M TRAIN – RoundTRIP # 2

Sept. 16th, 201411:40 am

- Just boarded the M-Train @ Broadway / Myrtle. There are upwards of 20 on the train, but not much upwards.

- At least 5 have their phones out, fingering god-knows-what-kind of solace or entertainment.

- The train is ethnically diverse. Numerous NYers no doubt, but just as many Poles and/or trans-American transplants. An old woman of Gypsy appearance / German demeanor stares brooding into space. Her umbrella is Eastery. - It's raining.

- Now, we're lurching onto the Williamsburg Bridge (as if on sore knuckles) which will take us to Essex. From there, I will continue to 14th St. & 6th Ave. - I am headed to work, facing South, so that as we cross the bridge, THE view is just behind my back. When I first arrived in NY, I would crave THIS view, particularly at twilight. Across a dark unknowable moat we go, into the dense architectural machine of THE CITY. Something supernatural happens when you combine the precipitous, punched-out negative sky with the concept of machine island. Something FuturGothic, solemn, devastating, awe-ful. But exhilarating. Action-Island. Consumption-Island.

- Now we've entered the tunnel, and I won't be writing for much longer.

[expurgated passage: erroneous extrapolations from ads you see on the train.]

#3

9:33 pm (M-Train, home from work)

- I am now seated on the opposite side of the train so that when we knuckle onto the bridge, I will see Manhattan in full glory retreating, and I will retreat with it. And Brooklyn will advance, and I will advance with it.

- Probably about 25 people on the train, of diverse ethnic cast. The M-train is the only train that begins and also ends in Queens.

- There are a few animated young people in the next pew. I presume they're fresh from the gym, judging from their manner, energy, dress, the color on their faces. Although now I see that one is using a tripod or boom device as a prop.

- There are a few people on either side of me, heads in hands. At the tail-end of a long day's journey into night. Longer than mine, no doubt. I only worked 5 hours easy today. There are 6 people in my radial vision who are consoling their phones. Or commuting along parallel piped-in soundtracks from their devices.

- It's always a pleasure to see people reading books on the subway. Books, not magazines. Not newspapers. Books. I'm always very conscious of what I read on the train. I won't be caught reading Melville on the trains. I know what my type is.

- There is nothing like the lit-up skyline of THE ISLAND from the nocturnal bird of the elevated train.There's a mysticality and mystique to it. Something supernatural. And sophisticated. THE BIG ISLAND. City of cities: I'm in a sleek, state-of-the-art kitchen, warming up my Tikka Masala from lunch. The counter's pristine marble, the floors tessellated black and white like the scales of an Escher fish. I've just returned from Kundalini or my adult-ed course in Project Management. The TVs on, but FUCK the TV. I tune out, thinking maybe I'd like a nice Rooibus after dinner, before climbing into my queen-sized master-bed, Boat-Where-I-Am-Captain, and Martha Stewart bedspread.

- How many of these people are NYers? transplants? I'll never know.

- I think of the sheer # of strangers (blanket of strangers) I travel with every day, all of them silent, staring at their feet, or just above my head, incognizant of MY proximity to them, of the narrator's proximity – nothing more than a peripheral sense to them: some random, senseless obstruction to their path. Now we're at Flushing stop, soon to be Myrtle, where I get off. I won't ever see these people again, or if I do, I won't look at them, these random, faceless impasses obstructing my vision.