Snapshots In Transit
A Bus
I am on a bus going up First Avenue in New York City. I'm reading a book. I can hear, without looking around, that someone is sniffling up what sound like a lot of snot. I continue to read and the sniffling becomes regular, and begins to sound as though buckets might be needed. This goes on for about ten minutes. I look around to see who is generating such a factory of mucous when I notice that other riders have already spotted the culprit. It is a young man, late 20's, in a white T-shirt and khaki pants. His nose is a full blown scarlet coloured gin blossom. He looks as if he has had a cold since birth. His chest is concave and he is a healthy shade of paste. Just the way he looks causes those nearby to erupt in titters. The tittering, I have to assume, embarrasses him, and I imagine he interprets the laughter as a suggestion from strangers that he blow his nose rather than sniffle. So out he pulls a handkerchief with the dimensions of a twin-sized bed sheet and begins to blow away. With each blow he turns his huge textile infrastructure 'round and 'round looking for a clean space to blow next, maneuvering it like Buster Keaton faced with a newspaper. And like Buster Keaton his face remains deadpan, seemingly oblivious to the ridiculousness of his situation. Everyone in near proximity howls with laughter, and each howl solidifies his deadpan causing the cycle to repeat. In turn, as each of us alight, we wish him better health and laugh our way off the bus.
Another Bus
On yet another bus in San Francisco. It is crowded as school has been let out. It's autumn and I am wearing a blue mohair sweater. I scrunch myself, bending and turning towards the back of the bus making way for more passengers. I find a space with a pole to hang onto. More passengers scrunch pass me causing me to lean in over those seated. I lean and stand, lean and stand --repeating this movement. Suddenly I notice, that silently, the women seated in front of me is looking up at me and then down to my chest. She repeats this glance again and again as if giving me a code suggesting danger ahead. I look down to my own chest thinking my sweater must be open but instead I find her wig attached with a bobby-pin to my mohair sweater. There is nothing anyone can really do in situations such as this other than to simply unpin the wig and hand it back.
A Train
I am on the number 4 train leaving Borough Hall on my way to Manhattan for work. At least three times a week during rush hour the train must wait in the tunnel under The East River to wait its turn to go. These delays can last up to what seems like eternity. Five to ten minutes packed with sardines whom you do not know can seem like forever. It is claustrophobic, hot, damp and unbearable. We are pressed together so closely that the mere bulk of our bodies keeps everyone standing. There is a woman, all dressed up in crazy, who uses these delays to belt out, at the top of her lungs, nonsensical religious brimstone and to point out that we are all going to hell. We already feel as though we are in hell so this blast of noise feels redundant and cruel. She is a regular commuter like myself and this is perhaps the 30th time I have had to endure her early morning outbursts.
With one hand holding onto a strap overhead, my other arm is pinned to my side unable to do anything but wait for its release at Bowling Green when the train will empty. Suddenly I feel movement at my backside. I pay close attention to the movement trying to determine if it is a handbag, an umbrella or simply someone trying to shift into a better position. I can not lift my right arm so I slowly travel my fingers round my own body to the back and feel something I can not identify. Attaché cases are on floors, handbags should be felt near mid back, so I touch it with my hand trying to quickly identify it. We reach Bowling Green and suddenly the train empties and I turn to identify this thing at my backside. I find an ugly troll with his limp dick lolling out of his unzipped trousers and a big toothless grin on his face. He looks delighted as though he has satisfied me in some way. I am horrified and begin to screech and scratch out every combination that 'fucker' combines with. No one else has seen his penis and my sudden howling is presumed by others to be an indication of my strangeness. He escapes the train as the doors close leaving me behind to carry on to work.
An Airport
Many years before I learned to screech and scratch I find myself alone in an airport in New York City. I am coming from Prince Edward Island and on my way to California. I am a child alone feeling all of the things children alone feel when adults are in the throes of vindictive divorce. I am wearing a grey dress with two rows of brass buttons down the front not unlike turn of the century NYC police uniforms. Despite all of these buttons a strange man has sat down beside me and found his way around the buttons and to the flesh on my chest which will one day be known as my breasts.
We are sitting side by side and hoards of passengers stream by, glance, and hurry on with that international air of busied importance that many people adopt in airports. I would like to think the look on my face conveyed a sense of pleading with a healthy dose of terror thrown in, but I may have adopted a frozen look, and simply disappeared conveying to those striding by that what they were seeing was a typical day for me and, not to worry. All these years later, I can not say.
A Bus
I am on a bus going up First Avenue in New York City. I'm reading a book. I can hear, without looking around, that someone is sniffling up what sound like a lot of snot. I continue to read and the sniffling becomes regular, and begins to sound as though buckets might be needed. This goes on for about ten minutes. I look around to see who is generating such a factory of mucous when I notice that other riders have already spotted the culprit. It is a young man, late 20's, in a white T-shirt and khaki pants. His nose is a full blown scarlet coloured gin blossom. He looks as if he has had a cold since birth. His chest is concave and he is a healthy shade of paste. Just the way he looks causes those nearby to erupt in titters. The tittering, I have to assume, embarrasses him, and I imagine he interprets the laughter as a suggestion from strangers that he blow his nose rather than sniffle. So out he pulls a handkerchief with the dimensions of a twin-sized bed sheet and begins to blow away. With each blow he turns his huge textile infrastructure 'round and 'round looking for a clean space to blow next, maneuvering it like Buster Keaton faced with a newspaper. And like Buster Keaton his face remains deadpan, seemingly oblivious to the ridiculousness of his situation. Everyone in near proximity howls with laughter, and each howl solidifies his deadpan causing the cycle to repeat. In turn, as each of us alight, we wish him better health and laugh our way off the bus.
Another Bus
On yet another bus in San Francisco. It is crowded as school has been let out. It's autumn and I am wearing a blue mohair sweater. I scrunch myself, bending and turning towards the back of the bus making way for more passengers. I find a space with a pole to hang onto. More passengers scrunch pass me causing me to lean in over those seated. I lean and stand, lean and stand --repeating this movement. Suddenly I notice, that silently, the women seated in front of me is looking up at me and then down to my chest. She repeats this glance again and again as if giving me a code suggesting danger ahead. I look down to my own chest thinking my sweater must be open but instead I find her wig attached with a bobby-pin to my mohair sweater. There is nothing anyone can really do in situations such as this other than to simply unpin the wig and hand it back.
A Train
I am on the number 4 train leaving Borough Hall on my way to Manhattan for work. At least three times a week during rush hour the train must wait in the tunnel under The East River to wait its turn to go. These delays can last up to what seems like eternity. Five to ten minutes packed with sardines whom you do not know can seem like forever. It is claustrophobic, hot, damp and unbearable. We are pressed together so closely that the mere bulk of our bodies keeps everyone standing. There is a woman, all dressed up in crazy, who uses these delays to belt out, at the top of her lungs, nonsensical religious brimstone and to point out that we are all going to hell. We already feel as though we are in hell so this blast of noise feels redundant and cruel. She is a regular commuter like myself and this is perhaps the 30th time I have had to endure her early morning outbursts.
With one hand holding onto a strap overhead, my other arm is pinned to my side unable to do anything but wait for its release at Bowling Green when the train will empty. Suddenly I feel movement at my backside. I pay close attention to the movement trying to determine if it is a handbag, an umbrella or simply someone trying to shift into a better position. I can not lift my right arm so I slowly travel my fingers round my own body to the back and feel something I can not identify. Attaché cases are on floors, handbags should be felt near mid back, so I touch it with my hand trying to quickly identify it. We reach Bowling Green and suddenly the train empties and I turn to identify this thing at my backside. I find an ugly troll with his limp dick lolling out of his unzipped trousers and a big toothless grin on his face. He looks delighted as though he has satisfied me in some way. I am horrified and begin to screech and scratch out every combination that 'fucker' combines with. No one else has seen his penis and my sudden howling is presumed by others to be an indication of my strangeness. He escapes the train as the doors close leaving me behind to carry on to work.
An Airport
Many years before I learned to screech and scratch I find myself alone in an airport in New York City. I am coming from Prince Edward Island and on my way to California. I am a child alone feeling all of the things children alone feel when adults are in the throes of vindictive divorce. I am wearing a grey dress with two rows of brass buttons down the front not unlike turn of the century NYC police uniforms. Despite all of these buttons a strange man has sat down beside me and found his way around the buttons and to the flesh on my chest which will one day be known as my breasts.
We are sitting side by side and hoards of passengers stream by, glance, and hurry on with that international air of busied importance that many people adopt in airports. I would like to think the look on my face conveyed a sense of pleading with a healthy dose of terror thrown in, but I may have adopted a frozen look, and simply disappeared conveying to those striding by that what they were seeing was a typical day for me and, not to worry. All these years later, I can not say.
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