![]() “What New York women do is wear their cheaper but still high-quality jewelry when they go out at night.” “Bob’s wise to advise caution,” Marty said, nodding sagely to Bob, both of them seasoned by wide experience. ![]() “Bob warned me I might get robbed if I wore my good jewelry out on the streets.” “I left it in the hotel safe,” the woman said. “I notice the lady’s not wearing a watch,” Marty said to the man, trying to draw him into conversation. He had sad eyes and a wheezy way of breathing. The man was older, lanky, with rough hands and a lot of hair sprouting from his nostrils. She was about forty, short, with a chunky build and dyed red hair. “They’re reasonably priced,” said the woman. Perfect they’re not, but then neither are you and me, and I know these watches are closer to heaven than I’ll ever get.” But ordinarily they’re expensive and the people who buy them expect perfection. “Factory seconds of quality brands-I’ll leave you to guess which brands-some of them with flaws you’d need a microscope to see. “They’re all quartz movement, ma’am.” Marty smiling wider and whiter, beginning to work his magic on the two of them. (The cheap, illegal knockoffs bearing correctly spelled brand names were kept out of sight beneath the false bottom of a showcase inside the shop, sold only to customers who’d been referred to Marty and could be trusted.) Often Marty’s customers were a couple, a man and woman, and the woman would invariably find something that interested her, squint at it, pick it up, then hold it to her ear, like with this couple. All the while they’d be sneaking peeks at the watches, the Rodexes, Hambiltons, Bulovis, and Mowados. Where were they from? What shows had they seen? Were they having fun? Sure, he could recommend a restaurant or direct them to the nearest subway stop. In the middle of all this happy turmoil was this ordered display of shining metal and geometric precision, and Marty, waiting.Ĭustomers would come and he would talk to them, not pressuring them, not at first. There was something about all that bright, measurable time so closely massed, the tempo of Times Square, the chatter and shuffle and hum and shouts and roar of traffic and pedestrians, all of them moving to some raucous, frantic music punctuated by blaring horns. A man with tales to tell and eager to tell them for the price of a return smile.īut interesting and approachable as Marty seemed, it was the watches that drew customers, all the glimmer and glitter of gold and silver electroplate and plastic gemstones, colorful watch faces with bright green numerals and hands that looked as if they’d surely glow in the dark. Sitting there gracefully and casually, his legs crossed, a cigarette either wedged between yellowed fingers or tucked loosely in the corner of his mouth, he looked like a once-handsome, aging lounge singer taking a break between sets. Marty caught the eye, with his loosened silk tie and his pristine white shirt with its sleeves rolled up, his slicked-back graying hair, and his amiable keen blue eyes. Alongside them, his seamed and friendly face bunched in a perpetual smile, sat Marty in his padded metal folding chair. Outside the shop, next to a rack of rayon jackets featuring colorful New York scenes, and a table with stacks of sports logo caps and pullovers, was the display of wristwatches. ![]() There were plenty of cut-rate laptop computers, digital cameras, cell phones, recorders, and suitcases, many with brand names that seemed familiar at a glance. Inside the crowded shop were lettered T-shirts, cheap umbrellas, plastic Statues of Liberty, Broadway show posters, glass snow globes that played New York tunes while dandrufflike flakes, swirled by shaking, settled among tiny replicas of the buildings Chrysler, Empire State, and Citigroup, towering inches over Rockefeller Center and Grand Central Station. Warm evenings in New York would find him lounging outside his souvenir shop, Bargain Empire, just off West Forty-fifth Street in the theater district. Marty sold anything that would fetch a price, but he specialized in nineteen-dollar watches that he bought for ten dollars. On the night he died, Marty Akim was selling. He was sure that if he tried he could reach up, clutch one of the stars, and plunge it burning into his pocket. Below and around him the Theater District glowed, as did the stars above. In the building beneath his feet people fought and loved and hated and dreamed, while he lived the dream that was real. He flung open the service door and was on the roof and in the cool, dark vastness of the night.
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