The Subway Stare Down

I've been accused of staring at people in the subway before. I always intend to read and mind my own business but sometimes I am just too tired. I blank out and I stare.

I look and look until the person across from me crosses his or her eyebrows and gives me the silent NY diss "Whatchuwant? Huh?" Then I wake up and pick someone else and then someone else. I continue until the doors are about to jam close and I need to dart out.

This time though, I got stared. I looked up and pulled away. She did too! She opened her book, turned to where she had left off. But then looked up again, curious, forcing her mind to match my face to someone she knew. Did I know her from some...place? She...looked...familiar... As we pulled from Delancey into Brooklyn, I placed her! She had the Moroccan gift shop I loved to frequent on Court Street.

I used to go into her store, Kasbah, stare, stare and touch and play with everything in sight--jewelry, rugs, painted glasses, ornate shelves, goat skin lamp shades. I loved these exotic escapades. Then I would buy the token of the day: a small tin lamp like Aladdin's or a blue tea glass and say farewell until we met again the following weekend.

She moved her shop: first to Red Hook, then to East Village. It's called Timbuktu now. It has a wider variety of gifts and relics. For some reason, Timbuktu is more accessible for the American crowd than a Moroccan Kasbah.

I smiled at her. She remembered too. She smiled back, nodding her head; miming "How are you?"

"Off to Red Hook?"
"Yes," she said.
"Same place?"
"Yes," she said.

I smiled and looked down. She returned to her book. I decided to stare at the baby in the stroller -- the one on the left.