July 11, 2007

• the subway station at the center of the world

  When I first arrive at the station there are only two others-a student,
  lukewarm olive skin and black sweater stylishly cut but betraying its
  lack of quality via tiny balls of lint. iPod earjacks and implacable
  non-smile are stuffed firmly in place. He stands about six feet tall, a
  little on the slim side, but not unpleasantly built, eyes fixed on a
  pinpoint somewhere ahead. The second one is a black man maybe fifty
  years of age; a street musician with guitar under arm. He sits on the
  edge of the wooden island, head down, unmoving. It is Sunday night,
  approximately 11:50pm. The station is empty.

  One-by-one the
  stragglers trickle in, each one begging a story. There is an old
  couple, the man white-haired and significantly older than the woman,
  but powerful and barrel-chested, carrying on his shoulders the
  effortless confident air of a stud long past his prime. They are the
  only ones talking at this point, happily infused, it seems, with wine
  and an ageless romance. Two Asian students follow in their wake,
  long-haired and equipped with the requisite dark-framed glasses,
  slouching along with the polite halting shuffle-step that marks them as
  foreigners. A handful of overweight girls follow, gigantic,
  professional-grade Nikons at their chests marking them not as your
  average tourists but as something else - I can't quite imagine, not
  yet. And so the curtain rises, the production begins. It is Sunday
  night, circa midnight, and the subway station at the center of the
  world is beginning to fill.

  The guitar starts to play in the
  background, the chords are rhythmic but not entirely pleasant - not
  bothersome, exactly, but not completely unheard. My ears, however, are
  so attuned to the ambient noise of the city that I cannot tell whether
  it had been playinig all along. I only notice the chords because a
  movement starts simultaneously to my right - the sinewy older man
  leaning against the cement column behind me, vaguely Eastern European
  but with a striking resemblance to Billy Bob Thornton, is tapping his
  feet. A small smile tugs at the corner of my lips and the same beat
  begins to tug at my toes.

  The voice follows - not a beautiful
  voice, only a human one - raspy at times, mellow at times, not at all
  virtuostic but seamlessly woven into the guitar chords as one. It is an
  old classic - My Girl.

  I am looking around me and something subtle but magical happens. A
  strange sense of a breath is suddenly being let out - a breath we were
  collectively unaware of holding in the first place. It begins with a
  slight movement; an Irishman so tall it honestly doesn't seem like we
  are the same species, who throws a dollar bill into the nonchalantly
  waiting guitar case. Then, a Mexican day-laborer carrying a ratty black
  backpack follows suit. I who had been clutching a well-worn bill in my
  own palm am next, and then...

  ...thank you, beautiful - I
  who meticulously averted my eyes as per New York custom meet his; what
  had I expected? They are a pair of warm, brown, human eyes - that is
  all.

  The curtain has risen, but curiously, I find myself backstage, where
  everyone is now relaxed, removing their costumes, the costumes we
  unknowingly don every morning - our classes, our niches, our genders,
  our races, our pre-supposed identities. For a moment we are transported
  two levels back, to that fragile and timeless space when we are fully
  clothed but completely naked, the moment between buttoning the last
  button before the mirror and pulling on the facade.

  And who might you be? A laugh.
  I am playing a poor man today, look at my rags. And you? A tourist from
  the Midwest; on the streets, they scorn me no less than you, my friend
  - can we laugh together? I have always wondered what goes on behind
  each self-protective facade, while sitting on these very subway trains;
  whether the Louis Vuitton is fake, whether the child is really his,
  whether her absentminded brush of lips against his is love or guilt
  (alas...a moment of weakness). Who are these people behind their
  impregnable masks? What did they look like when, straggly-haired and
  groggy-eyed, they had gotten up this morning, reborn?

  And here I am, at the answer. Around me, the tall, elderly man spins
  his love around in a makeshift waltz. The girls laugh, snapping
  pictures of the Irishman, the street musician, an elderly black man in
  faded dress whites and ship captain's hat who looks as if he literally
  stepped straight out of Mark Twain's Mississippi (or the opening
  credits of the Chappelle Show). He is leaning against the guitarist,
  singing along in a grating voice amidst occassional bursts of hearty
  laughter. The Eastern European taps me on the shoulder and asks me in
  broken English whether this is an A train - I nod. I'm visiting my
  brother and his wife, he explains. 79th St. He would never have asked
  me had the tension not been broken, but now I am not the icy girl in a
  dark dress clutching a designer handbag to my chest in petite paranoia
  - I am a fellow traveller.

  It was at the subway station at the center of the world that I
  witnessed this; this coming together of those we call our fellow human
  beings but rarely see as such. We had gathered around the fire, like
  our ancestors of old, shed our invisible armour, and listened quietly
  to a music that reminded us of our innate connection - this connection
  that is the human condition.

  ***

  (those of you who thought i was on crack before must now think i'm perpetually high. peace out, man.)

  • 10:01 am
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