Facebook reminders.
I was surprised to find Park51 was still just occupying space in the abandoned Burlington Coat Factory while trying to raise construction money amid a sea of bad press. Tobey adopted a stealthy Spider-Man creep fifty yards from the destination.
“Ya think there’s a way in through the roof?” he asked.
“No, but it has a front door, jackass. The center’s open to all New Yorkers.”
We walked into the spacious and inviting lobby. White walls reflecting all the sunlight that streamed in from the glass doors and walls of the center’s lowest level. After a moment, we started gathering intelligence, which basically meant trying to walk around unnoticed while gawking for clues. Not the easiest thing to do for a punk Aussie, fedora-sporting Jew, and dick-joke idiot-savant Caucasian. Basically, we just kept moving. After a while we reached the gym, and Tobey soon found himself in a pick-up basketball game with three Egyptian exchange students from NYU. Then it was just Oz and me.
“Ooh, a Middle Eastern cooking class is about to start,” she said, pulling a flier off a table.
“Z’oh my God! No way!”
“Fuck off. It sounds fun.”
“Yes, Oz,” I said. “It totally does, but we’ll probably get more done if we split up. So why don’t you hit the class and I’ll check out the café area? We’ll meet Tobes in the lobby in an hour or so.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “But don’t come crying to me when you’re dying for my kick-ass baba ghanoush recipe.”
“It’s a promise.”
I followed the familiar smells of caffeine all the way to the café. For all its Halal and Middle-Eastern influence, it wasn’t too different from a Starbucks. Had the Wi-Fi been working, I’m sure there would have been more laptops in effect. And, as it were, there were still a few insufferable writers at work, presumably hacking away at high-concept comedies about Saudi Arabian princes forced to live with suburban Jewish families.
I got a coffee and started updating my journal while perched at a long stretch of counter two seats down from an Arab man, about my age, charting algorithms on a notepad while cross-referencing information in The Wall Street Journal. He wore an expensive and meticulously maintained white buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It looked like it fit him perfectly fifteen years or pounds ago. Now it hugged a bit too much, but he sat with such immaculate posture and moved with such purpose, it still bestowed a certain elegance. Occasionally, it seemed he might have been eyeing my journal and smiling. Not in a haughty way. Just quietly amused or maybe interested.
“May I ask,” he said finally, “are you a writer?”
“No, not really.”
He was disappointed, but unwilling to give up so quickly.
“But you are writing…?”
“Well, sometimes I sing in the shower, too, but, y’know?”
A smile. “Ah. An analogy. Not so different from metaphor. Suitable for a writer. Or a lawyer, perhaps.”
“I’m not quite either,” I said, extending my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yes, pleasure,” he said. “My name is Khalil. I’m visiting from Egypt.”
“Gladstone. I’m visiting from Brooklyn.”
My new friend and I got to talking. About his brief stay in the United States. during his early twenties. His return to Egypt to assist in his father’s business. And how much New York had changed in his time away.
“There’s a distrust I did not see sixteen years ago,” he said. “Sure, I was a foreigner. A strange dark-skinned man with funny ways. Contempt, racism, even hatred. But there was no fear. Now I just don’t understand.”
“Well, you do understand, though, right?” I said. “It was no small thing that happened.”
“Please. I apologize. I’m not minimizing 9/11. But had I stayed in New York, I could have very well been working in the Towers that day. I would have certainly been downtown. And now all Muslims are always the first against the
I was surprised to find Park51 was still just occupying space in the abandoned Burlington Coat Factory while trying to raise construction money amid a sea of bad press. Tobey adopted a stealthy Spider-Man creep fifty yards from the destination.
“Ya think there’s a way in through the roof?” he asked.
“No, but it has a front door, jackass. The center’s open to all New Yorkers.”
We walked into the spacious and inviting lobby. White walls reflecting all the sunlight that streamed in from the glass doors and walls of the center’s lowest level. After a moment, we started gathering intelligence, which basically meant trying to walk around unnoticed while gawking for clues. Not the easiest thing to do for a punk Aussie, fedora-sporting Jew, and dick-joke idiot-savant Caucasian. Basically, we just kept moving. After a while we reached the gym, and Tobey soon found himself in a pick-up basketball game with three Egyptian exchange students from NYU. Then it was just Oz and me.
“Ooh, a Middle Eastern cooking class is about to start,” she said, pulling a flier off a table.
“Z’oh my God! No way!”
“Fuck off. It sounds fun.”
“Yes, Oz,” I said. “It totally does, but we’ll probably get more done if we split up. So why don’t you hit the class and I’ll check out the café area? We’ll meet Tobes in the lobby in an hour or so.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “But don’t come crying to me when you’re dying for my kick-ass baba ghanoush recipe.”
“It’s a promise.”
I followed the familiar smells of caffeine all the way to the café. For all its Halal and Middle-Eastern influence, it wasn’t too different from a Starbucks. Had the Wi-Fi been working, I’m sure there would have been more laptops in effect. And, as it were, there were still a few insufferable writers at work, presumably hacking away at high-concept comedies about Saudi Arabian princes forced to live with suburban Jewish families.
I got a coffee and started updating my journal while perched at a long stretch of counter two seats down from an Arab man, about my age, charting algorithms on a notepad while cross-referencing information in The Wall Street Journal. He wore an expensive and meticulously maintained white buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It looked like it fit him perfectly fifteen years or pounds ago. Now it hugged a bit too much, but he sat with such immaculate posture and moved with such purpose, it still bestowed a certain elegance. Occasionally, it seemed he might have been eyeing my journal and smiling. Not in a haughty way. Just quietly amused or maybe interested.
“May I ask,” he said finally, “are you a writer?”
“No, not really.”
He was disappointed, but unwilling to give up so quickly.
“But you are writing…?”
“Well, sometimes I sing in the shower, too, but, y’know?”
A smile. “Ah. An analogy. Not so different from metaphor. Suitable for a writer. Or a lawyer, perhaps.”
“I’m not quite either,” I said, extending my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yes, pleasure,” he said. “My name is Khalil. I’m visiting from Egypt.”
“Gladstone. I’m visiting from Brooklyn.”
My new friend and I got to talking. About his brief stay in the United States. during his early twenties. His return to Egypt to assist in his father’s business. And how much New York had changed in his time away.
“There’s a distrust I did not see sixteen years ago,” he said. “Sure, I was a foreigner. A strange dark-skinned man with funny ways. Contempt, racism, even hatred. But there was no fear. Now I just don’t understand.”
“Well, you do understand, though, right?” I said. “It was no small thing that happened.”
“Please. I apologize. I’m not minimizing 9/11. But had I stayed in New York, I could have very well been working in the Towers that day. I would have certainly been downtown. And now all Muslims are always the first against the
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