It was about one-thirty in the afternoon and I was eating lunch in midtown manhattan along with every other asshole stuck working in midtown manhattan. After I’d finished eating, I had planned on reading a book until I decided it was time to go back to work, but instead I watched a small Asian man rolling a large suitcase down the sidewalk try to sell a Black man eating lunch in the backseat of a car some mysterious pale green rectangular box that he pulled out of a tote bag.
“No thanks,” the Black man tells him, looking around suspiciously, as if this is part of some kind of set-up and there are dozens of cops just standing silently around the corner. The Asian man puts the box away, stares at him for less than one second, and then pulls it back out. He is smiling. I wonder about what. The Black man laughs, tries to explain that the Asian man has misunderstood. The Asian man nods, puts that box away and pulls out a smaller, tan box. Oddly, the Black man is interested in this item, but still looking around as if something very serious could happen any second. The Asian man puts it away, and pulls out the green box again. “No, no, no, man, the other one, the other one!” the Black man says.
He looked at it as if it was something he hadn’t seen in a long time, as if seeing it brought forth some long buried memory of something that he had once seen in passing.
The Black man asks about the price of the small tan box, still looking at it with a sense of wonderment. The Asian man names him a price he likes, the Black man stands up, pulls cash out of his pocket, and trades the cash for the box. The Asian man rolls away, out my view, the satisfaction of a good sale beaming from his face.
The Black man stares at the box as he finishes the sandwich he was eating. He opens it up, and pulls out a small glass bottle, filled with a golden liquid. Ambrosia? I think, unhumorously. He drinks most of the bottle’s contents in one long chug, and when he puts his hand down, it looks as if he’s chewing something, but he’s actually just swishing some of the liquid around in his mouth. He spits it out into the gutter. “Ewww,” I accidentally say aloud, quietly. He finishes the rest of the bottle. No swishing this time. He gets out of the car and throws away the box and bottle in the trashcan on the corner. He comes back to the car, pulls out a plastic bottle of apple juice, finishes that, too, rests the bottle on the armrest in the backseat, closes the door, and walks away.
Peculiar indeed, I thought. I considered calling someone to tell them how weird I thought this situation was, but instead I went back to work. Some Jewish holiday was coming up, so a lot of people didn’t come that day, or were leaving early, so I was allowed to leave early, too. Being a non-practicing Protestant sure has its advantages, I thought, irreverently.
It had been raining all day, but I decided to walk home to my apartment in Chinatown anyway while it was stopped. The air was thick with humidity and fog made the tops of buildings disappear and for a little while every building in new york city was the same size and we had nothing to be cocky about. The empire state building only looks good in profile, anyway. From the ground, it doesn’t look like shit.
1 Comment
October 28, 2008 at 9:35 am
maybe it was mouthwash, but he was thirsty the second time