I've been expecting a 5000 point decline in the stock market for some time. Not all at once, of course, but over the course of months. The Federal Reserve has done all it could to prop up the Dow, but the reality of the world economy may have finally settled in. It's getting scary. I hope I'm wrong.
I had only one customer today, a scrawny, scary-looking guy who frequently passes pushing a shopping cart. He has always been nice to me, so I had nothing to fear. I suspect he believes we are kindred souls. He scrounges around for junk, which he sells. He is twice divorced and takes care of his 78-year-old mom. I sense he is one of those high I.Q. guys who has trouble working for and with others, and trouble with alcohol. He frequently smells of beer. His teeth are rotted, his clothes soiled, his hands dirty. Yet, judging from the money roll he flashed, he isn't doing too badly financially. Maybe he'd recently cashed his mother's Social Security check. Anyway, he loves to read and bought four thrillers: Nelson DeMille's Night Fall, Stephen Hunter's Dirty White Boys, Dean Koontz's The Face, and Faye Kellerman's Stalker. Kellerman, an orthodox Jew, is the wife of best selling mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman. They are the only married couple ever to have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller's List simultaneously. The guy offered to buy me a beer, which I declined. I failed to ask his name. Maybe I'm afraid he'll expect friendship. I thank him. The crates were a lot lighter without those hardcover tomes.
A while later an elderly black man approached and asked something I did not understand. It sounded as if he were looking for the way uptown. Of course, there is no uptown in Brooklyn, only a downtown. He too was wearing soiled clothing. He had a plastic I.D. bracelet on his wrist. I wondered if he'd wandered off from a ward in Coney Island Hospital or another facility. I didn't know what to do. He soon went on his way and, hopefully, into the path of police officers at the train station.
Read Vic's stories, free:
http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
No comments:
Post a Comment