Asleep on the Train

I fell in love with another girl on the subway this morning... it's happened once before. Actually it's happened dozens of times before, but I only wrote about it that one time.

Before getting onto the train I checked the balance on my fare card. Only $2.40 left. I fed some cash into the machine and swiped my card across the reader.

"I hope this will last the whole week..." I tried to do the math in my head. It's was 5 a.m. My brain comes to a screeching halt.

"I can't do math this early in the morning."

The train is leaving in two minutes.

Two weeks ago someone snatched the fare card from my hand and hopped on a train just before it closed it's doors and pulled away. It had $14 on it.

I was robbed for a $14 fare card that can only be used on buses and subways. It was at an incredibly daring, incredibly desperate, and incredibly stupid criminal act. It was the only crime I've ever been witness to on the subway... and of course I was the victim. Does that make me more or less likely to be the victim of future subway crime?

The train is mostly empty. It's the first train of the morning. I sit down and pull my back pack close to my side. I pull out a book I've been reading. The book is called, The Glass Castle. My mom recommended it and I just started it yesterday. It's the memoir of a rich white lady in New York who has homeless parents. The James Frey alarm in the back of my head is ringing loudly but I'm going to stick with the book anyway.

The train starts moving.

The Glass Castle lady is taking me, the reader, through her childhood. Right now her family is living in a car in the Nevada desert.

I put the book down for a second. I don't know how many stops we've made. There is a new person sitting across from me. She's asleep. She looks kind of like a bustier version of my wife... only, if my wife was black. She has big frizzy hair. Trendy glasses. She looks like an artist. Lip gloss. She has on white eye liner. I think that's what it's called anyway... It's that thin line girls pencil on their eyelids just above the lashes. Girls have way too many color combinations and accessories to worry about. No wonder they spend so much time in the bathroom getting ready. Too many options. Regardless this girl is looking sophisticated, sexy, and earthy all at once.

I just watched this short documentary called REVOLUC!ON that profiled 5 Cuban photographers... I decide that this girl is a photographer... She's dressed well but not "on my way to work" well. She doesn't look like she's been out clubbing all night either.

Maybe she's been out taking pictures of DC for her portfolio. That's it... I'm positive. She got shots of 14th street alive and dancing late into Sunday night. Students from Howard, Georgetown, and GW out enjoying the dying hours of what could be the last warm weekend before the chill of Autumn arrives.

But being the earthly and in touch young woman she is she decided to stick around a few more hours to catch the residents of Columbia Heights wake up and start their work week... Immigrant women carrying sleepy eyed toddlers to the bus stop. House painters sipping coffee and waiting for their rides. Insomniac pan handlers setting up shop. Hookers jockeying for position to catch the morning wave of construction workers headed into the city. I bet she captured it all and nobody even noticed she was there. Except me of course.

She opens her eyes for a second. I quickly look away. [pause] A look back to see if she caught me... Our eyes meet again, "damn that's awkward."

Thankfully she closes her eyes to drift back off to sleep.

You must be a very trusting person to fall asleep on the train... I doubt she's ever been robbed of her fare card. Maybe she's seen some kind of optimism tonight through the lens of her camera that allows her to sleep amidst strangers... or maybe she's just really fucking tired.

It's my stop. I get one last glimpse of her as the train starts to pull away... She's still asleep... She's still beautiful... Sigh... Now it's off to work.