WALRUS

Shouldn't Have Had Dinner so Late

2009-02-11T22:35:00.009-05:00

I went to sleep, and then I was at my office where it used to be on 41st Street a few years ago, with the brass elevators i the lobby and the drab orange hallways upstairs. Boy, did I have to take a shit.

I grabbed the key with the huge plastic "men" fob from the reception desk, fumbling through pens and stapler in the dark. It was the middle of the night, after all. Down the drab hallway to the heavy old fireproof door, key in the lock.

"Occupied! Occupied! Jim Murphy in here!"

He seemed to be following some sort of protocol, a new bathroom etiquette. I didn't question the man on the toilet, just let the heavy door sink closed. Perplexed and just starting to cramp up, I jingled the fob against my leg, thinking. And then there was an identical behind me, on the opposite end of the corridor. Wasn't that the fly-by-night language school? But the sign on the door said "Men," and so did my fob. I tried it, key in the lock, shoulder against the heavy door, shoving my way into darkness. I found the lightswitch, flicked it, and listened somewhat apprehensively for the flickering hum.

"Jim Murphy in here! Jim Murphy in here!"

It came form the corner of the suddenly vast, unfinished room, a bright orange stall wedged int he corner. I cramped again, mumbled an apology, looked from the filthy old steel slop sink by the door, across the cracked concrete floor littered with dust and debris. On the far wall by Jim Murphy's stall was a long trough like a high narrow claw-foot tub, an old-style urinal like you'd find in a dive-bar in Buffalo. Beyond that, in the other corner, was a toilet. No stall, no seat, and no porcelain. It was bare sheet metal, like the slop sink, the type I've only seen in prisons on TV. How much of an emergeny was this?

Enough. I squatted.

Jim Murphy, meanwhile, was making quite a racket in his clean little corner, grunting and farting and rattling the stall door. I braced my forearms atop my knees and concentrated - let's make this quick. Jim gasped sharply and then sighed, long and satisfied. The rattling stopped. I waited, poised, perched rather precariously and likely not exhibiting the best form for bathroom etiquette. But no flush, no buckle, just silence. And then first a trickle, a stream, out from under his stall, and then thicker, heavier, dammed up by a debris pile in the center of the room but quickly bursting its banks. I inched my toes back wide-eyed and struggled around for some toilet paper. There was none. I thought about asking Jim Murphy to toss me a roll but all was silent in the far stall but for the gurgling of the grayish-brown sludge underneath. Nearing full panic, I heard a key scratch in the into the lock and the heavy door flew open.

"Jim Murphy in here! Jim Murphy in here!"

"Hello, Jim!" It was my college literature professor. I heard the clatter of a mop bucket loud on the concrete. He ran the water in the slop sink, humming loudly. Then, turning around for his bucket:

"Hello, John. How's it going?" I hadn't seen him in the better part of a decade.

"Uhhhhh...." Just then there was a gentle tapping on the door.

"Who is it?" the professor boomed, cheerily.

"Can I come in?" It was a women's voice, weak and raspy.

"Sure!" And it was a homeless woman from the shelter in my old neighborhood. I never liked her, generally rambunctious and aggressive and aggressively pathetic - in turns sobbing and screaming, accosting shopkeeper and passersby, arrested weekly and hospitalized nearly as much. But now she was timid.

"My my, what a mess in here." She shook her head sadly, nodding politely when her gaze swept my way.

"Yeah, well," the professor said. "That's what they pay me the big bucks for!" That man was always chipper.

"Oh no, Mister. No." She sounded grave, and then she brightened. "Pardon me a minute." Eyes flashing, she hiked up her filthy white stretch pants and smoothed out the front of a freebie black t-shirt long gone to gray. Off went one black Reebock, the other, then the sloshing mop bucket aloft, and Splash! My feet were thoroughly wet now, clear up to the knees, but I was thoroughly frozen in place. Assuming a traditional diving stance, she gave a delicate trial hop and flopped, belly first, onto the sludge and debris, grinding her elbows and knees into the wet concrete as she pantomimed swimming.

"Row rom row your boat, gently downthe stream." The professor was cacklng gleefully, clutching his ribs against the pain of laughter.

"Wonderful! Wonderful!"

She flopped over onto her back and mimed a backtroke, flthy abd shit-smeared up to the chin. The stall door slapped open and out strode Jim Murphy, white-haired and be-suited with a briefcase in hand.

"Oh, this is great," he said, smiling appreciatively at the spectacle afoot and walking past the urinals to my perch.

"Jim Murphy. Pleased to meet you." He held out his hand and I shook it.

"John was my favorite student. Helluva guy."

"Good," said Jim Murphy, slowly and ponderously, as he furrowed his brown and stroked a white-whiskered chin. "Good to know. I'll certainly keep that in mind." The two smiled, somewhat conspiratorially I thought.

"Well, I've got to be going. Big day tomorrow."

"Here, I'll walk you out. See you later, John. Regards to your folks."

And the light switched off and the clicked shut. Of course I still had no toilet paper.

How to Take a Satisfying Winter-Time Crap if You're a Bum on an Elevated Train Platform

2007-04-10T12:29:00.000-04:00

Begin by hopping the turnstyle or scaling a pillar or however the hell you get up there. Feel the cool morning breeze on your face, letting you know that you're alive. Ruminate on the myriad hand-rolled Newport-butt stogies you blazed through since sun-up, and the Long-Island iced tea of malt-liquor backwash you painstakingly assembled from the unbroken bottles littering your gutter. An egg sandwich? Maybe. Hot-dog bun-ends? More likely. Feel the rumble, rumbling in the breeze, in your gut. Catch that chill in the air. Catch the feeling. Unbuckle. Nearly all elevated train stations are supported by steel girders, I-beams running right to the room. This is a good thing. People lean on these beams whilst waiting for trains. These people are quite stupid. You're prone to lean, too, but you're not stupid, oh no. Picture the cross section of the I: top rail on top, bottom rail on the bottom, spanner in between. Lean back so that you rest on the spanner, arms out on either rail just like armrests. You'll fit; you don't really eat, per se. Nice, right? OK, now since you've already unbluckled or are simply perpetually unbluckled, it's a small matter to leanb forward slightly and cinch down the back of your trousers, minding to get all the layers. (It's easy to lose track.) Feel the breeze on your face and rumble in your gut, and know you've arrived. Now let her rip. Don't worry - your rather questionable if existant diet all but assures it'll just ooze down the I-beam, slowly solidify, and remain long after the neighborhood kids set you on fire while you sleep. Now lean forward, cinch up the pants, and you're done. Hurray!

How to Go About Your Morning Piss if You're a Bum in Herald Square

2007-04-10T12:19:00.000-04:00

Shuffle on down any of the many staircases to the token booth and enter a turnstyle as if you got two bucks to blow. Place a hand in the vicinity of the Metrocard reader, perhaps even with a scrap of paper or something in it to better simulate the commerce of commuting. Yes, you are indeed a productive and participating member of society. As you feign a bumbled pass at paying your fare, extract your penis from countless layers of soiled cotton through broken zippers and fraying thread. Turn slightly to the side as if comtemplating the intricacies of modern technology while in actuality protecting your homeless modesty. Urinate profusely, right down the side of the turnstile, leaving a pleasant, steamy puddle for all real-life commuters to splash in. Replace penis in pants, or not - Who cares? You're homeless! Pretend to think better of your proposed trip and shuffle back up the stairs to the light of day.

Leave It

2007-01-29T22:42:00.000-05:00

I was never all that into Leave It to Beaver when I was a kid. Something always seemed off about the characters, their relationships to each other. The parents I remember as OK pretty much, but everyone else, the kids, too contrived. So ocntrived that I quickly made the assumption that Beav and whatever the hell the other kid's name was, they were a couple of miscreants lucky enough to be adopted by this nice, normal couple who dressed just like my grandparents. Fuck, I mean Diff'rent Strokes looked more natural. The mother, I guess it was her idea to adopt these poor orphans, and although the father didn't like it so much, it was the right thing to do, the Wilford Brimley, Christian thing to do (equally mysterious). He seemed so patient, the father, not out of some deep paternal instinct, but rather because he wanted to strangle the little brats 90% of the time, and that particular course of action being distinctly non-Christian he was forced to keep a tight hold of himself.

And as for the little white orphans, it was clear to me that the Beav was totally fucked in one way or another, most likely a firestarted who burned down his old house, killing his biological parents in the process. Ooh, and that is the terrible secret his brother (what the fuck is his name?) must keep from their nice, normal new parents, lest they both be tossed out into the cold. The new parents, the nice ones, they know something's wrong, perhaps that the older one's gay, and they discuss it at length once the boys are asleep in lieu of sex, but just can't put a finger on it.

Well, I'd like to think it was something like that on the train the other morning, so selfless and weird, but I suspect it was just weird, and by that I mean normal: a lady and her kid, kid elementary-school age and lady a hard yuppie. She looks unaccustomed to train-riding, the lady; the kid looks used to it. The kid's sitting on the end of a row right by the door, lady blocking the door, frantically blackberrying with one hand, stroking the kid's hair with the other.

"Why are you doing that, Mommy?" Huh, apparently a stranger to such affection, this kid.

Silence. Awkward, thumb- flailing, awkward silence. For me and the kid, that is. She didn't notice:

"Because..." Typing, then: "Because I love you."

Wow, that was bad. Set some fucking fires, kid.

Self-Fulfilling Prophesy

2007-01-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

Wow, so "supremely worse" is an expression I used to hear in old-school roughneck reggae shit, the songs that made no real sense and generally had lots of elementary-school sound effects, lazer guns and whatnot. Just the other day I mentioned it, and then there I was, smack in the middle of a unpleasantly crowded evening rush hour. Everyone else looked cold and sleepy, quite, resigned after much platform waiting, and not yet roused by the man in the blue hat. So it was blue and silk, definitely silk, shiny as hell, and he wore it proudly, jauntily even. Looking smug beneath the silk sat a large 40-ish West Indian man, legs sprawled, knees agape, impeccably groomed as one would expect of blue silk from trimmed goatee to leather trenchcoat and pointy, aligator-esque shoes. His headphones, large like of old, crackled considerably, considerably loud, and he nodded perfection. Thirty-fourth, 23rd, 14th begin:

"---"

You know, I really wanted some quote to really give a sense of the whole thing but, to be perfectly frank, I hadn't the slightest idea wha the hell he was saying, singing, whatever. It was one of those gargle-glass-over-whiskey growls, impossilby deep and comically gravelly, indecipherable and exuberant, even over the crackle. Needless to say, the audience was on eggshells, half a-titter and terrified of the large and obviously insane black dude in the blue silk hat. At West Fourth he stood up with a flourish, twirling the drape of his trenchcoat around his legs, and stood at the opposite door, swaying. The doors closed; we kept on. Broadway-Lafayette and he was dancing, singing much louder than before , no more intelligably. Suddenly the grunts and growls started coalescing and a narrative emerged. Alright, not quite, but it became clear that it was of a sexual nature, somehow. Then the break: girl screaming, his falsetto, hollering, his very own sound effect. And what an effect it had: wide eyes and raised eyebrows all around. He was dancing against the door, quiet for Second Ave, then at it again. Delancey, straight screaming, high and passionate from this strange, strange man, all on beat, and he's gone. Hopefully to the motherfucking L-train.

Mayhem in the PM

2006-12-16T11:15:00.000-05:00

Oh, supremely worse. Crowded, packed, equal parts douchey and squallid. There's the yuppie-in-training leaning the entire length of his back up to the head against the pole, reading a little too rapt the Esquire with Brad Pitt on the cover, while a filthy, drunk-looking laborer looks on with disgust our from under his do-rag, wedged preposterously tight into a middle seat between two scowling Russian matriarchs returning with gigantic Century 21 bags strewn about their ankles. Next stop: holiday shoppers, droves. Crap. Jostling a-plenty. Frantic and frazzled, a youngish mother catches the closing doors with her tubercular infant, the pasty father bumbloing in tow with stroller unintentionally unfurled. The child coughs continually. The future Mrs. Pitt scowles, the laborer scowles, and I retreat further down the car. And further down is worse. Vying for my attention we have a dishevled Sunset Park hood-rat blasting bad Southern rap and singing along ineptly (every third word, with accent) up against a big, tough-looking saxaphonist, the angriest saxaphonist and no Roger Clinton. Of course both are dancing. Fortune serves me a seat. I sit, pull out a book, begin to read. It's Jim Thompson and I just happen open it in the thick of an argument in the West Texas sheriff's office over whether or not n-----s have souls. The prevailing contention is that they do not. Of course, the rather large black woman sitting next to me happens to be reading over my shoulder. She finds it less than amusing, nor does her rather large husband when she explains it to him in a state of great agitation. Closed goes the book, out comes the journal, and this.

Thursday

2006-12-14T10:49:00.000-05:00

Early morning cracktastrophe!

Jeez. Two women almost certainly from the homeless shelter in the old armory; they look middle aged, they're almost certainly my age. These are big women, lively women, and loud. And it gets worse: someone, from kind heart, surplus, or want of a questionable blowjob, has bestowed upon them matching discmen. Maybe all the gals got 'em. These ones suuuure do. And they like em. I know becasue they're talking about how much they like 'em. They're showing off for the crowd, dancing, singing along, swapping, CDs, and maintaining a semblence of conversation over their respective music. I hear lots of "Giiiiirrrrllllll...." One is much bigger than the other, but their shape is identical, hair identical. It's only a question of scale. Obviously, the bigger one is in charge. No matter, the littler one is in charge of the rest of the train. I'm afraid, not for safetly necessarily. No, it's more ethereal than that, but I'm scared. Suddenly one, the bigger one, slaps the other in the chest.

"Girl, this here mah JOINT!"

The littler one removes her headphones and leans in to listen. Suddenly there's an exlposion of activity, movement, both dancing, gyrating at 7 fucking 30 AM on the subway:

"It's gettin' hot in here! So take off all your clothes!"

Jesus, no!

Tuesday

2006-12-12T15:02:00.000-05:00

So there's quite a queer couple sitting directly across the aisle. He's a pretty big guy, both tall and fattish, sporting some especially ugly white sneakers sticking out from under what appear to be marching-band pants but are more likely security guard pants. I'm digging the garish gold stripe. His size is accentuated by an oversized puffy parka and general garrulousness, loud and lively but not in that Williamsburg way. Oh, and then there's the fact that his seatmate, she's a dwarf. Now, I don't mean short, and I don't mean midget or hobbit or whatever, but a genuine, facially featured, 2 1/2 feet tall, the movie Willow ("You are great!"), honest-to-goodness dwarf. And for all that, she's quite put together: nicely straightened hair, complementary make-up and modest jewelry, conservative dress right down to her tasteful platform shoes waaaaay up from the floor. She's real soft-spoken too, and the contrast accentuates her neighbor's boisterousness or at least the impression thereof.

Goddammit. I was going to try for some lesson-learned thing here, complimentary relationships or some O'Henry twist, but this youngish wanna-be hipster (Yes! Not even a real hipster douchebag; just someone who wants to be one!) just got on at 14th Street singing along overly loud to whatever limp-wristed crap is blaring from the requisite earbuds, and I totally lost my train of thought.

What Is it, Tuesday?

2006-10-17T20:20:00.000-04:00

These guys I can't quite figure out. At first glance, what — Italian? No. Israeli, maybe? Sephardic Jews? Something like that, sans kippa. More likely: they have the aspect of electronics-store owners. Overly gold watches, braceletes too, balding both and both well groomed. The older one's got a gray suit on under his overcoat, but what's that underneath? Of course it's a T-shirt, albeit silk and blue. The younger is similarly almost-suited and overcoated, but goes for the button-down, unbottoned way down past the chest. Cursing copiously, clutching manilla, rustling and very restless, taking up far too much room even seated on a crowded train. Coked up? More likely it's a personality thing. Terrible.

Monday

2006-03-28T19:28:00.000-05:00

Alright, who the hell is eating motherfucking salami on the train at 7:30 in the morning? It must be some really twisted, odious way of heralding the coming of Spring on this, the first Springy Monday. I much prefer the technique employed by Little Miss Carroll Street. She prances on into the car all tall and blonde with her premature technicolor sun-dress, jaunty jean jacket, and lemony handbag, perched quite precariously atop too-high teal-colored heels, clinging to the door for support and at least looking good doing it; good and really, really uncomfortable. She plays with a blackberry for a while, plays with her hair a while, flipping it hither and yon, and pulls out a paper. Quite attractive though not quite stunning, she looks somehow above it all this Monday, flipping through the free rag, that is, until she enters what must be the meat of some article, and damn if her lips ain't movin'.

Thursday

2006-03-28T06:59:00.000-05:00

On the ride home a rather disheveled Chinese lady boards at East Broadway with a baby in a stroller and a toddler stumbling around in her orbit, somewhat confused but completely unconcerned by the rocking of the train. A seat opens up almost immediately and his mother steers him in its direction with a noncommital palm on the top of his head as she struggles to one-hand the stroller and with the sudden proliferation of feet. He reaches the seat successfully without remotely loosening his death-grip on a large zip-lick bag packed to the gills with candy. He can't quite hoist himself up onto the seat by squirming alone, with his hands so preoccupied. A very old frail woman sitting in the next seat springs into action, expertly gathering his waist to her body behind his back and perfectly placing him down. She pats his shoulder and beams contentedly as his little feet dangle far from the floor. He's obviously distracted by his most precious cargo, and she notices. "What you got there? Candy?" He snaps fully to attention, twisting his entire small body to put it between her and the bag, and eyes her suspiciously. Yet she persists. "Can I have some?" His wide-eyed defenses clearly breached, he does what any toddler would do, and cries, loudly.

Wednesday

2006-03-23T10:14:00.000-05:00

So I start out marginally content with my lot, my Wednesday, when I spy an anomoly. The train is reasonably crowded, say 90 or 95% seated capacity, a couple standers, but way off on the end I spy two whole rows of three-seaters with only one person sitting in any of them, and she's not even homeless, doesn't even smell! No puddles of urine, no vomit. Can it be? A high school kid (with iPod at completely acceptable volume) takes one of the seats, I take another, and the doors haven't even closed on my station yet. What bliss! It almost smells nice in here too - clean, closer to a doctor's office than fabric softener, nicely neutral. The water sparkles beyond the cranes and derricks past Red Hook. Those few blocks of Carroll Gardens between highway and train tunnel verily glisten in the crisp morning sun, so charming as to appear foreign, up early for bread and coffee in Paris when they've just finished swabbing the streets. The Bergen Street platform is jam-packed with kids, rambunctious, but they're inexplicably all waiting for the G. A large couple sits shoehorned into a two-fer reading the paper together, making conversation. Kinda obese and singularly unattractive - she with the scraggly gray-streaked mouse-brown hair, he with the tremendous red Amish beard, mustacheless, and both in velcro shoes to bypass the peril of tying - they are completely lacking in awkwardness, completely unselfconcious, content. But it's not the contentment of the physical freak, the fat stretch-pants wearer or junkin a' nod, not at all oblivious, just, why the hell shoud they care? They scrunch close to kiss and it's not even gross. Delancey darkens the mood a bit with gentlemen far too well-groomed for huge jeans and baseball jackets talking too loudly about sports, but I've got to transfer soon anyway, and look! there's the express train, patiently waiting. A not-so-fat stretch-pants wearer with obligatory tight short down jacket gets up to get off and a middle-aged toothpick chewer, Nextel in hand, nearly snaps his own neck in admiration. Encased in aluminum, buried underground, springtime in the city...

Tuesday

2006-03-22T11:35:00.000-05:00

Wait a minute - what's going on? I look down at my hand, at the journal on my lap. I'm OK. The other passengers, they're OK, well, relatively speaking. So then, this cartooney thing, the real life cartoon that just walked through the doors at Delancey - and holy shit, did it ever - is just an isolated incident. Thank god. It's still blocking the doors, but that's to be expected. Two sisters it is, hispanic, obese, really obese, one wearing sweatpants, the other teal-colored nurses' pants, both in those super-short down jackets with the faux-sexy faux-fur trim around the hood. One's a little taller than the other but they appear to be otherwise identical, although perhaps their features have been simply blurred by copious amounts of fast food. Obese. They share between them an iPod - again with the iPods - and they each have an earbud. This is hilarious in itself because these girls are real big, as I've said, and the cord is only so long, so they stand belly to belly, nose to chin, in the posture of a couple of overstuffed club shairs from Jennifer Convertibles. They must be listening together to some comedy routine becasue every couple seconds the laughter ensues, chuckling, jiggling, strained cheeks pulled back and extra chins forced rearward toward the ears and much heaving of shoulders in conflict with nonexistent necks. When one of them waddles off at 14th Street the earbud is passed back, the remaining cherub takes a seat or two, reggaeton takes over, and her floppy face suddenly turns to stone, just like everyone else's.

The Perils of Off-Peak

2006-03-21T15:57:00.000-05:00

Toward the end of last week I found myself fast becoming a notable subway aberration following a multi-month cold turned minor sinus infection turned - well, suffice it to say that I hadn't lost my sense of propriety in terms of dress or decorum, rather my transgression was of the third option with the formation of a tremendous, hideous, bulbous sty: that of the physical freak. Perhaps my eye just felt itslef lonely on that side of my nose with the ear so far away. Perhaps it just needed a friend. Well, tea bags and eye drops got tired quick so I cut out of work early for a trip to the doctor. I found the train pretty mellow during the day, and I was grateful, especially in my diminished state, to be afforded a seat almost immediately. I was not quite so grateful, however, that it turned out to be something of a ringside seat. Ladies and gentlemen, in the red corner we had a shabbily dressed middle-aged man holding a garish chrome briefcase whose contents must be truly mystefying, as between his shiny Chuck Taylors rested two large bags from Jack's 99-Cent Store, whose contents were revealed through much concentration and squinting of the one giant eye to be innumerable boxes of Ramen Noodles, seriously, lots of 'em. The other hand, I would learn, must remain unencumbered because, ladies and gentlemen, in the blue corner was one silver Norelco ear- and nose-hair trimmer, seriously, and it was buzzing away. Now, the point of insertion is actually more of a point to ponder than one would imagine. Were he to opt for the nose, of course it would be pretty unpleasant to behold, but that would be mitigated by the fact that it would presumably cause him some degree of pain (just deserts) and therefore be done with sooner. Instead, he opted for the aural entrance and, rather unfortunately, took to it with the zeal usually reserved for cotton swabs and the like. He was really digging in, working it, pursuing that eargasm. Such a display of emotion, and such a public display, was infinitely more gruesome that than a quick tug of some nose hair. Luckily the daytime subway gods are benevolent and he was soon seated comfortably, as was his super party-pack of Ramen Noodles, both slumped on either side of the briefcase, him snoring through the untrimmed tresses.

Monday

2006-03-21T10:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I made it all the way to Second Avenue with nothing to report and I figured that's the way it's gonna go, but I guess a Monday never disappoints. See, many people have heard and surely everyone suspects that the subway cars themselves were designed by some Japanese dude. The shades of cheery orange on the seats, the marbled vinyl flooring, homey woodgrain panels, it's all quite comfortable but for one notable exception: this Japanese designer, who probably stayed away from the interior decorating anyway, failed to take into account the vagaries of the American ass. Generally speaking, we're bigger than the Japanese to begin with, genetically and all, and certainly fatter than them in the, uh, end. But our subway seats, oddly enough, are not. Now, such ridiculousness aside, I've labored long and hard over the years to come up with some fair and reasonable ground-rules for my fellow travelers to violate in the manner of finger-nail clipping and Aeorsmith, and here's what I've got: If you are a man neither elderly nor infirm, or a woman of anything greater than sub-average size with two or more bags and neither elderly nor infirm, you don't take the middle seat. It doesn't fit you anyway, and if it's all that's open you can assume that the odds of getting a seat were pretty slim to begin with, unlike your ass. If, however, you are elderly or infirm (oh, or pregnant!) then I'm sorry, and go for it. The discomfort of your ass cheeks on your neighbors' lap is simply their just deserts for lacking the decency to offer you their seat. If you don't qualify for this middle-seat exemption and you go for it anyway, then fuck you, plain and simple. You totally suck. Oh, and not that you don't totally suck, but a big thank-you to the self-absorbed classless yuppie douchebag who warmed my left thigh this morning. When you glanced around the crowded car and saw that six inches of orange in between my haunch and that of the playfully oversized fellow to my not-painfully immediate left, you were enticed? "My, that looks comfortable." So you flexed your overdeveloped sense of entitlement by swinging your bagS around spastically and into the leg of that standing home-health aide - no apology - and then gripping the overhead pole like a dick to swing your pressed-trousered ass into my face and then that of my neighbor as you zeroed in on your target, which was of course, despite whatever you'd like to think, our laps. Yeah, gather your bagS together. Yeah, unfurl the paper. And, after all that, bolt for the express train after ONE FUCKING STOP. See you in hell, buddy. I hope your kids hate you.

Friday

2006-03-17T08:31:00.000-05:00

Paying attention totally sucks because people really are truly horrible and this horribleness compels them to exert themselves fully to ensure that it is revealed with maximum effect, so much so that paying attention is actually irrelevant; you're pretty much screwed either way. Add to that the variable of a public place, a contained, dare I say intimate space, and, worse still, one entered into with almost universal reluctace, and boy, talk about accentuate the negative. Last week I found myself in close and unfortunate proximity to a truly dastardly duo. They spoke with great passion and conviction for the better part of a half hour about ringtones, mostly ringtones but also voicemail, reception, the shortfalls and benefits of all manner of electronic devices such as Tanisha's crappy-ass Blackberry and, speaking of Tanisha, who in their circle of esteemed associates transmitted the clap to whom, and all in the most incoherant, babbling, jabber-jawing state of high animation, gesticulation, and great thundering volume. The purple pants-white sneaker combo coupled with the companion's purple hair-white jacket combo heralded such a breakthrough in color coordination that their residence in Williamsburg is all but impossible (assuming you exlcude the recently subsumed Bed Stuy and Bushwick); nevertheless, they were clearly in compliance with Williamsburg's Law: whereby the paucity of sense or substance in a given statement is directly proportional to the volume at which said statement is spoken. Anyway, there we were again this morning, and Lord help me. This time they wax philosophic about some subtle and devious machinations at someone's place of employment. In itself, the conversation is benign enough that my relative contentment would be complete, had they not been situated in the corner two-fer, the love seat, enabling him to spread his knees 'cross creation and she to place both legs atop said knees, effectively lying down as it were; the better for him to alternately stroke, caress, and outright knead the ample flesh of her green-velveted thighs (Happy St. Patty's Day!). Most remarkable is how they managed, sitting so supine, to so efficiently aspirate through their crinkled diaphrams that the decibel levels made the fillings in my teeth decidedly ache. Were it not for the very old man in the gravy-stained municipal tie poring over a dog-eared copy of "What's Your Wicca I.Q.?", surely all hope would be lost.

Thursday

2006-03-16T10:41:00.000-05:00

So right when this appeared to be the rare ride with little afoot, I'm distracted from this pretty crappy book of Gide's (are they gay or just French?) by the harsh crackle of second-hand music creeping out from underneath someone's headphones, er, "earbuds." I notice a couple other yuppie passengers also glancing around for the source, equally indignant. Finally it's spotted - Harry Potter, only without the magical powers, the friends, or whatever boyish charm that schmuck is supposed to have. Same hair though, same glasses, same gawky, lanky, peripubescent awkwardness. And an iPod, I presume, judging from the compulsory white tendrils, and it's turned up loud. What the hell would a kid like that be listening to so loud, so obviously for the benefit of his fellow travellers? With what shall our young hero prove his point? The crackle becomes ordered, forms a familiar pattern, and it dawns on me: Aerosmith, "Love in an Elevator," blasting. And he's pitched forward in his seat, leaning almost aggressively out from the edge of the seat into the aisle, elbows on knees, head nodding only a little spasmodically and nearly on-beat. He's been practicing. "Livin' it up while I'm going down..." The crackle continues to permeate, and it's amazing how long a song really is when you're underground. We, the silent sulking cattle, breathed a collective sigh of releif when our chariot rolled into Jay Street. A handfull of junior-high thugs careened into the car and our hero, beset with dragons, it would appear, sank back in his seat. The crackle faded. His head was still.