"Saw what?" the man demanded, squaring off now. "She your girlfriend?"
Farley hesitated. "She's my friend. She's a friend to all of us."
"Well, maybe my buddies and me would like to make her our friend, too." By now the "buddies" had taken a position behind him, clearly bracing for a fight.
Farley gestured to their table. "Why don't you come join us?" he said. "We can always use some new friends."
Ironically, Bette Midler's Friends was playing on the jukebox. "I can't believe they had that song," Melanie said later. "It seemed so appropriate for the occasion."
The men seemed taken aback by anything other than mounting hostility. The one provoking the situation looked over at the other Strange Brains and waved in disgust. "We don't sit with n*****s and Jews," he said, and stalked back
