Natural Ass

Living in a wonderful honeycomb of a city like Manhattan, The Leopard can't help but occasionally witness some strange things.

I was standing outside my office chatting with coworkers one warm summer afternoon last week when we all witnessed what is a fairly familiar sight in these parts: a young woman, possibly homeless, possibly schizophrenic, walking past us at a brisk pace down the sidewalk of our building raving aloud and screaming slurred obscenities. This alone wouldn't have necessarily interrupted our socializing, until, out of the corner of our eyes, this young girl of perhaps 25 to 35 began to strip.

Off went her blouse, which revealed a crisp white bra beneath (not what you'd expect a homeless person to own) and then moments later, while still on a determined path, off went her maroon skirt, under which there was no crisp anything.

The effect of this woman's dark brown bottom in full view,
in the unusually bright sun in the middle of the afternoon, was profoundly disconcerting, even dream-like, in contrast to the fully clothed surrounding hordes of business people, taxis, and tourists. People stopped whatever conversations they were having on their cellphones to gawk or report, and the door man in front of a ritzy hotel where she finally paused to continue her rant almost swallowed his taxi whistle. Parents covered the eyes of children, and traffic almost came to a violent halt.

And all over a natural ass.