Day CCXIII

Da Bum ana Dame

     Thank goodness smoking is banned in the subways, many an anxious moment is spent down there, being late waiting for trains, and not knowing when the next one will come. Indeed some even created by disgusting situations, like running for what seems like an empty seat when the doors open, and finding some down on his luck, poor soul who hasn’t bathed in a month, stretched out on it, and stinking up the place at rush hour. Hell at any hour! Waiting for what seems like hours, as empty trains run by, with their “No Service!” signs lit up. It always happens when you’re in a hurry too. How about sitting next to uncouth, and unwashed people, or someone trimming their nails or nose hairs; finding garbage on a seat you’re lucky, and grateful to find, or worse yet, not looking, sitting on it, and ruining your best pair of pants, suit, coat or skirt? Right there you want to light up.

     One evening I was coming home from Wall Street around eight in the P.M., and I got on the J train which was packed like the proverbial sardine can. At the next stop a lovely, bejeweled Afro-American woman; wearing a gorgeous pink, mink coat, struggled into the train. I was at the back end of the car, and like everyone else, I was dazzled by her entrance. She just looked rich, and everybody wondered if she was a celebrity. Immediately, she spied an empty seat everyone had avoided, and ran for it. As she sat down, you could see how elated she was to find herself a seat. It was empty because lying down, in the seat perpendicular to hers, was a poor stinking, drunken, wretched, homeless soul. As she sat down, she accidentally bumped his toe with her knee.