jungle.