The El
El
The conductor at the front of the train, where I typically sit, is banging around in his filthy steel cage, pounding his fists against the door, screaming “mother fucker” and “son of a bitch.” I have a good—meaning not dripping in fresh urine or smattered in miscellaneous grey matter—seat. I can handle the man vaguely responsible for my life being a raving lunatic, and resist the urge to get up and move cars. It is comforting, in an off-handed way, to know that he is restricted by automatic shut down brakes to speeds under 35 MPH.
I look across the way, thankful for my sunglasses preventing the detection of my gaze. I tilt my head toward the window, while focusing into the train, on the woman three rows away wearing white stretch pants. She is leaning on her boyfriend who is wearing green medical scrubs. Her legs are splayed open, menstrual blood stains a pigeon blood Rorschach test on her crotch. Bird. No, plane? No…iris? Her hand travels up and down the growing mound of her boyfriend’s non confining pants. She brings her mouth down over the erected fabric, then sees a man eyeing her distastefully. As she flips from mild mannered crack whore to Jekyl and Hyde crack whore, I turn off my walkman. Now I can properly hear her scream at him about her addiction to crack, her right to suck off anyone she wants, that he’s a fucking faggot for watching her suck dick, and will get his ass beat if he don’t treat her with some respek.
I vote respek-fully to get off the train and wait for the next one. Once the train rumbles, sparks and squeals away from the platform, I get a good view of the alley down below. Emerging from the shadows is a very pregnant woman with two large men in sweatshirts and Adidas pants. She languidly holds a plastic bottle of 5 o’clock vodka at the throat with two fingers, periodically taking swigs and sharing, politely of course, with the men. She takes out a slightly crushed box of Marlboro reds, from which she pulls what looks like a Marlboro light. The filter is not brown but white. One man watches her light it. The other puts his hand around her, exploring her pregnancy, her breasts, and her vagina. The next train arrives, and I get back on.
On the seat next to the door sit two blonde Evanston Heiresses.
“Oh my god” she says while taking off her Fendi sunglasses, three seasons old, chosen for the logo, not the style. “Where I went for vacation was so hot. It was like, a gadgillion badgillion degrees.”
“Oh really? How hot was it?” her friend asks, lipsticking her collagen.
“It was so hot, you didn’t even have to blow dry your hair.”
“WOAH. So, like what did you do? Get out of the shower, let your hair air dry, and *then* go out?”
“Yeah.”
“Woah, that’s weird.”
“I know!”
The smell of marijuana distracts me. I look toward the small cubicle formed by the false driver compartment. A blur in a beige knit hat and silver denim jacket eight sizes too large is hunched over the front, blowing smoke respectfully outside. I look at the heiresses. I can no longer hear them; their conversation has dissolved into the following dialogue:
I’m stupid.
Not as stupid as me!
I’m twice as stupid as you!
Oh, you wish.
“Doors closing” says the man on the el, and I imagine who he is, and what he looks like, where he is, and if he can answer a phone within the entire metropolitan Chicago area without someone saying, “hey, you’re the guy on the el.” He’s got a comfortable and sexy voice, the voice of someone in his 30’s, strong jaw, someone athletic looking, virile. And thick black hair. In actuality he’s probably a cockeyed balding short acne scarred obese man, a chain smoker, with no leg.
I get off. Thank god. Just 8.5 mins to my apartment, and I can shut out all of this. Walking past an alley, I hear glass breaking. A woman stumbles out, wearing a t-shirt, a hot pink bracelet, earrings, flip flops. She leers at me, twitches, then takes her bruised and scarred left hand and lifts up her t-shirt over her shoulder. With her right hand, equally bruised, but not as scarred, she graciously pushes aside her labia majora to reveal to me her labia minora. Almost stumbling, she thrusts her hips forward, slurs, “Want some?” to me, then falls on top of a car parked on the street.
I murmur “Oh, You Wish” and run home. There I can consider these intimate revelations in the comfort of my own glass of vodka on the rocks.
Screw the rocks.
The conductor at the front of the train, where I typically sit, is banging around in his filthy steel cage, pounding his fists against the door, screaming “mother fucker” and “son of a bitch.” I have a good—meaning not dripping in fresh urine or smattered in miscellaneous grey matter—seat. I can handle the man vaguely responsible for my life being a raving lunatic, and resist the urge to get up and move cars. It is comforting, in an off-handed way, to know that he is restricted by automatic shut down brakes to speeds under 35 MPH.
I look across the way, thankful for my sunglasses preventing the detection of my gaze. I tilt my head toward the window, while focusing into the train, on the woman three rows away wearing white stretch pants. She is leaning on her boyfriend who is wearing green medical scrubs. Her legs are splayed open, menstrual blood stains a pigeon blood Rorschach test on her crotch. Bird. No, plane? No…iris? Her hand travels up and down the growing mound of her boyfriend’s non confining pants. She brings her mouth down over the erected fabric, then sees a man eyeing her distastefully. As she flips from mild mannered crack whore to Jekyl and Hyde crack whore, I turn off my walkman. Now I can properly hear her scream at him about her addiction to crack, her right to suck off anyone she wants, that he’s a fucking faggot for watching her suck dick, and will get his ass beat if he don’t treat her with some respek.
I vote respek-fully to get off the train and wait for the next one. Once the train rumbles, sparks and squeals away from the platform, I get a good view of the alley down below. Emerging from the shadows is a very pregnant woman with two large men in sweatshirts and Adidas pants. She languidly holds a plastic bottle of 5 o’clock vodka at the throat with two fingers, periodically taking swigs and sharing, politely of course, with the men. She takes out a slightly crushed box of Marlboro reds, from which she pulls what looks like a Marlboro light. The filter is not brown but white. One man watches her light it. The other puts his hand around her, exploring her pregnancy, her breasts, and her vagina. The next train arrives, and I get back on.
On the seat next to the door sit two blonde Evanston Heiresses.
“Oh my god” she says while taking off her Fendi sunglasses, three seasons old, chosen for the logo, not the style. “Where I went for vacation was so hot. It was like, a gadgillion badgillion degrees.”
“Oh really? How hot was it?” her friend asks, lipsticking her collagen.
“It was so hot, you didn’t even have to blow dry your hair.”
“WOAH. So, like what did you do? Get out of the shower, let your hair air dry, and *then* go out?”
“Yeah.”
“Woah, that’s weird.”
“I know!”
The smell of marijuana distracts me. I look toward the small cubicle formed by the false driver compartment. A blur in a beige knit hat and silver denim jacket eight sizes too large is hunched over the front, blowing smoke respectfully outside. I look at the heiresses. I can no longer hear them; their conversation has dissolved into the following dialogue:
I’m stupid.
Not as stupid as me!
I’m twice as stupid as you!
Oh, you wish.
“Doors closing” says the man on the el, and I imagine who he is, and what he looks like, where he is, and if he can answer a phone within the entire metropolitan Chicago area without someone saying, “hey, you’re the guy on the el.” He’s got a comfortable and sexy voice, the voice of someone in his 30’s, strong jaw, someone athletic looking, virile. And thick black hair. In actuality he’s probably a cockeyed balding short acne scarred obese man, a chain smoker, with no leg.
I get off. Thank god. Just 8.5 mins to my apartment, and I can shut out all of this. Walking past an alley, I hear glass breaking. A woman stumbles out, wearing a t-shirt, a hot pink bracelet, earrings, flip flops. She leers at me, twitches, then takes her bruised and scarred left hand and lifts up her t-shirt over her shoulder. With her right hand, equally bruised, but not as scarred, she graciously pushes aside her labia majora to reveal to me her labia minora. Almost stumbling, she thrusts her hips forward, slurs, “Want some?” to me, then falls on top of a car parked on the street.
I murmur “Oh, You Wish” and run home. There I can consider these intimate revelations in the comfort of my own glass of vodka on the rocks.
Screw the rocks.
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