A weeks-worth of observations of what/who I find myself among on the F train as I take it betwixt Brooklyn and Manhattan.
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Re-selling items of human necessity is a very popular past time on the train, apparently.
~An old, withered man who looks like he belongs in the 1800's is selling batteries for a dollar. They're probably expired. I pass.
~A younger man is selling condoms for 25 cents. Again, probably expired. I let him walk by.
~Two teenage boys are selling candy - probably from the mid-nineties but I haven't had Swedish Fish in years and the boys are adorable. Why not?
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People need more sleep. I'm sitting across from three people who seem to be in deep REM. The gentleman on the right of the triple-seated row is probably a student at NYU, with his earbuds and his Aeropostale hoodie. He lazily clutches his North Face backpack and I watch it as it slips slowly down his lap. Every few minutes he pulls it up, half opening one bloodshot eye, then lays his head back against the wall.
The woman on the left is surely dressed for a corporate job. Her black skirt and suit jacket are finely pressed, and her dark red pumps shine in the train's fluorescent morning light. She holds an over sized black leather bag in her lap, which her nodding head bobs precariously over. The paint on her eyelids glows as I watch her eyeballs drowse back and forth slowly underneath them. Her head is literally almost in her $1000 bag when she sudden she suddenly wakes, stands, smooths her skirt, and walks out the 2nd Ave. stop.
On the middle seat perches a tiny Japanese woman who dozes politely and soundly. She holds a Japanese newspaper in one hand and a coffee in the other. I watch the coffee, tottering on her knee, as she sleeps with her hand over its top. Her hair is a perfect proportion of salt and pepper, and her feet barely touch the floor. I wonder if she's dreaming about home.
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From an invisible compartment between the cars, an announcer comes on the speakers at each stop. "This is a Manhattan bound F, next stop Delancey please stand clear of the closing doors." This morning, I'm convinced, that announcer was Morgan Freeman.
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I steal glances at all the books in my vicinity before starting in on my own. I'm reading Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven." He stole my heart with "Into the Wild" and is hurting it with this chronicle of the roots and effects of Fundamental Mormonism in America. I read it on the subway in the morning, and out of the city at night. I always get excited when I see someone who has a book I've read. I look at the person, if this does happen, and size them up to see of they would be comparable to a friend. A lot of the time it's Harry Potter or some other mass-market fiction so usually I just smile at the 8 year old reading the Prisoner of Azkaban and go back to my own book. Lately, I haven't been able to help feeling embarrassed while reading "Under the Banner of Heaven." Not only are disturbing sex scenes portrayed, but they're being put on by the most unlikely of characters. Father and daughter. Grandfather and his sister. Cousin and cousin. You know. Normal Mormon stuff. If it makes you want to want to vomit, it's there. But when these scenes occur I have a tendency to close my book a little bit, bring it closer to me so that the lad next to me reading Potter won't glance at a sentence and take me for some zealot and move across the aisle.
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I wish that everyone's iPod earbuds could be removed and turned into speakers. About 80% of the train today has happy listeners. I just want to hear what it sounds like if all of the music from each of the headphones could be heard in unison.
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