Last weekend a friend’s teenage daughter went to an underage concert in Queens with some friends. While at the concert, the unworldly young lady draped her jacket over her backpack – containing her wallet, keys, MetroCard and mobile phone – and left it in a makeshift cloakroom while she danced happily in the other. Returning to the cloakroom she was devastated to find her things missing, and called her mother, with whom I had just finished watching the first Presidential Debate.
But the night took an unexpected turn. When her daughter arrived home, my friend called the mobile phone number and a man answered. He was a security guard at a building on the same block of the club, who had found the girl’s wallet and phone on the street outside the building. It was past midnight, but with his shift finished he was planning to hang out with his cousin who works at the Avenue A Gourmet Deli between 13th and 14th Street. The Deli happens to be in the same neighbourhood in which my friend and her daughter live. So at one o’clock in the morning my friend went to retrieve her daughter’s phone and wallet. She wrote to me:
Khaled was maybe about 30 or so, very sweet, but I imagine he would have trouble getting through airport security. He likely works long hours at minimum wage. I offered him a reward. He refused to accept it.
