Snippets of conversation on the subway.
“fuck poor ass niggas, jews are robbing me blind, do these fags gotta kiss in FRONT of me, that girl prolly gotta nice pussy, the Africans smell like shit and feet, that chink BETTER gimme the dumpling for free, yo, when them Mexicans gonna learn English and why they got so many damn kids, we DOMINICAN, not black, I like pretzels with my bitches" and on and on and on, laughing all the way, ha ha ha.
Then there's the college student desperately trying to check out the hot guy in the corner while "reading." The book is astonishingly large, and she chomps on carrots that are dipped in some foul smelling concoction she probably claims is hummus. She goes to NYU, or at least that's what her bag says.
A man wearing a Bill Cosby t- shirt just entered the train at Grand Central. He's got sad eyes, and tattered clothing. His hair is matted and stark white. He used to be beautiful, I can see that. For a brief minute we catch each other's eye.
I'm 20 days sober, and I notice that I've got a lot of time on my hands. Oogles of time. Vats of it. Somehow trolling the underbelly of this city is deeply satisfying so I go up and down, down and up. My goal is to see every train line in its entirety, to leave no some unturned.
Last night I saw a pretty funny thing on the M train. A young man got on, with his fancy coat and awesome boots. He looked for someplace to sit and there was a whole bench that wasn't being used on the car we sat on. He happily sat his bottom down.
The man must not have noticed that the subway car was empty (except for me, of course), despite the fact that it was rush hour. I'm also certain that his sense of smell must have been utterly suspended.
What transpired in front of me was a gold mine in anthropology (sociology? biology? It's been awhile since college.) In a matter of a few seconds, the man's face went from inquiry (the Madeline “something is not right" phase) to vague recognition (the scientific method phase, where, having used one's senses to analyse the variables, a problem has indeed been identified) to horror ( the oh-shit phase). He capped it all off with a yelp, as he jumped straight up, his bottom sopping wet from the urine some fool has deposited there hours before (I had seen the woman pull down her pants and do it too, poor dear. She was making a point about PETA, I believe, but I can't remember exactly what it was).
Maybe my favorite moment in this odessy of mine involved a bible toting evangelical who aggressively warned us of God's impending wrath. I suppose he didn't count on the scalding rage of his ex-wife, who he had not expected would be joining us at Franklin Avenue. She was on her way to pick up her welfare check and nearly fell over herself when she saw the man. For his part, I've never seen one as dark as he blanche so dramatically.
I doubt a trip to Flatbush has ever been so entertaining. The man tried his best to stay on his message of gloom and doom. His wife ran parallel commentary about how he had run out on his kids, forced his family into a homeless shelter, refused to pay alimony and child support, and taken a mistress who was only 20. They ran up and down the car like they were absolutely mad. Whenever they came close to passing each other, she'd accent her stinging words by slapping him on the back of his head, to which he would respond with a fresh monologue on "turning the other cheek." It was outrageous.
No, I'm not homeless, if that's what you're thinking. I'm a trombone player, and I used to have a regular gig at a dumpy place not far away from Letterman, in midtown. It paid well enough, and I could play sloshed and nobody really noticed or cared. But hell. I gave it all up. The whiskey and what not. I decided I needed to change everything if I was really going to do the thing. I have a few thousand dollars my grandmother left me when she died last year so I can float for a little bit...
I've never been on the G train. I don't even know where that goes. Sounds like an adventure for tomorrow.
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