On a Train 1
Three minutes and forty five seconds is the average time you’re trapped between stops on the A train between Brooklyn and Manhattan. There isn’t a huge amount that can happen in that time, but, for example, it is enough time to get attacked by a drunk, homeless, drug-ridden, disease-ridden, defecating, lonely, sixty year old. For example. Of course, you’d never really expect that to happen to you, but as I felt my palm slip down the now sweaty handrail, and counted the seconds I had left, I wasn’t thinking about the likelihood of it all. When you see someone like that coming at you, “likelihood” never really enters it.
I’ll start by telling you what I was doing down there in the first place. It was in the middle of winter, the roads were too icy to ride a bicycle on, the air was too cold to have your fingers exposed to it, the snow was too thick for a car to see you, and the amount that I had had to drink made all those other arguments irrelevant. I couldn’t have excused riding in the state I was in, not even to save the two-dollar trip. You see, that’s what I normally do. When it’s a bad idea for me to ride I tell everyone “but it’s two dollars otherwise,” and they generally understand.
Anyway, so there I was, my bicycle next to me on an empty subway, cold, drunk, tired, and counting away the seconds. I don’t count all the numbers; I play a beat. It’s a four count repeated four times before I count up the next number. In this way “2” means I’ve counted seventeen beats, “6” means eighty one beats, and “15” means two hundred and twenty five beats, or, at 60bpm, about 3¾ minutes.
This time I lost count. All of a sudden a blanket that I hadn’t seen before moved, and out popped an old boot attached to an emaciated ankle, half-covered in dark brown denim, and leading towards the gaunt and haggard body of a Manhattan bum. I couldn’t see the rest of him, but once you’ve seen an ankle you can be pretty much certain that he’ll look exactly the same as all the others: one step away from the grave, the body already shutting down, its cadaverous frame kept going by drugs, hunger, or just the obstinate refusal to take that final plunge.
His entrance caught me by enough of a surprise to make me forget my count. Well, he hadn’t really made an entrance yet, only his ankle. I sat there, still tapping my heel, wondering how in the hell a bag of bones manages to stay on the seats for long enough to get some sleep, especially seeing as a bag of books or a computer bag would almost invariably fall off. He probably was a veteran. Or insane. Reagan made sure of that, and now Bush is following it up. He probably died for his country and was brought back to life by field doctors working for a government that wanted to keep its statistics manageable.
Despite its apparent lack of weight (the boot looked heavier than the leg), the protruding limb continued to extend until it seemed to be out far enough to counter lever the base into action. Just at the point of falling off the seat he grunted and rolled a little, his other leg pushing the blanket onto the floor. He grunted again with his well-tarred larynx making itself known, before sitting up and wiping himself down. The denim of his jeans around the thigh was pretty blue, browning towards the ankles, and yellowing towards the crotch. He was wearing a large, hanging overcoat covered in nicks and tears, spattered between curious stains, excess buttons, and pockets full of god knows what.
Then I noticed him looking at me. I think. The glazed-red sheen on his eyes made it pretty unclear where he was looking, but I was the only other thing on the carriage, other than my bike.
That’s when I realised my collar. It’s a funny thing to do, to realise a collar, but that was the first thing that came into mind, and probably just because it is so close to my head. I didn’t think about my cuffs, my immaculately “untended” haircut, or my $225 shoes. I didn’t think about the pose I was in; laid back and non-committal, as if I could easily fall asleep because I had so little to care about. No. I thought about how ridiculous I must have looked in a striped black shirt topped by an oversized, starched, and overly-pointed collar. I was thinking how much like a yuppie I must look. How rich, and fat, and pink. His dirty black skin had a sort of noble quality to it, like that of a stallion or the façade of an old house. Mine was turning red.
That’s when he got up. He hadn’t seemed like he was going to do anything before he’d seen me, so he must be moving for my sake. I was being advanced upon. I hunched my shoulders and uncrossed my legs, these slight movements supposedly giving the impression that I was ready for him. I placed my hand on the handrail to make my rise a faster one, and I brought my elbow towards me along the back of the neighbouring seat, just to give me some leverage. He stopped moving, still watching me, swaying slightly with the carriages leaning pitch, staring, almost grinning. He was about six feet tall. The bump, bump, bump, bump of my heel against the floor turned now into a sort of heartbeat with four sections instead of two, now much faster than before. Suddenly the carriage pitched to the left (we must have been turning west into Manhattan) and he was forced to take a step forward, but his hand came out to steady himself, and that was as far as he got. He stood there for a while. Bump bump bump bump. Bump bump bump bump. Bump bump bump bump. He slipped something off his shoulder, a khaki bag (the camouflage really worked), then reached down to pick up his blanket. Again he stood up tall, his head brushing against the brushed metal rail above, and cleared his throat in a bronchial chord that churned the saliva in my throat and made my stomach clench. That’s when it started.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have a moment of your time,” he boomed, obviously trying to be heard above the iPods and discmen, “I’m not here to take your hard-earned money, I’m not here to take the food from your mouths. I’m not here to make you sign anything, to give anything, or,” he smiled, “to hug anyone. I’m here to tell you about the biggest cause for concern in your lives that you have, one that’s more important than your wives and your lovers, your husbands and your children, your bills and your bosses. I’m talking about your safety.”
He cleared his throat again and spat on the floor, a large oyster-looking bullet pitting against the plastic with a dink. Bump bump bump bump went my foot, now completely ignored.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you about Jesus. He sent me to tell you all of the peril you’re living in. There’s not one of you who hasn’t sinned, and needs to repent… (unfinished)
