Today’s forecast was workday with a chance of rain. The umbrella bumping against my thigh every third step was my defense. Probably overkill but, if the skys open up, 12 blocks and I’ll have mildew on my Armani suit jacket and, it’s really tought to launder. I walk with complacency. I stand in line at a street corner, obediently awaiting traffic’s slow crawl. That is when I notive the vendor. I am halfway through the rapid mental appraisal when a comically thick accent cuts through my concentration like a car horn.
“They’re magic you know.”
The man’s gold tooth glinting in the morning haze was all that stood between him and medieval Scotland, or at least a “Braveheart” approximation. Flannelled and kilted. He leaned closer to me and repeated, barely audibly,
“Magic”
He lingered on the closing syllable until it crawled off in a whisper. I watched his mustache twitch as he spoke. If he had been clean shaven, or if I had closed my eyes, I would have just as soon thought that the word began inside my head. The tips of our shoes were touching now. He was leaning away from me with a defined air of. Expectance. I inhaled deeply into my nostrils, at once realizing that I had been holding my breath for some time, and that I could not accurately place the aroma of the merchant. It was expensive tobacco mixed with a photo album I lost in the move mixed with answering a call from an unknown number. He was as vibrant as a vaccuumed rug, mute and yet expressive.
“If you hold it, it will take you anywhere you want to go.”
He was selling them, a quarter for one or 5 for a dollar. The man leered. His face swam lazily in the space between where I was and where he told me I could go. The light changed and I crossed the street and walked straight to work, stopping at a bodega that I knew had great prices and a clean enough counter to hover over while I waited for my bagel and my cup of coffee and the rest of my day.
Moral of the Story: Never trust a Scot
