POETRY

By Eric Abalajon

“I used to hang out just outside           the fence of Pearson International,
on week­ends with friends,         and bring binoc­u­lars. It became         a bad hobby
imme­di­ate­ly after 9–11.”         Sujoy summed up, “You know how I look,”

bring­ing the class, on anti-racist ped­a­gogy, into laugh­ter.         The instructor
was explain­ing the prac­tice of carding,         which no one heard about
but Sujoy expe­ri­enced         twice. She said, “It’s when a         police officer asks

for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion,         if you seem out of place.” This means dark skin
in white, and or afflu­ent         spaces.         “But also, the other way around,
if you’re white in, you know,         in certain com­mu­ni­ties,” she almost stuttered.

“Another time,” Sujoy went on,         “I went to a concert         and left my keys.
I was like 19 then,         and I tried to climb back         to my apart­ment after,
when a cop saw me.         That time, I was gen­uine­ly scared.         The high from

the show dipped into dread quickly.         Good thing my room­mate         was awake,
there to confirm         who I was.         Weird how saying that comes out now.”         Amid the
nodding and silence,         the instruc­tor went on about sce­nar­ios like these could

creep into our class­rooms. During the break, I asked Sujoy what band he saw, that night.
To keep things light.         He can’t remem­ber, so I asked about watching
planes take off and land.         Dearly missing it,         he said it was a sight to behold.

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 18.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao.