not too cloying. The light was dim but not too dim, and I saw that the clothes displayed were all men’s clothes, as I had expected, but it appeared that no two items were alike, and that all were handmade. I stood around for a minute, looking at this and that, expecting the shopkeeper to come out and ask if I needed help. No one immediately appeared, however, and I kept looking, seeing more and more items that interested even a non-clothes-person like me. There were exotically carved boxes displayed on the table, more of the batik-printed ties, each one unique and exquisite, and small stone and wood and bone statues, and other items of brass, each one a work of art, showing influences of cultures from all around the world. On the wall over the desk was a small framed painting, of a disembodied mouth with huge lips, long, white, sharp teeth, and a bright red, lascivious tongue writhing out of it – I could not see the artist’s signature clearly in the dimness, but it seemed to be Clive Barker. Finally, after some minutes of browsing, I said loudly “Hello? Is anyone here?” A deep bass voice behind me rumbled “Here I be, Mon – how may I be of service?”

I yelped, and jumped about a foot straight up in the air, for I had not heard anyone approach - the thick oriental carpets doubtless accounted for that. I turned towards the entryway, where the voice had come from, and found an absolutely huge black man smiling at me. His entire head was clean-shaven except for a small goatee, with a thin line of hair up to his lower lip. He had to be at least 7 feet tall – real NBA material. He had on a full-length flowing robe of a type that some call a dashiki, and the loose robe could not conceal the huge muscles of his broad shoulders and chest, nor the flowing sleeves hide the bulging biceps that seemed to be the size of bowling balls. He wore no jewelry except for a large gold hoop in one ear, and a massive tigereye ring on one equally massive middle finger.

His robe was of such magnificence as I had never before seen. Dark in color, seemingly of fur but with a swirling pattern of every imaginable color that belonged to no beast that I had ever heard of, and edged at the neckline with a gold-embroidered motif that looked now West African, then Chinese, then Aztec, then seemed a Celtic Knot – all of them, all worlds, all at once, and never did seem to settle into any one firm pattern.

He smiled again and said in his deep, cavernous voice, “Sorry, Mon, - did not mean to frighten you – iss ok.” He spoke with an accent that seemed Caribbean somehow, but not Jamaica precisely – one of the other islands, perhaps, or some other patois. Immediately I was struck by the soothing quality in the voice, and I relaxed, and laughed with embarrassment at my discomfiture. He laughed, too, a rich, deep, throaty, joyous chuckle that seemed to carry all the colors of the rainbow within the sound of it.

I said, “That’s fine – this is a wonderful shop you have here – I’ve never seen anything like it before. Have you been open long?”

He smiled again, his white teeth gleaming against his black-as-ebony skin. “We been open for long time now, Bas, but dis be your first