"September Morning: A Threshold of Fiction and Familiar Faces"

Banana and coffee from Saleh, back at the desk—morning light, memory, and the camera waiting to witness.

This morning feels different. Not just cooler or quieter—but mythic, like the first day of college long ago, when I was eighteen and leaving home for the first time. That departure marked the beginning of a long letting go, especially of my grandparents, the two people I loved most. I would repeat that distance again, and then again longer, until a decade passed before I saw them once more—by then, I had moved to San Francisco.

Today began with a walk. Not the track field this time, but the streets—Crompond Road stretching toward Beach Shopping Center, still cloaked in dawn. CVS glowed like a lighthouse, the only place open. Planet Fitness was shuttered for renovations, and Joann’s had vanished, replaced by a new store with windows full of bicycles, linens, lamps, clocks—things I might buy, but probably won’t. I’m a reluctant shopper. Online is easier. Still, I have a soft spot for thrift and vintage stores, where the past lingers in objects and prices feel like whispers. Macy’s Herald Square is the exception. I love riding that old wooden escalator from the fifth to the ninth floor—the creaking, clattering thrill of it, like a rollercoaster at Myrtle Beach, long ago.

And then, Saleh.

He stood with his back to me, smoothing his black hair, mosque music playing softly from his phone. When he turned, his face lit up with a bashful smile that made me smile too. I said good morning. He said it back. I didn’t need anything, really. But how do you tell someone that? That you came just to say hello? It’s rare for me. There aren’t many people I want to greet in the morning—or any time of day. Saleh is one of the few.

So I bought a coffee, weak compared to the Coffee House brew, but it was something. He handed me a banana, free with the coffee. That was kind of him. I’ll go back later and buy something real. He’s got to stay in business. That corner of Division and Main needed someone like him. PK Candy Store is a welcome addition.

Soon, the Mayor’s Tea Shop will reopen, with apartments above in a building designed to look old—like the rest of downtown Peekskill’s architecture. Blondery is gone after nine years. The sign blames foot traffic, but I think it was the prices. It never catered to the common man. And now, it’s vanished.

Today, I return to fiction. I think I’m ready. The weekend was a descent into horror films—Universal Monsters on Prime Video. Some were classics. Others, grotesque. One called The Inferno Green nearly undid me. A jungle tribe torturing American protesters trying to save the rainforest—cannibalism, graphic violence. I barely made it through without retching.
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Let’s hope Painted People doesn’t do the same to me.