Everyone was congregated there on the corner, eyes transfixed, as if watching a fire. Or perhaps, something more amusing and less frightful — fireworks or an airshow.

From the looks of it, an Arab cabbie and a black courier had one of the myriad fender benders that come with their profession’s shared desire to test the limits of space, that is — “Can I fit my car/bike into that space?”

It was harmless, a couple of 40 year olds all puff chested and churlish. That is, until the cabbie spit, quite inneffectively, at the courier. The cab driver found sanctuary in his driver seat before the courier could return the favor. So the courier mustered all of the phlegm and saliva he could bring to bear and desposited it on the cabbie’s passenger window. The resulting mess slid slowly down the glass, leaving a trail.

Two would-be passengers approached the cab looking to go uptown. It takes a special type of cluelessness to get into a cab with spittle making it’s way down the window and a driver who is actively engaged in a shouting match with another man on the street.

They opened the door and got in.

The cabbie, was naturally surprised to see that he had somehow managed to get a fare. This was nothing to lose a fair over. He began to pull away.

The courier, sensing that he could get the last word in, pulled along side of the cab as it got stuck at the light some 10 feet from the original scene. Did he insult the cabbie’s mother, his race, his manhood? Perhaps some combination of the three? The cabbie leaped from his car - fares still in the back seat - and proceeded after the courier.

There were fisticuffs to be sure, but not the well orchestrated thrusts and parrys that we have come to expect would come naturally if we ever did find ourselves in a fight. Thank god mankind has technology because if the human race had to survive with the fighting skills that these two exhibited, the world would be run by penguins.

The fight spilled into the street as cars dodged the madness. Then another yellow cab swerved across 2 lanes and parked, blocking traffic. Another cab driver coming to protect his colleague? Dumb and dumber - the two fares - with a narcissim heretofore unknown to humankind, exited their driverless vehicle and attempted to enter the cab blocking traffic.

A slight, white woman cabdriver emerged from the cab. She proceeded to scream at the awkwardly flailing cab driver in the middle of the street:

“Get back in your car!”

The Arab cab driver stops, confused.

“Get back in your car! You are representing the City of New York. You should know better!”

The Arab cabbie, looking slightly ashamed, got into his recently emptied cab. The black courier retrieved his bike from the pavement. The white lady got back into her car, and drove off with the two fares hellbent on getting to midtown.

You just can’t keep a good frog down.

I just want you all to know that Chris Rock and I squashed our beef after his inflamatory remarks last week. If you missed it, Chris took a dig at me recently, saying:

“What straight black man sits there and watches the Oscars?”

In our talks, a summit of sorts (which incidentally, was moderated by the Reverend Jesse Jackson) Chris assured me that his reference to my sexuality was meant only to drum up ratings for the show. He admitted it was a low blow. I accepted his overture, and offered up as an olive branch an apology for the time that I invoked Chris as proof that women will overlook anything in a man if he has enough money.