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I’m standing there waiting at the Five Points Station’s Eastbound platform. I’m heading back to the House Sitting gig after pulling in a few hours of Manual Labor. My attention buried book deep (“Morning of the Magicians”), a mild Nic-Fit simmering the blood, the Indian Creek train running late and everything stills smells of raw basement to me (dust, mold and rust).
This young man gets off of the elevator connecting the second floor East-West platform with the lower tier of the North-South platform. He’s got skinny white headphones jacked into his ears and is singing along at the top of his lungs. Off-key and shrieking the high notes. Everyone glances over at him from the depths of the commute fatigue. He’s dressed in a series of loose layers – baggy jeans that would be loose on a three hundred pound man hug the thighs just over the knees, a white t-shirt long enough to qualify as a smock, a red hoodie unzipped and a big puffy jacket that seems to have been made from the pelts of several dozen designer hand-bags. The young man shuffles up to the edge of the platform, Stevie Wonder gyrating, snapping his fingers and shout-singing along.
The shock of the spectacle wears off quick. Everyone returns to their text messages, newspapers, novels or the digital billboard hanging over the platform in the hopes that maybe it’ll start working suddenly and tell us how long until the next train arrives.
Maybe it’s because he’s bored. Maybe he makes me for an easy mark. Maybe I was just the closest to him when he shuffled out… but for whatever reason the young man starts circling around me in a tightening and personal space defying orbit. The whole time he’s gesticulating wildly at me, with pointed gun fingers crackling into snaps, or throwing out a series of air traffic signals to an invisible plane off spastic wild hands. I’m not quick enough to catch the full flow of the lyrics… but he does manage to drop the “N” word with enough frequency to make even a Klan rally squirm with embarrassment. The whole time though, I’m narrative locked while trying to get through this wordy passage about the Hollow Earth and the secrets of the Alchemists. Finally the young man stops in front of me, delivers the final stanzas of the song/poem at a full ‘10’ before snapping his fingers again inches from my face and throwing up his arms out wide, before crossing them over his chest defiantly… as if I was about to hop on the 'Mic' next to do my best 8 Mile imitation for the audience his performance has drawn.
I look up from my book, snap it shut around a finger to mark my place and meet his ‘So, whatcha got?’ glare head on. It is then that I mouth four little words to him.
He blinks confused, reaches under the smock length t-shirt, hits pause on the flow and asks me to repeat myself.
“I said…,” raising my own voice into a dull boom down the platform and vamping out the next words for full effect, “’Yes, Dear… Mommy’s Looking!’”
The young man blinks startled and all around us guffaws and snickers crackle along the length of the track. Two schoolgirls whisper in each others ears and openly point at him. An old man shakes his head with a wry smile. Three hot sisters in pants painted on tight cluck disapprovingly at the young man’s antics. Some suit tries to record the whole scene off his smart phone from the other side of the platform.
I arch a single brow at the young man – my code for: “Are we through here or what?”
The young man waves me off dismissively and shuffle-waddles away popping the mp3 player back on. Though you can hear the tinny drone of the next track buzzing furiously from a few yards away… he is no longer singing along and only a restrained bop of his chin serves as his ‘dance moves.’
The train another ten minutes away, I dive back into the Hollow Earth, the Secrets of the Alchemists and the Nine Unknown Men.
This young man gets off of the elevator connecting the second floor East-West platform with the lower tier of the North-South platform. He’s got skinny white headphones jacked into his ears and is singing along at the top of his lungs. Off-key and shrieking the high notes. Everyone glances over at him from the depths of the commute fatigue. He’s dressed in a series of loose layers – baggy jeans that would be loose on a three hundred pound man hug the thighs just over the knees, a white t-shirt long enough to qualify as a smock, a red hoodie unzipped and a big puffy jacket that seems to have been made from the pelts of several dozen designer hand-bags. The young man shuffles up to the edge of the platform, Stevie Wonder gyrating, snapping his fingers and shout-singing along.
The shock of the spectacle wears off quick. Everyone returns to their text messages, newspapers, novels or the digital billboard hanging over the platform in the hopes that maybe it’ll start working suddenly and tell us how long until the next train arrives.
Maybe it’s because he’s bored. Maybe he makes me for an easy mark. Maybe I was just the closest to him when he shuffled out… but for whatever reason the young man starts circling around me in a tightening and personal space defying orbit. The whole time he’s gesticulating wildly at me, with pointed gun fingers crackling into snaps, or throwing out a series of air traffic signals to an invisible plane off spastic wild hands. I’m not quick enough to catch the full flow of the lyrics… but he does manage to drop the “N” word with enough frequency to make even a Klan rally squirm with embarrassment. The whole time though, I’m narrative locked while trying to get through this wordy passage about the Hollow Earth and the secrets of the Alchemists. Finally the young man stops in front of me, delivers the final stanzas of the song/poem at a full ‘10’ before snapping his fingers again inches from my face and throwing up his arms out wide, before crossing them over his chest defiantly… as if I was about to hop on the 'Mic' next to do my best 8 Mile imitation for the audience his performance has drawn.
I look up from my book, snap it shut around a finger to mark my place and meet his ‘So, whatcha got?’ glare head on. It is then that I mouth four little words to him.
He blinks confused, reaches under the smock length t-shirt, hits pause on the flow and asks me to repeat myself.
“I said…,” raising my own voice into a dull boom down the platform and vamping out the next words for full effect, “’Yes, Dear… Mommy’s Looking!’”
The young man blinks startled and all around us guffaws and snickers crackle along the length of the track. Two schoolgirls whisper in each others ears and openly point at him. An old man shakes his head with a wry smile. Three hot sisters in pants painted on tight cluck disapprovingly at the young man’s antics. Some suit tries to record the whole scene off his smart phone from the other side of the platform.
I arch a single brow at the young man – my code for: “Are we through here or what?”
The young man waves me off dismissively and shuffle-waddles away popping the mp3 player back on. Though you can hear the tinny drone of the next track buzzing furiously from a few yards away… he is no longer singing along and only a restrained bop of his chin serves as his ‘dance moves.’
The train another ten minutes away, I dive back into the Hollow Earth, the Secrets of the Alchemists and the Nine Unknown Men.