This is how I met Mr. Lincoln.
"Hey get the EFF out of here, man!"
Only he didn't say "eff."
He was charging across the concrete outside the Magic Mart toward some derelict wearing a flannel shirt and a stocking hat. It was August.
"How many times we gotta tell you, man. Take your shit and get outta here!"
I grimaced and raised my eyebrows in surprise. It was as much about the confrontational words as it was about the guy who was saying them.
"Forgive my language, please. But you gotta do what you gotta do, right?"
On his way back into the store he grinned at me and shrugged after apologizing.
"It's okay," I said, grinning back.
He had on a red t-shirt and some nice looking jeans. He wore shoes that made me second guess his job at the gas station. His outfit looked like something a trendy college kid would wear. It just had that look to it. Its hard to pin point what makes a t-shirt and jeans look trendy, but they can. It helped that his hair was gelled into a tiny faux hawk.
"Innnnteresting." I mused to myself, shutting the car door behind me.
It took me four visits to the Magic Mart to actually determine he wasn't hispanic. I thought from day one that he spoke Spanish. Then one day he chased some guy down in the parking lot for walking out with a beer and not showing ID. All this hwa-ha-kha stuff came out of his mouth to the other cashier and I realized he was actually an Arab of some sort.
"Egypt," he told me. "See this right here?" He held out his wrist.
"That X from a club or something?"
"What?" He threw back his head and laughed. He did that alot. He was a generally happy person. "No, no. It means eternal life. Its a good symbol. A symbol of faith."
"Its a tattoo?"
He laughed again. "Yeah! You don't believe me?"
"It's all faded. It really looks like you went to the club yesterday and tried to wash it off in the sink."
"My mom gave this to me when I was nine years old. Its a tattoo. It's just grown with me. Can you believe that?"
"I guess so."
"In my country, we do that sort of thing. Everybody has these things. Kids, too."
In my country, in my country. Everybody has a country. I guess we Americans just never realize it because we never live anywhere else, and when we do nobody asks us about our country. Our country is television.
The only thing I knew about Egypt was that the pyramids were there.
"I NEED SOME HONEY MUSTARD."
"I can't understand you, sir." The clerk was older. He was also Egyptian. But I didn't know that the first day I walked in. I felt sorry for him.
"HONEY. MUSTARD. FOR. MY. CHICKEN."
"Yes, sir, yes, sir."
"THANK YOUUUUUU."
The customers were always the most magical part of the Magic Mart.
That first day I was taken aback by how ugly they were to the two employees. The older Arab man, and this young guy with a perma-grin and a faux hawk.
"That's a nice car you have," he said that day.
"Thank you."
"You wanna trade? I have a Lexus for you."
"Nah, I like my car."
"I'll show it to you right now if you want."
"I bet you will."
"You don't want my car? Fair trade!"
"Not fair trade. If you want my car, its because yours isn't as nice."
That was the first time I saw him tip his head back and laugh like that. The old guy laughed, too.
"You're good!" He said, handed me my receipt, and smiled again.
Two months passed before he told me his name. It was then that I discovered that the laughing Egyptian faux hawk was really Abraham Lincoln. An American forefather. Who knew?!
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