By Diasia Ellerbee
Howard University News Service
The pet store Chateau stands to the right outside the window of an Orange Line train. A young man gets on the train with two little boys who are his spitting image. The train stops at Minnesota Avenue. To the left, teenage lovers kiss as they make their way to the next Metro station. Teenage guys with heavy North Face jackets and a D.C. swagger laugh and joke with one another as they walk by.
As I open the door to Rainbows on Minnesota Avenue, the security guard says, “Don’t play with me.”
“What?” I ask, thinking that he was talking to me.
He shakes his head “no,” pointing toward his Bluetooth.
I laughed. “Oh, I thought you were talking to me,” I responded, as I walked past the clothes and straight to the shoe section.
Browsing through the small selection of shoes, I smile when I overhear a woman in line say that she buys her underclothes too big so she can put them in the dryer to make them smaller. She and another woman then start talking about their jobs. “White boys think they black,” says the woman wearing a blue furry jacket and a wig with a short cut.
I leave Rainbow and walk next door to DTLR (Downtown Locker Room), which is filled with chatter as people buy sneakers and clothes. The employees fit right in with the customers because they have no set uniform, just the DTLR tag that’s around their neck.
A boy with an orange shirt, blue jeans and braids asks if my friend and I need any help. “No, just looking,” we reply. He moves on to the next customer. A little boy whose favorite colors must be blue and black shows his mom or grandmother a pair of blue and black Nikes. They match his outfit.
A telephone rings in the background as the radio plays T.I.’s song “Whatever You Like.” A couple of friends joke and laugh about money. “Spending that change, come off that bank roll,” yells one of the guys in his extremely soft voice. With his D.C slang, he continues to joke with his friends.
Everyone seems as if they are in their own worlds as they groove to the music and chat with their friends. A guy with dreds and a red hat dances and sings to the music as he waits for his son to pick out a pair of sneakers.
An older guy who looks extremely familiar stops and stares at me as if we have seen each other before, but we both know it is just another case of “you look like someone I know.”
Jay-Z’s song “I Know” must be the jam. As soon as it comes on, a group of older guys start singing and dancing while one of them decides to buy a shirt.
As I write in my notepad, I notice that the sales reps have a weird look mixed with curiosity on their faces.
Standing behind me, an employee with a white shirt and braids tells his co-worker that he is ready to go on break. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t have any money because he gave his check to his wife. With the call of his name, he leaves to help a guy with his purchase.
Two little boys with a lot of personality come into the store singing along with the radio. “I love her because she got her own. She got her own.” Laughing, I realize it is time for me to go. I close my notebook and walk back toward the Metro.
Diasia Ellerbee covers Ward 7 for the Howard University News Service.
