Here and There

You never realize how big a part someone plays in your life until, like me, you experience their absence. 

The man at the grocery store always tended to wear a fixed, placid expression as he listened for where he was needed next. The second he heard the customer service chime, he would race over to the offending station, swiftly remove his card, tap it onto the screen, and punch in some numbers. He wore a bright yellow kufi atop his head, a strong reminder of his religion contrasting the black of his uniform and the mass of string strapping his Stop and Shop apron to his body. 

He seemed almost like an extra in one of those films, the one that doesn’t really have so much screen time but is someone the audience cannot live without. 

He always peered at others over his reading glasses, and, once, as I was wearing my mother’s necklace, he gave me that same pointed look and abruptly approached, eyeing the gold flower-like pendant hanging from the chain I wore around my neck.

“Do you know what this means?” he asked. I looked down as I lifted the pendant off my chest and held it up. 

“No,” I said, feeling a twinge of curiosity. 

“This means Allah, God in Arabic.” 

I stammered and, wondering at his sudden excitement, said “Thank you.”

My friends and I have frequented the nearby Stop and Shop for four years now. We go there after practice to gather items for a picnic or for a quick snack to share in the dorm during downtime from school. I have gone there so many times as to memorize the setup. Produce all the way to the left to the dairy aisle on the opposite side. I envision the infuriatingly bright lights and the squeaky white tile and the attractive snack aisle I constantly pull my friends and me out of. Too much money. 

Now, the man who works the self-checkout line is a person I have come to appreciate. I didn’t take much notice of him at first, but, soon enough, he became an established figure. Even in my memories of that Stop and Shop, he is in the background, in the same, mostly silent but attentive manner as in my accounts of the store. He seems now like a sort of guardian angel, and, at the checkout, I soon turned grateful for his constancy at the grocery store. 

Yet, in Dobbs Ferry, he sticks out like a sore thumb: a man seemingly out of place, riding against the current. 

Back home, he would’ve seemed like anybody else. Back home, Black and brown men, typically also Muslim, flock the streets. The older men wear white thobes and taqiyahs and gather in markets and stores. Despite this, my father, a Black, Christian man who often dressed in long, flowy fabrics and had the same reserved vibe about him, matched almost perfectly into the swarm of men. His long white beard at the time matched the lengths of the men’s back home, and they welcomed him, believing him to be a brother. Back home, despite differences, my father fell almost perfectly into step. I figured that the man in the store is someone my dad would have gotten along with if they had met where we live. 

In Dobbs Ferry, he sticks out like a sore thumb. Dobbs Ferry is a small, characteristically white town. Here, mainly white Christian and Jewish men walk around in their own religious attire. I guess due to this discrepancy, I had begun to think he may be the only openly Muslim man in Dobbs Ferry. Even more remarkably, I have only ever seen him in the self-checkout aisle, a small, narrow space where he spends his shifts. I wonder how it would be to be trapped in such a space for long hours. Would I, too, scurry for any opportunity to move around, to find connection with someone else? 

The other day, my friend and I visited the Stop and Shop at a time unusual for the two of us: 4 p.m. Typically, we were stuck at co-curricular activities, but today we were free. We made our way down the Masters School hill and into the store. The place already seemed more bleak as I passed the usual aisles, and then I instinctively turned at the self-checkout, and the man who made up most of my shopping experiences was replaced with a man I’d never seen before. This guy was much taller and larger than the man in the yellow kufi and had a more spacey disposition. His eyes seemed to separate alongside his silence, and he stood with his arms crossed behind his back. I tapped my friend, thinking, Hey, we actually found a time where he’s not here. It truly felt like a sort of parallel universe. 

I often wonder what he does when he isn’t at work. After closing, does he go home to his kids and his grandkids? Does he go to kiss their foreheads goodnight while they sleep? Does he drag his feet after a long day, pull off his socks and plop onto the couch with the TV on too loud and fall asleep? Or does he live alone? Still alone in a town where so few are like him? Does he make a silent prayer for family far away, those he doesn’t see so often anymore? I wonder if he moved here or if he lives somewhere else. Does he miss it there?

The next times I saw him, his narrowed gaze tended to warm as he helped my friends and me at the checkout. I wonder, when I wore that pendant, if he was happy to see something that reminded him of home. All of these questions I think about as I smile over at him in his usual spot at the grocery store. He gives me a nod, and I return it as I pass, holding my bags, making my way back up the hill.