By Veronika Kowalski On the R train. The doors were closing. Two tall men hopped in at the last minute. One of them was carrying a clipboard. The other one sat next to me. “Excuse me, Miss,” said the one bent over in front of me, “my coach needs to buy uniforms for our basketball team.” He put a hand on my knee. I looked at it. He took it off. “Do you have a dollar?” “Oh, sure,” I expressed, enthusiastically. I took out what I had in my pocket and gave the guy a dollar. He took it, looked at me, stared at it quizzically. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, we only take fives and up. This is for our basketball uniforms. See?” He pointed to some printed numbers at the top of the page. “Oh.” I pulled out a five. The one I was planning to use in the photo booth. He took it. “This isn’t enough. Do you have a ten?” “Do you have a pen, so I can sign?” “Yeah.” He sensed my unease. “This is for real, for my basketball uniforms. See? People are giving $10.” He started asking down the car for a pen. People were refusing him without having heard the question. Doors closing. Did I miss my stop? If I did, I’d have to take another train to backtrack. And it’d be this guy’s fault. The monitor flashed: NEXT STOP 5th AVE 59th ST. Thank goodness. You just got swindled. You just got played. Don’t do that again. Don’t do that again. The guy came back, with no pen to speak of. “This is my stop,” I told him, when he showed up in front of me. “I have to go.” “Yeah, I’m getting off here, too. My coach is waiting for me.” I ran off the train. He didn’t run after me. I didn’t look back.
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