"I hate everybody equally," he often declared, after bashing ever racial and ethnic group in town. It soon becomes apparent to everyone within earshot that he meant that he hated everybody for all of the above reasons rather than in spite of them.

Rico is definitely not a bashful man. He has a bold temperament conducive to the stentorian exercise of free speech in Spanish or English, hence his views are broadly disseminated and understood wherever he happens to be.

Rico heaps with great relish discriminatory remarks on everyone that can be stereotypically distinguished, which is, for all practical purposes, everyone. Yet he is well liked by most of those distinguished people. They do not take his remarks personally. They appreciate the fact that the liberal aspersions cast indiscriminately on their respective kinds have been created equally. Somehow his derogatory remarks cancel each other out.

Besides, Rico is a gregarious man living in a very crowded city where detractions, although suppressed at work, have a high street value, a value made even higher by their prohibition at the workplace. And, mind you, this is a city where witty jokes are spontaneously emitted on the news of heartrending tragedies. Absent normal tragic occasions to make a joke, New Yorkers usually find something else to laugh at, including themselves if they are cynical enough.

Nevertheless, when Rico came down especially hard at the top of his lungs on a particular type one Saturday morning at the laundromat, I began to have serious reservations about the pluralism of his prejudice. He was, in my opinion, placing undue emphasis on a certain nationality that he has cast for a crucial role in his fondest dream of retirement, an urban idyll he was so kind to share with me while the dryers were spinning.

When he retires, he said, he shall perform a singular vigilante service for all the people he hates equally; to wit: he shall drive by phone booths at night and shoot Dominican drug dealers doing business there, free of charge and with much pleasure. I inquired whether or not killing Russian or Mexican drug dealers instead of Columbian dealers would be an equally suitable retirement hobby. After a few caustic remarks appertaining to those distinguished nationalities, he insisted on Dominicans as his ideal target, an insistence that seemed to give the lie to his frequent declaration of universal hatred.

"But what about hating everybody equally? " I asked.

"Only until I retire. Then things will be different," he replied without a moment''s hesitation.

Upon further questioning, Rico explained that his son, who used to be a cop, accidentally shot himself in the genitals when drawing his gun during a drug bust of a notorious Domincan gang. He started drinking heavily and lost his job. His marriage failed shortly thereafter, and he committed suicide.