It’s much later than you thought, so you stop for a little quick shopping at a tiny Spanish market on Avenue C, in Alphabet City. The viejas all ignore you as you bring your chocolate cookies and rolling papers and cheap wine to the check-out.
There is a woman standing behind the register. “I know what I’m doing,” she says quietly. “Can you help me out?”
“How can I do that?” you ask.
“Just keep your eyes open, that’s all I ask,” she says. “Keep me in mind.”
“I don’t live here,” you lie.
“Neither do I,” she says.
–Richard Jay Goldstein
Richard Jay Goldstein lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where it’s nice and quiet, thanks. He’s a lapsed ER doc, has been writing for about 20 years, and has published 40-some stories, essays and poems in the literary and sci-fi/fantasy/horror presses, including a few anthologies.
