In the Union Square Subway station, the four trains’ screeching brakes damage eharing as well as add unnecessary stress to the lives of us unfortunate enough to have to travel up or downtown quickly. Everyone expects that sound (like a banshee with a toothache) to dig into their spines everytime an express train approaches.
Some plug their ears in anticipation, some face the pain stoically, evincing their discomfort with the most subtle of winces. Even the deaf get similarly uncomfortable, but have to rely on their own deductive capacities to figure out why.
The authorities are well aware of the problem and, but for the policy disputes, could have forged some initially temporary, eventually permanent solution long ago. No one can agree, the MTA claims to be as concerned with cost as speed, for the sake of the riders. They are actually concerned about cost only, and that for the sake of avoiding confrontation with the union. (?) The mayor’s office is concerned with making a “lasting improvement for a greater New York,” in keeping with the many PSA’s and brochures bearing this nonsense. His office says “the mayor is a rider too, you know.” By this they mean that the mayor rides the subway once per week, which consequently excuses the subways’ perpetual state of disrepair. I guess the logic is that the mayor, a billionaire, can put up with it, why can’t we? This is clearly nonsense, and it will not assuage our squeaky banshee. Thus, we are left to endure its shrill cries for we know not what, as reliable and conspicuous and reliable as Kant’s mid-afternoon strolls, by which the townspeople could set their clocks.
Finally, those who would most easily pay the increased fare to put this specter to rest find the subway to be beneath them.
It is against this backdrop that the action takes place, if we can call it that. It is near 3 A.M. on an extended Saturday night, slightly cold, lit sufficiently to ward of competent petty crooks, and otherwise unremarkable. It is the 4/5 subway platform.
Slightly wandering, a young man paces with as much side-to-side as forward motion. He is not discontented. He is not content, either, though likely more the latter than the former. He is waiting for a train to the Upper East Side.
You might expect that he is occasionally sighing, looking at his watch, and/or shaking his head, like so many subway riders do. He does none of these thing, and gets slightly annoyed when someone else expresses his or (more likely) her displeasure this way. The head shake, to him, is the worst. It’s like the headshaker is in the presence of a misbehaving child, compelled to criticize poor parenting, but unwilling to stir up a controversy.
This passive aggression would have bothered him enough, were it not for the absence of any parent or misbehaving child. But the metaphorical nature of the gesture rendered it absurd. Who is the misbehaving child? The subway? The driver? This is man vs. nature at its most asinine. Is the inept parent the MTA? The mayor? Yahweh incarnated as a malfunctioning third rail? I digress. Suffice it to say, this fellow was something of a pragmatist.
Mid-saunter, he notes an almost heavyset man with immaculate fingernails and a higher-end haircut, two or three weeks expired. The misheveled man, looks up from a short paperback with one crease in the binding toward the front-end, and gives our Upper East Side bound wanderer a benign look. Meeting eyes, their glances spark the tinder of casual conversation.
“How long have you been waiting? Asked the meanderer.
“Not sure, a bunch of trains passed on the downtown track, though.” He replied. “Don’t think there’s construction.” His inflection implied a question.
“Me either.” He was irritated by the lack of an explanation, and may have been more so if he hadn’t calmed his nerves with a glass of wine and several beers earlier that night. Some silent moments passed, and the man again looked up from his book.
“You have a fun night?” After some obvious irritation, evidenced by the momentary furrowing of his eyebrows, he relaxed and his shoulders stooped a bit.
“Yeah, actually, the Lower East Side is always fun, you?”
They were apparently, now on “usted” terms. The reader smiled and looked down,
“yeah…” The wanderer wandered and the reader read. Still no train, still no fellow riders. “So, what are you reading, anyway? You look so content?”
“eh…something about physics and creation stories, mostly the ones from the Bible. Mostly for fun, but it’s good stuff to think about for when, you know, that ‘why am I here’ feeling comes from down inside of you when you least expect it.” He looked up and stared at the platform.
“Hm…sounds interesting.” It did not sound interesting. He had, in a mental maneuver only possible while drunk, abandoned anticipation. Learned helplessness is much more tolerable while under the influence. He now sat.
“What is interesting about it to you?” The reader’s hair was now mussed by humidity.
“I don’t really know?” He did not really know. “I mean, those questions are wastes of time, kind of because we can’t know the answers and they distract us from the stuff that (makes us happy?). He paused, partially out of embarrassment, and finally continued, more red-faced than before. “When I was a teenager, I used to think about that stuff too much, I couldn’t live a normal life. My dad’s Dr. put me on some Prozac, though, and I’ve been better since…”
At this point, the train was approaching, screeching like the holy ghost in a blender. The noise was unbearable, but if either of them was to sleep, they would have to find some way to deal with it.
