I face backwards on the train that takes me within the city. Most nights, my eyes buried deep in reading, I barely notice the transition: supermarkets to convenience stores to concrete parking lots to skyscrapers. The book and the loneliness, the constant resentment towards strangers television has taught us to feel, keep me silent. But I notice you. I pay attention and notice you all. Some stations you go, and more of you climb aboard, and most nights, I've been all of you at some point, and I want to relate, reach out and touch the soul within to find the strength to garner a simple conversation, but we're still lost in our devices; a new form of slavery for an uneducated generation.
There's much we don't notice. There's the shriek of steel on steel as the wheels grind into a curve. The operator rings the bell so pedestrians and cars remain stationary. The brakes groan in protest when the defiant brave their fates. Yet our faces remain forward, even if we're going backward, unflinching in our daily commutes.
I'm fascinated by the train system where I live. I've used it for three years. I've planned on it should the worst happen, an apocalypse of great proportions: if I know how to fly a plane, I can drive a train to the airport. These are fantasies, I hope, but I never disregard the capabilities of my fellow man, because beneath it all we're just monsters. I've hurt and done wrong and so have you. We wouldn't love the people we do if we haven't hurt them so, and the forgiveness they exude, they gift, keeps our monstrosity in check. It's part of being human, and I'm hardly feeling human anymore.
Tonight, I'm eye-checked defiantly by you, the lesbians who boarded. Only one designs the conversation so all around her hear; an art-gala, and she's so impressed by the variant colleagues that showed for the event, a salacious remark from a pedestal built for the damned with broken mortar. You seem objectionable, ignoring her banter. Affectionately, she puts her arm around you, making eye contact with me, challenging my non-existent judeo-christian values to verbally assault her way of life. The conversation remains loud, for two stations, until she, the militant one realizes there will be no protest from the bench beside. I've been the rebel; blue mohawk, fighting the system while talking loud enough for the next state over the hear. Your girlfriend, she's distracting me from my reading.
Without fail, somewhere downtown, you, the drunken, elderly black gentlemen boards the train. Tonight, he had soiled himself, but had the where-with-all to remain standing, singing loudly a variance of a stevie wonder song with his eyes closed. He asks, "how you folks doing tonight," but it comes out unintelligible, so he carries on singing. We're two stations away from exiting downtown before he asks for money, but he pronounces it " yagottacouplacents?" You, you're me right now, and you don't even carry change and just want the smell to go away. It's the apathy that shakes your head no, that doesn't muster the voice to back the courage of your conviction.
Finally, there's you, the tourist. Nine times out of ten, there's a map involved, and a bewildered musing as its turned this way and that, followed by the desperate eye-plea to your fellow man. I ignore you. I've been you before. Hell, I'm often you, but I dally within the pages of my book (of which I've read two). I don't know if my words will help you. Once I see the map, held upside down, I know there's no hope, that true north may as well be the destination of your quest. A samaritan will eventually tell you something that sounds like help: "yeyah maahn, get off at dis heryuh next stop and catch yosef the blue line; go bout two mo stops and get yo the urnge line, and den yo be straight doh."
I'm currently reading Requiem for a Dream, so for a moment, I'm helped, as this books written in dialect. I reread a few lines with understanding as you and your map exit the train, your smartphone abandoned for street intellect. I put my fingers to the window and kiss you good luck; this city is unforgiving. We've all sinned here and we are all monsters. You, tourist, relinquish yourself into the night, and in the darkest corners there demons, and they will devour you.
Like I said, we've all been there.
Every single person. I've been them all. In some form, in some way.
It's not that I don't want to help but I'm numb to helping anymore. My quarter here, my dollar there goes towards a heroin addiction or a new supply of spoons and cottonballs and needles. About a decade ago, I've pawned guitars, amplifiers, and anything I owned to supply my own fix. It's a game, here and there, and forgive me father, for I have kept my guard up, and I have sinned.
I sound like an asshole writing this but it's true.
There I sit, with my book poised between my hands, not even reading anything. I'm trying to get home. Work was yet another night of bullshit, reroutes etc. I don't even care, my top few buttons are undone and I'm reading Mr. Selby's take on heroin addiction while being distracted by you. The whole time, I'm judging you, reaching my conclusions, far gone or as close to home as they are, but judging none the less. It's only then I realize other's have done the same to me all these years:
"Oh he has money, he can afford that haircut."
"Oh, he looks really pissed off, I'm not going to offer to help him."
"That dude is fucked up, I wonder if he needs someone to walk him to his apartment."
I've been all of you. Every single person I encountered on that train ride.... I've lied, I've stolen, I've cheated, I've abused.... yet now I'm "better," and here I am thinking everything I hated when I was there. I never noticed the steel on the steel on the curve, or the way the train alarmed me as I was nearly killed.... but I notice it all now.
Fucking shame on me.
I should be helping.
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