The Train

You just might find yourself in this, and truly.

                The train always proved an interesting situation. Currently I was digesting the monologue of a fiftyish cat-lady, her weeklong blouse and socks driving a battled frown into the face of a young pretty black college commuter. I feigned disinterest and stared at the half burnt and razed neighborhoods of metro Saint Louis through the greasy windows as I tried to justify walking two underfed and obviously aggravated cats on a leash, much less onto the train. She rambled on about her patchwork understanding of modern politics, why the milk at the seven eleven was five dollars and forty three cents, and then how from 1967 to 1983, “and no further!” Music was an illuminating force. Sadly, her words made sense and I momentarily drifted to the thought of a nicer place that was not yet my own.

My inner compass reminded me of the leering and stretching cats, mewling and casting a communal biased doubt onto her otherwise and somewhat entertaining thoughts. I shrugged inwardly and turned to my right, inhaling the cigarette smoke of an obvious minor, momentously ego high from breaking the given rules of city transit. His smirk said “Every awry looking youth in a six foot radius of me, yes the ones smoking as well, verbally accosting and ogling every woman regardless of sex or race that enters this space, will be willing and very forthright in challenging your manhood in a possible brawl to injury if you say one thing about me being a deviant with this cigarette”. I cared only for social principal, I was a smoker, and transgressed the same, if not more grievously as a sixteen year old. One might read this passage and encounter me trapped, stuck amongst the calamity of the modern day drudgery, the questions and forced movement. I was not; I thrived here in this very place and had plans for this world.

                I realized in my late teens that my inner voice had a very profound, tangible, material, albeit uncontrollable effect on my environment. I will assume that at some point in time as a child, overriding a sense of silliness, maybe around snotty nosed peers or alone in the corner of some furthermost room, away from the prying eyes of judgement and adulthood - maybe you stood still, eyes closed, fists clenched and thought “up” expecting to fly, or at the least float vertically as the Lorax divine pulling himself up by the seat of his pants. No, my experience in answer was not so sudden, but I would during that week, after attempting the same miracle, fall a few inches to a foot into the covers of my bed, exiting a similar and colorfully diverse dream, wondering if the flashing vertigo and subsequent impact into Big Lots sheets was only a waking tactile hallucination. Next were the reeds, wheat and goldenrod on the roadside when my father was stopped at red lights; the chuffing of the VW bug engine only nearly pulling my understanding that they only swayed, quite possibly because I wanted them too. When I was nineteen I stopped on the sidewalk, observing workers on scaffolding - and if not only because a small devil told me to wish them fall, a head on collision occurred directly behind me on the street as I strained mentally to purpose my will. I broke away from a bad date at twenty four, nervous at infidelity and taking advantage of a timely phone call, stating that my dog had been hurt and my neighbor had called me beckoning me home. I arrived to hold my Shiatzu Logan in his final moments as my girlfriend cried and explained that the car had come out of nowhere. I no longer wish ill will on any soul, or voluntarily bear false witness if not only for fear of karma and its potential duty. The id however, speaks freely in emotional times as we know.

                There is no illusion of a choice I have found. At some point you realize that while the well- to-do looking middle aged man in the pea coat, reading a Clive Cussler novel had a good night’s sleep - may or may not have cooked breakfast for his wife, drove his kids to school, and parked at the metro station to take the strait and more time efficient line to downtown clayton instead of driving, it is an ongoing choice. The quiet girl with the earphones and downward leer just had an early morning fight with her boyfriend after unwanted sex, and the tired looking cortex think tank advisor rubbing his temples in his tailored shirt, gray slacks and sneakers is coming off a power nap, a gram and a half of cocaine and a tainted evening with a less than desirable prospect online lover. The child smiling into the sun, using the crackled glass as a target for birds and making the all too well known “psshoooutt, psshoooutt” of imaginary bullets are all choices - and one does not actively see them; not until a heart has been broken, tried and mended, opened and longing. My choice is normally to observe.

                Today however, my choice was to act. I watched the two young men kinetically discuss the Clive Cussler novelist holding his eight hundred dollar phone daringly out mid-train as it approached the next stop, and I leisurely laid my booted foot in the isle as the wilier of the two rushed forward to snatch it on his way to the now opening doors. He huffed as he attempted to grasp the device and sprawled, caught now by the well-rested man as he scrambled and cursed in my direction, his friend, wide eyed, walking briskly to his side, now outside that f*****g train - past two oblivious but serious sheriffs as the would be victim quickly decided chase was not efficient. He looked at his phone incredulously as if the telecommunication device was at fault and then shifted in his seat, quietly mouthing “thank you”.

                I stared at him for a long while before he became uncomfortable, which was not my intention. Then he stated in an audible voice, and with trusted and familiar bandwagon intention, “weird a*s f****r”.

As he turned back to his forward position I imagined choking him to death next to the young woman transfixed in her rumination. I thought about bashing his head into the seat until his face bled, dipping my fingers into it and painting my cheeks in American footballer or plateau Indian (yes, you hipster, Native American…) fashion, then turning to the now stone cat woman and placing some blood onto her quivering lips whispering “Just be cordial, its easy, be nice to people, or someone like me will come along and eat you all.”

My privates did not stir as violence was not sexually arousing to me, but my past lives reveled in my fantasy - sending exciting palpitations to my heart and adrenaline to my brain and extremities; I have lived as a medium sized quadrupedal plains predator, a Bedouin warrior, and a condemned while innocent woman in religiously intolerant renaissance ages. Right now this may be confusing, but search yourself, under it all, are you not many, yes, many things?

Of course I only stared at his home groomed side burns and wondered why he could not make an authentic connection with me, even after I proved myself the most human. The thought of blood while natural and real - we do not all fail to own this primal reality - faded, the young black student shot me a tired glance of approval and thanks as the cat lady, used to and allergic now to real confrontation standard, adopted my window view. I nodded and allowed her that topical moment. She was not even present - not really. 

The rest of the day I spent surprising random people with self-serving and rhetorical affirmations, performing at my place of employment to the ability I have deemed acceptable, and the world was tolerable as I later walked through my front door. My bedroom windows opened slowly and alone as I semi-consciously wished the sobering fall breeze was present in my living room. The television was no longer a companion. The bottle of whiskey in the half bar was a remembered acquaintance with no more advice to offer. I closed my eyes, now enveloped in the textile monotony of Ashley Furniture and I tried my best to wish her well. I felt the world turn and I thought of her still.