Thursday, January 22, 2009

Good Lookin'

I stood in the corner of the locker room pulling clothes onto my damp body. Two men were talking near me, a light-skinned black guy and a darker skinned one, young guys. The light-skinned one was animated, holding forth.

"Man, it's cold out there. I left a bottle of water in my car. I come back and it be frozen solid. Solid!" he said. "I kid you not."

"Word?"

"I ain't even frontin'."

The light-skinned guy's iPhone had fallen out of his gym bag and onto the bench.

"Ya phone," the other one said.

"Yo, good lookin'." He picked it up and thumb-tapped its slick, black monolith-screen a time or two before putting it away.

"How you get home?" he said.

"I take the train. Down at sevenny-deuce."