Peruvian Street Vendor

I was walking down East 7th Street, out taking pictures of the East Village on a Saturday afternoon, when I saw this:

Rickety gate and door, with stairs.

As you know, I am drawn to things like this, the things you see in the East Village today!

To the left, as you look at this, sat a guy from Peru, drinking a beer from a paper bag. I know he was from Peru because he was speaking with some people, one of whom asked him "Have you ever been to Peru?"

"I'm from Peru," he said, then something about his ex-wife.

The people he was talking to went on, and as I was about to take this picture he asked me, "Hey, could you watch this for me while I go up and get my cell phone?" He gestured to boxes of records he had sitting out on the sidewalk, that he was selling.

I am usually a helpful person, but I know when a disaster is in the making. I told him no, I wouldn't.

"It'll just be a second," he said.

"It's never just a second," I said.

"Two minutes," he said. "I'll just go up and be right back."

"Why don't you ask the people inside here?" and I gestured to the bar, Satsko, directly behind him, with the red thing on the door, above.

"That's a sake place," he said.

There you have it: you can trust strangers, but you can never trust a sake place! Not in the East Village! I took another picture.

Another picture of the rickety gate.

"Come on," he said, "you're taking a picture of my building."

"So?"

I finished my shot and started away. He asked one more time. I declined one more time. His persistence alone demonstrated to me I had made the right decision, not to watch his things while he was gone. If I had, I would be writing the story about how I should always trust my instincts!