Heard and seen at the Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn borough president) job fair line in which I waited for two hours and fifteen minutes Thursday:

"Them niggaz is strong." This referred to retarded kids, the care of whom was one of the jobs.

"I went to the Javitz Center [job fair] and they didn't hardly have no police there. But this is Brooklyn, they know what to expect." (When I first got there, a cop was breaking up a fight between a young girl and boy who looked like he'd tried to steal her purse. He was walking away with a hat and she was screaming to give it back while the cop was helping her with her stuff, so here I was facing the guy and I just froze, pretty sure I wasn't going to throw down for a hat, but I was blocking him, I guess hoping the cop would tell me he was fine and I should beat it. Finally the kid turned back to give the girl's hat back. Y'all, if I die in NYC, that's how it's going down, me sticking my nose in and in a trick of anatomy, getting my ass handed to me.)

Two men were servicing the line with Newport cigarettes, two for a dollar. (They're $11 for a single pack in NYC, so these were bootleg Virginia ciggies. We have killings now for them.) A man and one of two women he let cut in line with him each bought two. When we got out of the mist under the awning, the woman who bought the smokes offered one to the other girl. "She said she didn't smoke cigarettes," the guy said. To which she made one of the most perfect observations it will ever be my good luck to hear: "One thing I know is girls are situational."

The same guy told a story about the time he took his niece to Coney Island for the day and on the way home in the subway, he was digging for something in his pants pocket and his gun went off. Everyone, including the niece, bolted at the next stop, he transferred to the A, then called his homies to pick him up at his stop. "I ain't blaming [the niece] for getting off the train," he said, "but she ain't even call me later to see am I okay. And I was paying for rides all afternoon."

Fabric softener is the key to masking illicit smoke in the homeless shelter.

Regarding some kind of cash benefit two people had gotten, "Shit, it's not even enough to pay my cable bill." "Me neither. I got a DVR."

It's interesting to see what people consider their job-hunting outfits. I was in line directly behind a guy in a silver leather bomber jacket with a dragon patch that said "Bruce Lee: THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE PHILOSOPHER". He and his friend also let an acquaintance cut in front of me in line.

"A lot of the time it all comes down to who you know, even if you got credentials. And I don't have any credentials."

Which brought us to when my group of ten was the next to go in and some guy waltzed up and tried to blend in with us. Despite the fact that three out of the six people surrounding me had cut earlier, they all threatened grievous bodily harm until he sulked off. I don't know how good an impression he would have made on potential employers anyway--he was sucking on a pacifier. Not the kind that's candy and looks like a ring, the kind that has a perforated plastic guard to keep baby from swallowing it.