They line West 33rd Street in the morning, drinking coffee and donuts. There are maybe 100 or 200 grizzled construction workers taking their break from the project across the street at Madison Square Garden. They all wear their neon yellow vests. They all sit on the ledge in front of the building I work in. They all stare, not allowed to catcall but doing it with their eyes anyway. It's a gauntlet I walk on my way to work every day. And it is a long gauntlet. I stare at the ground the whole way, walking quickly, pretending I am deep in thought, in another world, deaf. I learned how to walk this way in the Middle East--as long as you don't acknowledge they are there or staring or saying things, then there will be no trouble. I am invisible, a ghost, traceless. Pretend I am not here, dead already. This is wisdom, not fear.
It's a skill that has served me well in every country I have ever visited.
It pisses me off more than I can really express that it's a necessary "skill".
ReplyDeleteAnd I just had a guy sit on his bike waiting for me to cross the street to his side so he could say, "Hola, bonita" in the requisite creepy voice. Grrr!!
ReplyDelete@ nikoel: It's the creepy ones that get me.
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