- M-Train - headed toward Brooklyn from 14th St. Always the same, slate-sky benches, slate-slate siding, gumball-spectrum vomit throw-pattern on the floor. Other lines switch out cars; the M never does. The M is on the orange line, and this complements its cool slabby interior with a slight squeeze of color.
- Almost all the seats are filled. There are approx. 10 standing. About 50 in all. YOU DON'T ALWAYS THINK ABOUT IT. 50 people on your train right now, sometimes 80 during rush-hour, or 100, and the train has what 10 cars => 12 (?) => more? That means there are nearly 1,000 on each train during peak hours. And how many trains are worming along at any given time? How many burrows per day? Where are all these thousands and tens of thousands and millions of human particles headed every day?
It's always the same, isn't it? THE GREAT AMERICAN CITY.
- The windows of the M-train are large, you can see all of the East River from where you're standing.
- 6 phones are out within my radius. More phones than I remember this morning. Could be there's less to look at on the morning train, less memos to parse, less newsbits to skim, less e-thoughts to archive. Most morning people - and I mean most - check their Weltleben feeds before boarding the train, in the privacy of their nook, over coffee, OJ, toast, NPR, and jam. But throughout the day, the world begins to slip our knots, makes a run for it, goes to pasture, takes to sea, leaves us in the lurch, so when evening comes around, we're clutching clutching clutching to get it all back. Progress.
- AND BESIDES, isn't it more natural to disengage at the end of day?
- Right now there's a little pipsqueak with an adult face, sitting inaptly on the floor, legs wrapped around the center pole, pretty as a posy, for the general amusement of our eyeballs. A Marcel Marceau in the making perhaps. Or a Jeffrey Dahmer. Or just another SHOWTIME kid. I have no doubt but he'll climb that pole someday and make a fantastic pole-dancer.
- Marcy stop: a father with a stoller wheels in, baby recognizes his mom already on the train, Hi mommy, hi baby. I wonder briefly how Papi knew which car Mami was in. But only briefly, and then I exit the train.
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