Standing in the Rain, Smiling Like Idiots – Day 21

From the Waterways series:

Waiting for another taxi, just outside the beautifully renovated Art Deco Newark Penn Station. The rain is coming down and I do not have an umbrella because my umbrella is in the trunk of my car with a broken handle, about 1200 miles away. I am getting soaked, but I do not mind. I’m funny that way. A man walks up to me. My “New York instincts” tell me he is about to ask for something. He also has no umbrella and he is getting soaked. He hands me a dog-eared index card that looks like it had seen better days even before the rain. It’s a kind of salmon color and on it is printed the “American Sign Language Alphabet for the Deaf.” He clearly wants me to by the card. Again, my suspicious city dweller nature wonders if this man is even really deaf, but he is smiling as me with a smile so infectious I am soon smiling as well. We are both standing there in the rain, smiling like idiots. I take the last, now very soggy dollar from my beat up leather wallet and hand it to him. He looks at me like I have just handed him a gold ingot. He signs to me “Thank you and G-d bless you,” and walks away happily in the rain.