Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me(44)

“Really?”

By her expression, it was almost as if I’d offended her by asking if she’d really meant it. “Of course!” she insisted.

I told Pauline that this had happened to me before—actually, twice before, on the street, in New York. She didn’t look impressed—or surprised, for that matter.

She found a pen in her purse and retreated to the corner. The other woman and I talked while Pauline wrote. Sometimes I looked over at her and she would stare back at me with great concentration, almost viciousness, more like an animal hunting than like someone writing something. Finally, perhaps twenty minutes later, she rejoined our little table, and presented to me my poem, written on the back of a flyer, and over the din in the bar, and the round of drinks I had just bought, she read it to me: the choice

you made,

just to accept

that you don’t

know

though you

read, think, talk

is the best

decision you

ever made

because since

then

you enjoyed

people

life

a drink

kind of

you learned

to love life.



Pauline

_____________________

11-2-14:

Back home: I dropped by Ali’s at about 9:00 on my way to grab something to eat. I almost didn’t go in; he had four or five customers in the store. We said our hellos—“Hello, Sir”—and I told him I’d head back and look at the magazines. As I stood back there, I overheard a young sort of hippie couple ask Ali a few questions about lotto tickets and then, to my surprise (because they didn’t look like they had a lot of money), ask Ali for $100 worth. He made the sale. They left. The store was still crowded when a young man wandered in, looked around a bit, and said to Ali, “What do you sell here?”

“What do you mean what do I sell? What does it look like I sell?”

The young man looked back at him as if waiting for a different answer. Then he turned and quickly ducked out the door. I put down my magazine and walked toward the counter. “That was weird,” I said, “do you get that often?”

“What don’t I get?” Ali said.

The store was cleared out now but for one guy buying lotto tickets. On seeing me standing near him, Ali said right away, “This is the guy—the newspaper story. This is the guy I told you about.”

“You’re the one who wrote the story about Ali for the Times?” the other man said.

“I am. Did you see it?” I put out my hand and we shook.

“Of course I saw it,” he answered, “this guy was so excited about it—” he pointed to Ali, who was beaming, but then he added sarcastically, “You were way too kind.”

I asked what he meant.

“He’s not nearly that nice to everyone—definitely not to me, and I’ve been coming here six or seven years.” He had a smile on his face as he spoke, and I could tell he was poking fun, but he meant what he saying, too. The man was a little older than me, maybe late-fifties, tough-looking. “We’ve had some big arguments, Ali and I,” he said, “believe me, you were way too kind.”

“Arguments about what? What are you talking about?”

He rolled his eyes. “You name it: religion, politics. I’m not going to say any more—it might end up in the Times, right?”

Ali laughed at this. “That’s right—in the next article. Be careful what you say.”

I felt uncomfortable and wanted to change the topic. I asked him about lotto tickets—if he buys them every day, and so on. The man was holding a wad of cash. He looked defensive. “Yeah, every day.” Again he said that thing about not wanting to say more—it might end up in the Times. He and Ali picked up the thread of this topic and talked back and forth. Meanwhile, I pulled my camera out of my pocket; I don’t know what came over me. Suddenly I had this idea that I wanted a picture of Ali. “Ali? Can I …? Can I take your picture?” I said in a pause in the conversation.

“No,” he said sincerely, with a wave of a finger.

“He won’t let you take his picture,” the other man said, “I’ve tried, I’m a photographer.” He looked at me. “It’s a Muslim thing.”

Ali immediately took umbrage. “It’s not a Muslim thing! I tell you that. You don’t listen. I never say ‘It’s a Muslim thing.’ That’s not right.”

“What are you talking about? Just the other day, when I tried to take a picture in here, you said, ‘No, Muslims can’t do that.’”

“No, I don’t say that. I say, ‘It’s against Islam.’ All of Islam: Someone take a picture of you, it’s not right—it’s lifeless—like a sculpture, it’s lifeless.”

Words were coming fast but it was as if I pressed pause on Ali’s words: It’s lifeless; a photo is lifeless. I looked him in the eye, and nodded respectfully. All the while, the other man was yammering on. I cut in at one point and tried to lighten the mood. I told Ali that was fine, I absolutely understood, and that I always ask people first if I can take their picture. I found my Instagram page on my phone and handed my phone to Ali to take a look. He squinted his eyes just a bit, and began scrolling through the pictures. He stopped now and then, nodded. “Good, very good,” he muttered.