Saturday, March 4, 2017

I live in New York

I was on the way home from a night out having a few drinks with a friend, and I had to transfer trains at Times Square.

I walked upstairs and immediately noticed someone immediately noticing me from about 50 feet away.  A former student, from China, and her friend.  I'd taught her two years ago.  I was happy that she was able to recognize me.  I congratulated her on getting married since I'd last seen her, and learned that she'd had to spend the past year back home without a green card, but she was happy to be back with her husband.  Apparently her friend had also gone to our school, but had been in a different class.  I wished them a good night and went to the 1 train.

I decided to rest my eyes once the train got moving, but after a couple minutes I could feel someone hovering over me and then touching me.  This usually doesn't happen on the subway, so I was relieved to see a former student from Ecuador grinning at me.  I'd just taught him in November and December.  He'd been the driving force behind a fun night out with the evening class around the holidays, and now he was riding the train home with some of his extended family, only one of whom spoke English.

A few hours before, my friend and I had been walking along 7th street in search of a drink, and noticed a downstairs bar which inevitably reminded us of Cheers, at least from the outside.  We didn't go in though.  Regardless of the resemblance, we had a feeling that nobody would know our names.

Perhaps something knew all the friends I was about to run into

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