5827. ALL THOSE MEN

ALL THOSE MEN

All those men are here from Kashmir; they are

dark and mysterious, running a shop. They sell

Afghani trinkets, and stuff from far-off, places

like Pakistan and a small kingdom in the Himalayas.

-

I started talking to them, a long time back  -  they 

were selling heavy blankets and coats, strange boots 

and covers, they said their brothers were yet all at 

home, 'fighting the Soviets in the cold.' It somehow 

made sense to me. It was 1978, Greenwich Village, 

it was always cold there too, and, anyway, I did like 

the strange, dark girl I'd see behind the counter. They 

offered me tea and beans. I thought. They weren't

beans but some sort of nut.

-

It went on like this  - quiet, dark nights with the

settled small talk of people in common. They asked

about me as much as I asked about them. No cars,

no riches  -  we were each happy in a poverty of

circumstance that had a certain wealth of poverty.

Such a confusion, they said, could only be American.

-

Over time, long time, their war became big; every

newspaper suddenly took sides, we fought words

for them only because they fought the Soviets. Then, 

years later, the Soviets were gone, and they'd become

the Taliban. What a fucking small world this is,

and how little did I know.