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      On one side of me I catch the aroma of a drunk, and on the other, a lady wearing what my father calls professional perfume. I’m probably safe with the two of them. The drunk smells too far gone to bother me, and the lady has her own business to tend.
      As always, when I’m riding the subway, I have a puzzle that I’m working on in my mind. This time, it’s the expression, tit for tat, because it has struck me that I don’t know what a tat is. I spend my time thinking about things like this because my father won’t let me carry a book on the train. He wants me to be aware of my surroundings.
      The train is an express that roars along between stations for several minutes at a time, with the car’s lights blinking off for thirty seconds or more at a stretch. In the midst of one of the blackouts, the door to the next car suddenly bursts open, the lights pop back on, and three teenagers in track suits burst into our car as if laying claim to it.
      “Don’t nobody move,” the biggest of them shouts.
      Don’t none of us move. Don’t nobody even notice them except me, and I instantly try to become as invisible as possible for an eleven year old in a suit and tie with shoes that have just been “chrome shined” by Eddie the shoeshine guy. And, oh yeah, with a piece of jewelry in my pocket worth as much as a new Cadillac.
      The second biggest of the teenagers, who’s maybe fifteen, comes directly up to me and sees right through my invisibility cloak.
      “Kid, what the fuck are you dressed up for?” he asks, bumping into me and then stepping back to check out the subtle stripes of my suit. “You going to communion or something?”
      Oy vey! I think silently. Very silently.
      “No,” I say, aloud, “Brooklyn.”

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