Next Stop: Vacation

It’s a warm, rainy night. A couple boards the train, she in a brown floral blouse and khakis, he in casual business attire. They are fit, fine and lovely. The train begins to move. It rocks back and forth comfortably, causing them to adjust with minor footsteps. The movements of the train become harsher and they step to one side—suddenly back to the other. A rhythm develops; she steps to the left, to the right. In perfect time she is practicing the Salsa they learned last Tuesday. He begins to follow with a bit of a kick to impress.

            “I probably couldn’t imagine you speaking Spanish”

            They practice the romance language.

            “Are you sure that isn’t Italian?” she teases and corrects his pronunciation.

            The train lurches to one side and they are conjoined momentarily for a kiss. The natural perfume and taste of her lips and the warmth of his mouth transport them for a split second as their lips’ split and become one. As the train rights itself they remain close and continue to practice.

            “Donde estas”

            “Good, that’s good” She says. He notices her umbrella standing on it’s own against the closed door and he reminds her not to forget it.

            As the train rocks, they return to their lessons. A slowing movement of the train causes him to gracefully place foot over foot, which impresses her.            No one gets on at the next stop. The train starts again with a click of the tongue against the roof of his mouth. He starts to perform a tap routine, first with his right foot, and then the left contagiously joins.

The rocking train causes his hand, which holds an umbrella to swing forward slightly. It swings gently, back and forth, back and forth. It swings up, close to her belly.

            “Pop!” He gently pokes her taught tummy. They giggle as her slender fingers stroke his torso. They discuss underwear, the intimate extents of which I won’t transcribe, but the word “ribbed” is mentioned.

            The train begin to slow rapidly for the next stop and he grabs the overhead bar. He bounces his knees playfully and holds his foot suspended an inch above the ground.  She is impressed. The doors open and the independent umbrella stays suspended against the corner. He is impressed. She grabs the umbrella and they get off at the next stop.

A Ruinous Device

One man is talking to another:

            “I had this incredible dream last night where I was lost. I was on this bizarre bus that dropped me off at the wrong stop. So I’m walking around, trying to get back to Stratford through these dark winding roads, and here’s the key–“

            The other man puts up a digit, pulls out his cell phone and answers a call.

 

*                        *                        *                        *                        *                        *                       

 

He’s absolutely thrilled to be here. His feet, in his baby Nike sneakers, are dangling inches above the floor of the train, and kicking erratically, spastically. The expressions from his small mouth rapidly shift in a cycle of wild grins, playful sounds, mischievous smirks and blank, observant interest in all that’s around him.

            His arm shoots up—he’s noticed his reflection in the glass across from him and has found a new playmate. A young blond woman in the other row can’t stop shooting him wide smiles. Shy but voracious, he thwarts her gaze by popping his head in and out of a crook in his mama’s arm.

            He often peeks down the car, as he can’t get enough of the variety of faces, actions and mysterious comings and goings of all the people. They come from so many different environments of outdoor and underground platforms, holding all sorts of packages and wearing so much on their faces and huge hulking bodies. They are part of a seething rapid-fire universe that is a far off goal to his energy and interest, if not a match for it.

            His mother is too tired for it, though, and she hands him a cell phone. Almost immediately, his feral energy becomes focus and minimized like a laser beam. His legs kick occasionally, and the wild monkey sounds pop up here and there, but otherwise he has become complacent. He is fooled into satisfaction for the rest of the ride and tied into a world the size of his tiny palm. He has conceded.

Eye for an Eye

“Not on trial, but being judged as a villain to Mr. Astor”, the headline read. I find it a piece of interest, a story about a descendant of John Jacob Astor. Astor was arguably the first billionaire of New York City, a real estate mogul who famously regretted on his deathbed “not buying up every square inch of Manhattan”.

            However, it’s not my newspaper. It belongs to the woman sitting next to me. She feverishly munches on the Pringles she purchased here on the 42^nd street platform. She rhythmically sweeps crumbs off the paper, which she is also reading. I make my way to the sensational 3^rd paragraph, when her pink horn-rimmed glasses poke their way into my vicinity, her lashy eyes and face of poor complexion turning towards MY notebook. She wants to know what I’M reading, what’s part of MY personal existence here on this platform.

            I understand her obtuse existential attack and turn my head back. The train comes and we board, sitting apart from each other.

Golden Girls

It had been a very long day. At the end of a thirteen-hour film shoot in Park Slope, I was forced to walk three long uphill blocks to get the B68. I don’t like taking the bus, and this is generally the only bus I take. When it arrives, the driver says, “Get on the one behind me”.

When that one arrives, the other driver says, “I’m done”

“The other driver said to get on your bus,” I explain, with a couple of tired passengers behind me to back me up.

“I’m done” He’s stone cold, with his gloved hands up at a full stop.

We head down to the F train, which isn’t so bad if it weren’t for the fifteen-minute walk from the stop to my house. Fortunately there’s a bus that can cut that down to a five minute walk if I’m willing to wait. I arrive at the bus stop to find four people already waiting. Their names are Kate, Kat, Val and Chris; they are my age, and the first thing I hear from them, with all the aching walking and waiting, makes it all worthwhile.

“We been waiting for this bus so long, we coulda watched a whole other episode of Golden Girls, lemme just point that out” says Kate. This iconoclastic moment all but drops the exhaustion from the day behind me. My heart lifts and I slump down to jot it out.

“Y’know someone learned English from watching Golden Girls” Kat says.

“Yao Ming” Kate and Liv say simultaneously.

The bus comes and the girls say goodbye to Chris, boards the bus with me. He tells me he’s engaged to Liv and shows me the tattoo on the inside of his lip, which spells out her name in black ink. “I got so blottoed before I got it done, but the moment the needle touched my lip” He jolts upright and his eye shoot open, “Stone sober”.

We talk about the originally kung-fu stars of Hong Kong Cinema and he tells me about the price of beer in Berlin “Twelve cents after the bottle deposit”. My stop comes in a few moments and I bounce all the way home.

Karma and Calculations

            The rain lets up for me just as its time to get out of rehearsal. I walk through Crown Heights to get to the shuttle train at Franklin Avenue. I’m dressed up from an afternoon at the theater; as a lanky white boy, I’m a sore thumb in the heavily Caribbean-and-African-American neighborhood. Many used to equate this place high crime and racial tension but a lot of the crime you read about is on Wall Street and the Upper East Side.

            I sit on the platform bench, exhausted, scanning an article in the New York Times Magazine about the Dutch Welfare system. I’ve got my brown leather messenger bag and black camera case on either side, a pure example of inconsistency in this working class/ghetto culture last-stop station. I enter the train, which waits for a few minutes before reversing its path. I attempt to continue reading despite a young mother talking loudly on her cell phone. She’s pushing her young son around, not paying any attention to him and eventually chooses to leave the train, dragging him carelessly behind her.

            I fume for a bit about her lack of attention and insensitive grip of his wrist. It’s late in the evening and the doors close. We’re halfway to the next stop when I realize—I forgot my camera bag. The bag holds a brand new $800 HD camcorder. My mind and heart begin to race and I calculate the possibilities while preparing to exit at the next stop:

            The thief passed me, part of the swarm that crowds the platform at the last shuttle stop. I’m already up and waiting to board, so he sees that there is no potential owner next to the package. His swift actions have already been calculated in the numerous thefts he both succeeded and failed at. His billowy clothes have been streamlined to accommodate many items.

He knows that a seamless snatch would be barely noticed although it’s possible that the owner has run back to grab his/her bag and realize it’s been stolen. It’s unlikely, however, that the owner would be able to rush down the stairs at a quicker rate than the descending crowd. Finally, the theif calculates, it would be nearly impossible for the owner to get in front of the crowd and in a discernable position to scan for his/her stolen item.

I rush down the stairs and out of the station, beginning my damnable frantic stride back up Franklin Avenue. Still somewhat hopeless, I consider the irony of the skinny white guy practically running up through this neighborhood to prevent the potential crime made available by his own negligence. Picking up some sense, I begin to walk through the street in order to hail down a cab.

I figure that the probability of my camera being stolen, already at a high considering the mass of denizens already passing by it, is only increasing by the minute. So, to decrease that probability, I can cut a 7 minute walk into a 3 minute cab ride by the application of a mere $5 toll in the face of an $800 loss. The cabby charges me $7 for a four-block trip. Highway robbery…

I faultlessly glide through the turnstile (my 16-minute window between rides on my unlimited Metrocard ticking off with impeccably good timing) and rush up the escalator. The speed of my double-step jumping compounds with the upward motion of the escalator, but the blur of hyper speed gives way to an open-air subway platform—with no camera bag on any of the seats.

The next train in the station has been boarded, but has not yet departed. I dart onto it, using the highest possible scanning ability to look for my bag while moving quick enough to cover both cars before the doors close. It seems nobody on this train stole my bag without the deviousness to keep it out of sight of the owner.

I descend the stairs, dejected, with one final possibility before me. This possibility depends solely on the good of the common man. Someone, man or woman, saw my bag, saw that it was not in the vicinity of any other passenger, asked anyone close-by of it’s origin and came down to the station attendant to hand it over to the authorities (I put a marginal increase of probability in this scenario considering the “If you see something, say something” vigilance ads)

I ask the station attendant if anyone brought down a black bag,

“Around this big”, my hands cradling every last hope.

“What size?”

“Like this” I hold the phantom bag on all six sides as though I probably won’t touch it again.

He points towards a set of massive steel doors. I pull its heavy weariness open and see before me a bizarre stretch of an empty concrete hallway. At my feet is my little black bag, tilted and upside-down, as though it had been dropped in the favor of an arriving train. I pick it up, check it’s contents (all intact and untouched) and thank the station attendant with both hands clasped in each other.

The train has left, and I happily wait for the next one. They say the crime rate in New York City has dropped 90% in the past 18 years, but I can’t slap statistics on whoever had the sense to do the right thing tonight. I can’t exactly look at a karmic record either, with all my good and ill deeds wavering in complicated woven pattern, both invisible and opaque.

When I get out at my final destination, it has started raining again.

Three’s a Charm

“Starting now, I won’t watch TV for a month” She says. She sports a wool brown hat with various pieces of colored lint sewn into a central pink and beige band with points popping out like bear ears. Below that is a funky jacket with shaggy green fur in horizontal strips. She carries a green and white plaid STRAND bag.

She is with a man who is equally bohemian, but two generations removed. Her grampa has an indistinct brown jacket and stark white hat, fur-lined that almost perfectly matches his gray-handle bar mustache. There are splotches of white paint on the back of one hand, blue on the back of the other.

“Cassandra is coming over Sunday!”

She gasps.

“Do you want Hannah to come over too?”

“YEAH!” her enthusiasm is only matched by her diverting curiosity “Why does it say ‘I like’ on your hand?” He shrugs teasingly. She opens the hand in question and reads it, “I like 9…what does that mean?!”

The L train comes. They will travel one stop, going from the tip of the East Village into the heart of Williamsburg, which some call the East East Village. They will travel under a river, from a historic but immortal center of art, free thought and expression into a new world.

“Why would someone put $5000 on a Metrocard?”

She drops two Metrocards, one of them is white with lime green lettering.

“What’s that one?”

“I don’t know, I found it”

“Does it work?”

“I haven’t check yet!” Her bright green eyes are wide—almost as wide as her over-bite grin. She fumbles.

“You dropped them again!”

She giggles and guffaws at her own clumsiness. Barely two seconds pass before she drops them again and picks them up.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“It’s like Gramma says” as she gets up “things happen in 3’s!”

He guides her off the train.

 

*                                    *                                    *                                    *

 

“Did Pop go to college?”

“ A little bit. He went to NYU for a couple semesters”

“Wasn’t for him?”

“No, probably not”

“Yeah, I can just image him tapping his pencil” She says, with a faux-grim look on her face.

They talk about college prices for a bit. He takes off his tan Woodsman hat, with it’s soft wool flops on the interior and holds it upside-down, letting the strings on the end hang down shaking at the mercy of the train. He focuses on them softly while chatting with his daughter. He speaks to her like a peer, with the friendly small talk rolling off his shoulders. She is learning things, always, and maturing.

“Prospect Pahk. Prospect Pahk” He says, imitating the conductor. “Gettin’ there slowly, slowly. About halfway across Brooklyn. Another half to go”

Look at this guy”, he says lowly, head squarely faced to the left in a distinct effort not to stare. “To the right, to the right.” A bright magenta mohawk enters the train and walks the opposite direction. “I can’t believe that woman was wearing sandals and no socks yesterday”, He says “Retaaaaaaaarded. And those guys with no belts. It’s a world-wide phenomenon.”

The train lurches a little but stops. “Just kidding” the girl gives voice to the train. His fat tan leather gloves, are the identical color of his puffy coat and hat. He’s stretching vastly out in a forest of tan. “I don’t feel like stoppin’, pickin’ any of you folks up” He voices for the train as we speed into DeKalb Ave. station “That means another subway’s close behind. These poor folks aren’t gonna get picked up”

The train stops. “Nope” They both say, and laugh. “Close the damn door” The warm mid-western accents and spirits are miles from any harsh, impatient temperament native to New York City, among others.

“Leaving Brooklyn” she says.

“That’s the Brooklyn Bridge. There’s an incredible story of how that was built”

“I know, I read it!” She says excitedly. He tells her about the Bends and I politely inform them that the chief engineer suffered a ferry accident that brought him to his death. It was his son, Washington, which fell ill from the Bends.

“See I could never remember any stuff like that.” The Dad says. “I’d be on Jeopardy like, ‘Who built the Brooklyn Bridge?’, ‘Uhhhh….John Brooklyn? Aggghhh’” He cracks up, his smooth mouth arcing high around his high-bridged nose. “’How much did you bet?’ ‘Uhhhh…30,000’ Alex Tribeck would say ‘Man, you’re the stupidest person who’s ever been on this show!’”

“Hey we’re here! Canal!”

“Yeah, it brought us right to it. Isn’t that amazing?”

Katherine

She’s on the platform at the G line with Miriam and Cody. Miriam has a scruffy little dog named Boss Tanaka and Cody=Music. They play world music, flying through Spanish howls a la Miriam and they play country-bluegrass with banjo twanging a la Cody.

Katherine emits sharp pecks of notes and scales of range from her throat. Combined with the leopard print lampshade on her head, she helps to form a complete image of fringe culture itinerary. My bohemian girlfriend from San Francisco came to New York with dreams of busking. Singing and playing music on the streets and subways was all she wanted to do during her 4-month stint here. Instead she got an internship at NYU and a job…New York can really squeeze you, sometimes.

The thing with busking, fortunately, is that sometimes people drop some money. A man with a guitar case places some change in the floppy hat on the ground. Another girl nervously lets two dollar bills fall to the ground before taking some precious photos.

A young guy leaning against his guitar case puts his book away in order to enjoy this performance unadulterated. His stringy yellow hair frays as the train approaches. With no rush, he transfers a dollar from his pocket to the hat. His book, The Power of Now, leans out his pocket. Katherine is reading the same book.

Exiting the train, the artistically inclined hipsters jumble with the young Black and Hispanic families and the transfer occurs on this small half-green platform. The train departs and the hordes charge towards the stairs, past the music. A man’s voice bellow’s “Get a job!” but it comes from an unshaven, jovial young face. A wooden block on the ground in front of Cody’s foot quietly proclaims the bands’ name: Freedom Ticklers.

Late night, at a glance

“I bet you won’t go to sleep right away”

“Nope” They laugh.

“I’m gonna watch TV for a while” his Jamaican accent is thick for Church Avenue.

“I’m probably gonna do the same thing” His voice is gruff. Definitely gruff. “I hope my bed is dry” Another gruff man gets up to leave and he puts out his fist, straight forward and parallel to the ground so if he opened it and there was change inside it would clatter on the subway floor. Another fist taps it.

“Actually I’m going to get McDonalds with my girlfriend” the younger man says.

 

“How much do you get?” The older man says to the younger man.

“Eight”

“You could probably get ten”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Do you get direct deposit? Retirement benefits?”

“Naw. I don’t get none of that stuff”

“Our Union sets all that up. You work with a Union?”

“No”

“Yeah the Union pays for all that stuff. If you have to get your license renewed the Union pays for that stuff” He glances at his watch “I’m never gonna make it. I’m gonna get home at one again…”

“This is my stop”
“Yeah?”

“This is my stop”

The train slows and stops. The doors open.

“Isn’t this your stop?”

“Yeah, but I’m going to get off at the next stop. I’m going to go to my girlfriend’s house”

The next stop comes. The older man puts out his fist again.

“I don’t know about that” The younger man says, and shakes his hand. In the other he holds a bag printed with the letters R.A.G.

“You’re gonna call me tomorrow?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow”

“Oh, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I don’t know about that”

Guest Writer: Moses Gates

It had been one of those awful days.   I can’t remember the specifics now, but I remember the rotten feeling in my gut.    Life, job, the city, everything had been getting me down.   I was late to some kind of appointment I think – one more thing that had gone wrong.  The subway was crowded,it was a long ride and I knew I wouldn’t get a seat.   I leaned against the door and tried to block out the world. 

But the world jabbed its way in.  I heard a voice – someone singing a song I didn’t know.   I couldn’t make out the words, but I didn’t really want to.  I was annoyed, and just not in the mood to try and ignore another subway performer and hope they didn’t bump into me while walking down the aisle asking for donations.   Why was I here in this city?   Why wasn’t I living somewhere where a car and a decent apartment weren’t reserved for people with incomes well into the six figures?   Why was I here on a noisy, dirty, two-dollar ride trying to ignore another crazy person invading the personal bubble I had so painstakingly crafted for myself just for times like these?   

Then a dozen more voices joined the first and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.   

They were some kind of Church, or maybe high school choir practicing.   And they were really, really good.   The song turned out to be “He Knows My Name” – a gospel song whose lyrics seem to feature a really creepy stalker Jesus (the first two lines of the chorus are “he knows my name, he knows my every move).”   I’ve downloaded different version of the song, but none have meant anything to me – by itself the song is kind of saccharine.  It was the people, and the moment.

Even though I was late, I left the train one stop after I should have, just so I could listen to the last verse.   I knew in my head that the problems had not gone away, but somehow everything was OK now.   I thought it appropriate that the song was a gospel.   I’ve never been religious, but I’ve always had faith in the city.   And just like how a priest looks for signs of faith when he has doubts, the city has always had a way of restoring my faith when I felt like it was being tested.   Nowhere else could I have had that moment – especially not driving along the highway in some town with cheap parking and people who don’t sing in public.

(Also brown)

Her shoes are moccasins; brown and white with cows hide patterns. No socks. Her pants are mocha chocolate crushed velvet, her parka the same color of her gloves, brown. Her well-manicured nails hang delicately from the finger holes, mid-knuckle up.

            Her face has that familiar heavy touch to it, the one that comes with money and age. Taught past the cheekbones, inflamed auburn lips, and a broadened upper lip below a possibly natural nose. Lines just barely exist within the crevices of her cheek. Much of it is hidden behind over-sized Chanel glasses (also brown).

            She is taking a picture of this face with her camera phone. Slowly and thoughtfully, she turns the phone around and extends her arm. She frames it quite right, modeling plainly with only the slightest pouting of her lips. She swivels the phone back around leisurely, without a moments haste.

            And she examines herself. She takes in the full picture in that sub-conscious split-second before eagle eying particular features. She lifts her glasses just above the eyelash for an unmolested view. It is unclear whether she is discriminating, but she lingers long enough to have made certain age-old criticisms. She must be satisfied to a certain extent, because she puts away her momentary mirror and fails to produce a compact or do anything to her face. Perhaps she has done enough already.