I took the J train this morning two stops to Bowery Street at Delancey, near Chinatown. I got off the train and rode the escalator up from the tunnels with 15 or so mostly Chinese workers, about the usual number. Some wore office attire, others looked ready to cut fish or sell dumplings.

I noticed one old man, walking with a cap, cane and casual jacket, had a scar on his throat, running from ear to ear. The wound was clearly inflicted deliberately. I looked and moved on, flashing briefly on an invented war scene: This dignified gentleman at 20, sprawled in a rice paddy with his throat slit, staring up at a blue sky on a beautiful cold morning in November 1937, a day quite like today.