The store on East 23rd was my favorite Salvation Army Thrift Store, although there were several I visited often. Most Saturdays I spent the whole day walking the streets of the city. I didn't like to wander idly; I'd have a destination in mind, weaving back and forth along side streets to pass a particular park or a shop where the smell of Indian spices drifted to the sidewalk. I rarely planned to be at a certain place at a certain time, would never meet a friend for lunch. I usually didn't eat all day, but preferred to just keep moving until I was bone tired. Maybe have a coffee and a cigarette, and a quick glance through the afternoon Post, but other than that, on my feet for seven or eight hours, moving.


      The clothes were in the basement of the 23rd Street store. The ground floor was furniture, broken blenders and coffee makers, toasters, paintings. I always looked at the artwork, just in case, but too often there'd be sadly familiar posters in bent metal frames, advertising the musical Hair or movies like Chinatown with Faye Dunaway. The small rickety elevator was the only way to get to the basement; the numbers under the buttons were completely worn off, but someone had put up a sign on a piece of cardboard, so you wouldn't panic. Push Here to Exit. Someone else had scrawled beneath that in a red magic marker, Or Else!

      The elevator opened into the basement about 10 feet away from the counter with the cash register. I'd look quickly to see who was working. It was almost always Omar, his bronze head gleaming under the fluorescent tube that swung on uneven chains from the ceiling. If he saw me come in, he'd say "Hey, baby." As in all Salvation Army Thrift Stores, there'd be music playing, great music that was a large part of the pleasure I soaked up while I spent the next two or three hours working my way through the racks. Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Aretha. Motown oldies, sometimes early 80s soul-tinged disco. Evelyn Champagne King, Grace Jones, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes.



You've Really Got a Hold on Me
      Some weekends, this might be all the social interaction I'd have. While I was in the store I felt engaged, connected to the world. I felt as though I lived on a secret sensory plane, tuned precisely to all the inanimate objects around me. When I touched a blouse or a jacket, felt the fabric, pulled it off the rack to check the color in a better light, that was all I was touching, all that I was looking at, and it was all I was doing. Each item of clothing held a history for me that skittered across the tips of my fingers, shivered from nerve ending to nerve ending until a microsecond later I had the correct answer... silk, linen blend, rayon, cotton, wool, gabardine, dotted swiss. My mother had a blouse like that, a lavender with thin stripes of green like crème de menthe. I burned it when she asked me to iron it for her, sizzled it up in a burst of acrid smoke. Polyester. Aunt Helen wore a skirt like this at Christmas, a slow, sad Christmas when Mark was in the hospital. Long and full, a crimson and green taffeta plaid. Taffeta was a fabric I could get interested in, but not these bold primary colors.



I Gotta Dance to Keep From Cryin'
      Other women and I would inch by each other in a narrow corner, murmur 'sorry' in unison if we met in the middle of a rack and had to switch sides. It was important not to lose your place; you couldn't just feign disinterest and move to another rack, go over and start pawing through the vests when you hadn't finished with the blouses. What if I missed that one flawless, black silk shirt, not thin, cheesy silk, but the good stuff, the silk that's dense and heavy, that drapes off the hanger in lush, velvety folds. Here's the nightmare: I'll miss it, and she'll find it.

      I'll never get over the Norma Kamali, dewy gray, soft as a kitten, beautiful lines, the perfect Kamali dress that I let slip though my fingers. And then I saw another woman pull it out, triumphantly sway by me to get to the mirror, hold it up to her waist and preen like the peacock that she was. "Nice," I said. But then I couldn't help myself, "I think it's a Kamali. It'll look great on you." She threw me a gorgeous smile, and we soared high together, the closest of friends.

      Sometimes, I'd wish that we were real friends, the other women in the store, and me. Then the glow would last a little longer, then we'd walk out arm in arm, our huge bundles floating light as down pillows as we sauntered down the street. We'd have our coffees and linger for a cigarette or two before going our separate ways, back to our apartments and all the riches a Saturday night in New York City could hold.



Second that Emotion
      I have a good-sized armload of clothes, so I move over to a secluded aisle, and tuck in somewhere nobody'll bother to poke around. I sort through my pile carefully; I've got to decide if the red leather skirt at the high price of $12.99 is something I really need. Compared with the outrageous--but practical--aqua mohair sweater at $4.95? The skirt has to go. I make my selections, put the ones I don't want on a rack with other unsorted odds and ends so I don't mess up the system too badly. My last stop before paying is the glass case near the cash register, where real treasures can be found. There's a short line at the register anyway, and Omar is giving a foul-talking woman a hard time, refusing to sell her a jacket that's missing a tag. There's a sign right over the counter, on the shelf next to the two Smurfs and the jar of buttons, that says No Tag, No Sale, No Exceptions!

      In the case I see a bracelet that might be silver and a gem-like ivory elephant. I know immediately that it's not plastic, and I start to want it more than I've ever wanted anything. I push around the eyeglasses that are piled in a pathetic-looking Easter basket on the counter. For the first time in two hours, the sadness, the dinginess of the place starts to sneak up on me. My feet are achy, my shoulders are cramped and I am tired, ready to go home.

      Omar looks up, sees it's me, but doesn't say a thing. Just takes my pile of clothes and starts ringing things up on the cash register. He's a black man, he's bald, and round and sturdy, but not what you'd call fat. He's about 45, and I think he's from the West Indies, with that lovely lilt in his voice. Omar radiates joy from a deep, bottomless place inside, a place that I have no access to except during the short period of time when he will bless me with his attention. Now he looks up, and he's holding the dark brown skirt I've found, made of a wonderful old-fashioned fabric. It's something you might see in a museum case, a relic from a French tapestry, from an earlier century. He says, "Baby, you got good taste," and he draws out the word good like it has three or even four syllables. And he hits me with a beam, a beacon, a lighthouse of joy that bursts from every muscle in his body.

      "Thanks, Omar," I say. "Listen, how much is that little elephant over there?" "Oh, that old thing...Baby, for you, two dollars." And he throws it in with my other stuff, doesn't ring it up and hands the whole bag over the counter to me. I count out my total, hand over the cash, turn toward the elevator and press the button to leave. "Have a nice evening, Omar," I call over my shoulder. But he's gone, he's dimmed his light, pulled it back inside the confines of his mortal shape, and he's ringing up the next sale. I ride the clanking metal deathtrap up to street level, move wearily out the door and head over to Second Avenue to catch the bus downtown.