After a long day of shrinking down photos of lawyers and removing the magenta tan that they have been granted by the photographer, there's nothing better than heading back to the PATH train with all the other happy people. Dressed in their black suits, black pants, black shoes, carrying their black umbrella on gray, sometimes black, days, there's a feeling of community, of belonging, to the great surging mass. You can see the numbing glory of their priceless lawns and the nagging itch for the cute administrative assistant visualized in their awkward, yet hurried, stumble upstream.
Once you've found your place on the train, you come to the realization that time stands still here. Morning or evening, the faces remain expressionless. These people are trapped and they know it but they don't understand how to escape. Perhaps "The Da Vinci Code" or "AM New York" will allow them the chance to avoid the numbing, compassionless faces of their fellow passenger for a few minutes until they arrive at Exchange Place, Grove Street, Journal Square; the destination not a home but a brief stopping point for further transit of some manner.
And then it happens: a man, who has been talking to two other passengers, begins to testify. He used to "smoke and drink and lie and cheat and..." is drowned out as the train picks up speed. His two companions are interesting. One is a woman, wider than tall, who stands there with a huge idiot grin on her face, similar to a clown's painted lips. The other is a younger man with eyes that look as if they have had intimate conversations with the plant world for many years and hair that looks as if it hasn't seen water during those same many years. They smile while everyone else looks away, embarassed by this man who has broken the compact that we all sign in order to ride the train. I want to join him. I want to speak of my god to everyone on the train. I wish to cause Dionysian revelry among my fellow passengers. I want to discuss quantum physics as we hurtle to the next stop or whisper mantras when we come to a standstill. I want to know why the 33rd street elevator is still not working. I want them to join me in a primal scream as we pull into the station. But I don't have a woman, wider than tall, with a huge idiot grin on her lips or a man with wild eyes and greasy hair agreeing with me because they believe the same thing. So I get off at the first stop and walk home.
But it doesn't end there. When I get to the corner of one of the main intersections of this city, Jersey City, land of nail parlors, 99ยข stores, corrupt politicians, I wait for the signal to tell me to walk. As I begin to do so a large bus comes barreling through the red light. The driver looks at me for a moment. She is toothless and cackling. I go home and put on an Angelo Badalementi soundtrack.
Comments