Every Sunday I would usually check my horoscope in the Daily News Sunday edition. I would enter my corner 24 hour deli hurriedly, without making eye contact with the workers, and check my Aries horoscope. I've been turning to my horoscope since last year. I made it a priority to check it every Sunday. I used to purchase the paper every Sunday when it was a dollar. After the rise rose, I decided to wipe off the expense. After all, I wasn't reading the paper; I was just browsing the flimsy advertisements for deals and new album releases, and the entertainment section. Normally I would cast the paper aside and the weekly spending would have been wasted. A buck could have gotten me half a cup of coffee currently! I happen to remember when the horoscopes usually are found. I would peel the pages fast and hope to come upon the half page dedicated to horoscopes. It would always have a purple background and black font. The writer's face would be in the middle and the horoscopes would be spread around her smiling face. Upon reading the horoscope, I would make a mental note of the sentences that would later stick in my head or be found when events happen or do not happen. For instance, when I happen to spend money, I will reflect on the line "be careful with your spendings..." or what not. But this rarely happens until I have spent my money and only in retrospect do I really recall the horoscope.
Last Thursday, I passed by the deli and glimpsed a few men rushing out furniture from the Metro PCS store that sat adjacent the actual deli space (Metro is inside the deli building). It reminded me of repo men who repossess property when rent has not been paid or when something in the books has soured. I glanced through the glass windows and 80% of the deli had been removed and gutted out. It was like a storm had hit and people ransacked the three tiny aisles for food and bread. Clearly it was not a fire because I don't smell any fumes and it didn't look like a fire had visited their business. It did not hit me until the first Sunday that I missed checking my horoscope that perhaps something fishy hit home for the deli owners and they had to evade the police. However this assumption is made prematurely and solely based on their ethnicity. I judged their Arab ethnic background to be suspect to terrorist suspicions or some kind of immigration problem. I assumed this because of stereotypical images on the news reports. I also judged their immigration status based on their Other-ness and their non-White ethnicity. I assumed a lot, I have to be honest. I told my mother that maybe the police had received news of their illegal status. But if they were of illegal status how could they have ran this business. Perhaps the Metro PCS was a phoney business? And because the Metro was run by the same people, they all had to flee to avoid repercussions? But how did I know that the Metro PCS employee is related to the owners of the deli? I don't even know who the exact owner of the deli is. I assumed that because every one in the deli was Arab that it was a family affair. I made so many assumptions and even oversaw the very fact that there were two Mexican workers in the deli, one stout guy who does the sandwiches and another who sweeps. But unfortunately they are nonpersons so I don't even consider them when I considered an image of the deli on my corner. Sad? Sorta. I didn't even get a chance to ask any of them what had come up or what went down. I didn't get a chance to, and mostly I didn't want to "get involved" and see their troubles because for some reason, I felt like their troubles were incredible inexplicable and too heavy for my comprehension. Maybe because they are Arab or maybe because I cannot help them in any way besides saying Good Luck?
The deli looks barren and abandoned. The smoke-grey gates have been drawn and its impermanence lingers in the air. What seemed a bustling store for drunks, bums, hustlers, gangsters, occasional druggies, and tourists, lies empty and in ruins. This deli has no hope left in it and I suspect that its demise is certain. But this deli is not the first store to close down on my block (technically opposite my real block). The Chinese Restaurant did not exactly shut down due to run-ins with the law, but they did close their doors. I heard that they reopened on ninth avenue, but I have yet to confirm this. I frankly don't want to confirm this because I don't care. I have eaten there no more than three times and I remember the loud black patrons who cursed on the phones and chided at the owners and cooks for taking misleading orders. I would walk by the chinese restaurant blind of its presence for the last four years that I have lived in the city. I always see the pizza store that is next to it, but somehow I did not pay attention to the chinese restaurant. There was a dearth of Chinese restaurants in the area, especially when there's only two on the stretch of Midtown and Chelsea street, before you turn down Madison Square Garden or enter into 23rd Street. I hardly saw any Chinese eateries, let alone a takeout restaurant. Mostly black patrons would loiter the premises probably soliciting money or turning the space into a hangout spot where curses are mixed with Chinese dialect in the spitting hiss of the wok and oil crackling on MSG-laden pork fried rice. I said that the black customer is soliciting because I was stopped by a black man in a restaurant in the lower east side. He wanted a quarter for his meal. That is solicitation, yes. This is not particularly true because I'm solely making a generalization on black patrons' habits. I glorify their "bad behavior" and their nuisance because I somehow fend for my "own people." This is hard to believe because I'm not related to the Chinese owners of the restaurant and they certainly have not made convo with me and I have not made convo with them. Not that they are obligated to or that they are not nice or nice. It is not that kind of mentality, but rather the stereotypical mantra that "Asians stick together." I would choose my ethnicity and defend my helpless Asian workers who probably do not have legal status and they toil every day in front of the flaming wok and peeling veggies coated in MSG. Clearly I believe that they have such a low status that they need to be defended because they cannot defend themselves.
The last time I walked by the deadened restaurant facade, I saw the doors were slightly agape and construction sounds bursted through the gap. A circular saw hummed confidently and wood pieces were strewn along the wall however clear the inside was with all the dust coating the pane. The Chinese restaurant is sandwiched between a narrow Japanese restaurant and the pizza store which had been rated the best pizza in NYC which is why many tourists converge on the storefront. I have eaten there three times and I can't complain. Except maybe the price (but the city IS expensive!), but it is totally worth it.
EDIT: March 1, 2012
I looked in between the greyed metal bars and I saw a white notice taped on the glass door. It said "Marshall's Notice" which meant that the store was evicted because of the Metro PCS. Basically some kind of problem occurred with the PCS business and it wiped out the deli as well. This definitely means that the business is gone (for good). After doing research, a Marshall's legal possession means that the store landlord has reclaimed all the property. The notice also mentioned that there were suspicious occupants. I suppose the person who leased the place to the deli people and workers did not recognize these people. Whatever it was, the law got involved and these businessmen got eked out. I will surely miss their faces, especially the short stout Arab guy and the tall, more manly-built man who worked the night shifts. He would usually be yawning or almost asleep at the counter. I will miss the mini conversations and having my $3.75 roast beef sandwich made by the short Mexican dude who spoke with an interesting accent.
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