Sunday morning. It’s late, close to 9:30 already, and some of the regular Maxwell Street vendors have left empty tables in the light drizzle. At the northeast corner of 13th Street and Newberry, I look twice at what I see on a grainy slab of wood across makeshift sawhorses: two tall Russian fur hats, so new that their earflaps haven’t been untied yet. One is black rabbit, the other a heathery tan something or other. From the end of the table a 60-ish man watches me.
Two men, wearing play-the-game grubbies, see the hats and stop. The older one, in his 40s, reaches to pick up the black one. It resists. He waits, miffed, as the woman unties the ribbon.
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“Forty-five,” the man repeats in his best English.
“Got quite a flat there,” he says. Then he tips his head toward the opposite side of the street. “Ask one of those fellas on that porch there.”
I tell him I need to call the school to let them know I’ll be late.
As I dial, I ask for the address of the building.
