On this day by Ruth Neuwald Falcon

The comfy chair I found at Macy’s, the one that won’t be available for delivery until May, has a relative in the same collection, a loveseat. I found it when I looked online. “Delivery December 13,” the site proclaimed. I called the saleslady. “Let me check that out,” she said, sounding dubious. When she called me back a couple of hours later, she sounded excited. “It’s true” she said, “and moreover, on my internal site it says that it’s supposed to be unloaded in Chicago on October 11.” It was October 20-something when we had this conversation. “So,” she went on, “it’s probably still there and if you order it, you could get it any time.” I ordered it, not quite believing it would actually materialize.

It materialized today. Two young Black men in hoodies and masks brought it to me and put the legs on. They’d been working since 4 A.M. “One more job after you,” they told me. On this day that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted, when our justice system failed so appallingly, I wanted to say something to them, to apologize for the racism that is running rampant in so much of our country; for knowing that if our paths crossed late at night on the street, I’d be nervous; for being privileged at birth by the color of my skin and the background of my parents; for living in this nice apartment. I wanted to say, “I couldn’t have afforded anything this nice in Seattle,” but knew it would have sounded condescending, at best. All I could do was give them a good tip and thank them for their hard work and for taking their shoes off in my apartment without being asked.