I’m on the train. It’s early, so it’s packed with what I call, the changing of the guard. All the nighttime hotel and hospital workers and their sleepy replacements are dozing.
There are two seats vacant, on either side of a big guy sprawled like he’s home on his couch. Now normally I don’t need to sit, but am lugging a really heavy bag, so I say, “Excuse me, could you move just a little so I can scooch in?”
He doesn’t even gaze up, let alone move. So I just squeeze beside him like an inch worm hoping he’ll get the message. But nope, he still stays put. Despite his self-absorption watching a film on his phone I’m convinced must be porn, to be that riviting, I choose not to engage.
Then, after close examination, conclude, he doesn’t appear to be a nut, dressed casually in pressed chinos and a nice, wool turtleneck poking from his leather bomber jacket. He’s tall and sturdy, his hair neatly combed without any dirt under his fingernails.
Yes, we took his external inventory like an X Rated X-ray machine.
So as I sit wedged like a stick figure sizing him up, the rest of the car, filled with his lesser Latino brethren, erupt in a collective fit. They start yammering in Spanglish shaking their heads, nodding to me in deep apology. Two get up simultaneously to offer their seats, but I, after getting somewhat settled, just wink and smile.
I know I’ll get a story out of it that’s already penning itself in my head. And frankly, their bi/lingual chivalry moves me (though not quite) beyond words.
These are the noble folk our president wants to keep out of the land of the free, while rude ass, watching Chicks with Dicks, Part 3, is more than welcome. When he finally gets off at 14th Street, everyone cheers except me, who wistfully wonders what sires such singular, selfish entitlement.
I’d truly like to know.
Maybe I’ll write to President Trump, and ask him.
Surely he knows. Sigh.
SB