America

This story was reported to me by G.

I was in line at World Pioneer Video on 24th Street.

There was a young Mexican immigrant in work clothes splattered with white paint standing in front of me. He gets to the front of the line and hands the nice Chinese man who runs the store his video box. It is "Sex and the City".

The man behind the counter tries to communicate with the Mexican guy through his own barely intelligible English: "Not what you want! Not what you think,"--urgency in his voice.

But the young laborer does not speak English, intelligible or not.

Finally, in a last ditch effort to save him, the Chinese man turns to me and says, "Please! Someone must warn him!"

I think quickly to myself, "How do you say in Spanish, 'No one gets off in this movie. It is only women sitting around talking, it's not what you think!'?" But I do not have the words--in Spanish, or any language.

I simply look panicked and helpless, like everyone else in the line.

Despondently, the store owner takes his money and sends him on his way.

A near miss at solidarity in America.