Not the Atari game

I was reading a Gregory Maguire book. I won't say which one; that would be telling. A man, perhaps 45 years old, with a shaved head and a bit of drunkenness, informed me that he had just been mugged. I did not care in the slightest. He then commented on the anthropomorphized animal depicted on the cover of my book, and went into some detail about the creature's inner thoughts. He was still boring the hell out of me.

Then he caught me off-guard. « You ever read the Foundation series? » he asked.

« Yeah, » I mumbled, wondering where this was going.

He proceeded to ramble on, inching closer and closer to me. Perhaps he thought that my name was Harry. It was not. The drunken spray of his saliva became more excited, and then he made his most impressive confession.

« I'm the Mule, » he announced confidently.

While I pondered this fact, he made sexual advances.

Luckily, Arkady Darrell and Bliss and that little hermaphrodite girl swung by and rescued me. Well, no; I only wish it had ended so well.