July 16, 2013
Christopher Street, West Village, NYC
After a lovely evening with my dear friend Linda I walked her to the station back to New Jersey. Leaving her at the subway entrance I headed back to my own neighborhood.
In one short block I passed through several groups of flamboyant young men bedecked in short shorts and ribbons in their hair. Then, getting caught behind a very tall African American man in a sleeveless shirt I couldn't help but notice his incredible physique. He obviously works very hard at maintaining a very cut figure and shoulders that were defined and showed every fiber of the muscles.
Needing to pass I said, "Hello..."
Jumping aside as though electrocuted he cried in a high falsetto, "Didn't your Mother ever teach you not to talk to strangers?!?"
I tried to be cool since I apparently scared him and glanced at him with a friendly smile to assure him that he was not in danger but he was cowering toward a building and would not look my way.
Turning away from him I stepped toward the intersection just ahead. Coming toward me was a man struggling to run while carrying a woman in his arms. Her face was tucked into his chest.
"Open the door! Open the door!" he was yelling. I realized there was a waiting cab at the curb and stepped back to open the door and let them in. He yelled to the driver, "My wife is having a miscarriage!! We need to get to the hospital!"
I continued on my way invisible in their frightened despair.
Two more blocks and I was sitting at an old wooden bar listening to a Jazz Trio of drifting guitar and Senegalese rhythms.
I've thought of them all all day today.
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