Friday Afternoon, 1:57?ro;”2:13

It was hard to say why I was so damn weary that afternoon. It hadn't been a bad day by any stretch. Pretty easy, actually. Typed a while, did a little research. Everything was fine. Still, my head was all loopy and fuzzy, I had no energy. I figured maybe the weather had at least a little something to do with it. It was overcast and cool, the air heavy and damp. Sometimes that'll settle into your bones and sap everything right the hell out of you. Or maybe it was that, combined with the fact that my office was so uncomfortably warm and dry. Or the fact that I'd been smoking much more than usual lately, for reasons I couldn't really put a finger on. Or maybe I could.

Whatever it was, come a little before 2, I knew I wasn't going to be accomplishing anything more of note for the rest of the afternoon, so I shoved a few things into my bag, grabbed my coat from the door where it hung and headed for the elevators.

Maybe I just need a drink, I thought.

Outside the office doors by the bank of elevators was a small man with a heavy black beard and an extravagant blue turban. He was clearly waiting for an elevator, too. I'd never seen him before, and so said nothing. Merely took up a position and stared at the white-tiled floor. Sometimes these things took a while.

I'd only been there for a moment, though, when I heard the bell announcing that an elevator had arrived. I looked around, scanning quickly, trying to determine which one of the six it was, and saw the red arrow.

The doors hissed open. Inside, two British women were gabbing happily with each other. I paused a moment, waiting for the man in the blue turban to step aboard in front of me, before I followed him. It was then that something weird happened, though it took a moment, fuzzy-brained as I was, for me to realize just how weird it was.

As my foot crossed the threshold and I made a move to step into the remaining open space in front of the British women and to the right of the guy in the turban, he raised both his hands, placed them softly on my chest and very gently shoved me back, back across the threshold, back outside the elevator. It all happened so quietly and slowly that I didn't even notice that I was moving backwards. Before I realized what was happening, the door hissed shut again, and the elevator slid toward the lobby.

"What the fuck was that all about?" I finally asked aloud, still staring at the closed doors. But I was alone, so no one heard my question or offered up a reply. I couldn't remember anything like that ever happening before?at least not without some sort of explanation first.

Then my weary brain began racing?or at least lumbering?trying to answer the question for itself.

Despite current events and what we've been told to think, I really don't have much of anything against people who wear turbans. Hell, sometimes I wouldn't mind wearing a turban myself. Still, though, when you're inundated by that message day after day, things seep in whether you want them to or not.

My God, I thought, did he just plant a bomb somewhere in the building? And was he trying to make sure that I'd still be here when it went off? But why me? Why call attention to himself that way? Or maybe it has nothing to do with bombs or terrorism?maybe he was just planning on mugging or killing those two British women and didn't want any witnesses, and didn't want to have to kill me, too?

A web of possibilities, none of them good, spun themselves together a little too quickly. Whatever the fuck was going on, I knew I had to get out of the building, and fast.

I hit the down button again, and was relieved when another elevator?this one empty?stopped a few seconds later. I stepped aboard, head still racing, and felt for the lobby button.

I wonder if I should've warned anybody?

All the way down, the bell dinging off the remaining 13 floors, I stayed tensed and ready for the inevitable blast, or the inevitable, piercing screams from the shaft next to me, or whatever I would encounter. But nothing happened, which, in itself, wasn't that much of a surprise.

When the doors opened again, I took a quick scan for the blue turban, thinking I would wrestle the man who was wearing it to the ground, ask him what goes on here and get some answers out of him. But he was nowhere to be seen. At least not by me.

He probably stopped the elevator between floors, I figured, as I headed for the street.

Outside I reached for a smoke and made my way to the subway. The sidewalks were more crowded than I would have expected for a Friday afternoon. I slowed my steps considerably, keeping half an ear open for the explosion that might still be coming from behind me at any moment. Or maybe there wouldn't be an explosion. Maybe he did something worse? Something more quiet and insidious. Who the fuck knows?

Then I stopped myself. I was tired, yeah, but I wasn't going to buy into that mass-hysteria bullshit. That's exactly what they want (and by "they" I don't mean Muslim extremists). The only kind of paranoia I'll tolerate is that paranoia that I knowingly create for myself?the kind I'm fully aware is fraudulent from the beginning. Like my irrational fear that all plants are intelligent and murderous. I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, and kept dodging pedestrians.

By the time I turned the corner onto 23rd St. I'd all but forgotten about the guy on the elevator, simply filing it away for future use as the opening scene to a cheap thriller of some kind.

"Hey Skywalker," I heard a voice say, and promptly ignored it, just as I tried to ignore most of the voices I heard on 23rd St. But there it was again, and closer?"Skywalker!" Again I ignored it. Whoever it was wasn't talking to me. It made no sense. Probably another jackass on a cellphone.

Then he was next to me. A black guy a little younger than myself holding something I couldn't see. Maybe a clipboard? I wasn't sure. It seemed to be yellow. I never broke stride.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, as he tried to walk along beside me. I just wanted to get to the fucking train. That's all I wanted. I was tired, I was bleary and was looking forward to that beer.

"I'm in the neighborhood today," the man insisted on continuing, though I was only half-listening to him, "conducting a promotion"

"Uh-huh," I said, not looking at him, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk, still not slowing down. "Got no time for promotions today." I waved the hand with the cigarette dismissively and picked up the pace. I stopped myself from adding, "Got no time for cheap street hustles, either."

He kept talking behind me, but I could tell I was losing him. His voice grew fainter, and I could no longer decipher any of the words. Not that I was trying all that hard to begin with. Maybe he was after someone else already? No, it didn't sound that way. Then I caught his last two words, which he yelled from several yards back. They were loud, clear and quite unmistakable.

"Fuckin' Jew!" he screamed at me.

Wow, was about all I could think in response to that. That might not be a surprising thing to hear in some parts of the world, some parts of the country, maybe?but you just don't expect to hear someone scream something like that on a Manhattan sidewalk in the middle of the day. I didn't stop, though, never looked back, never said a word. Just kept heading for the subway, wondering idly what he might have been trying to promote.

Later that night, it was Morgan who pointed out, quite correctly I have to believe, that it was probably the hat, coat and hair that prompted the promotion king's little outburst?and that it might have been the problem with the guy in the blue turban as well. We'd run into this sort of thing once before, while walking through Union Square about a year, year and a half ago. Some guy hissed "dirty Jew" at me under his breath as he passed. That was the first time I'd ever heard it directed at me, and it took me by surprise then, too. Who knows? It might've been the same guy. If you ask me, though, I look a hell of a lot more like Cousin It than anything else. Stupid asses.

Yeah, it's a grim and dangerous and retarded world we're living in. But I guess it always has been.