out of place

This story isn’t really about Pittsburgh but it sticks out in my brain a lot. On my last trip to New York (I know, I know, I talk about New York a lot) I saw the most curious thing in a subway car on the way to get some dinner after a long day. It isn’t a “normal” strange you’d typically see on the subway. Strange in the sense of how emotionally intriguing it was; it was out of place, out of this time. I jotted the notes, sitting at a coffee shop the next day watching the street. Here it is, recreated and elaborated on. I hope you enjoy this frightfully inhuman moment that piqued my mind. 

I had headphones in, listening to a Bob Dylan track. I believe the song was “I Was Young When I Left Home.” I was talking about the song with a bartender the night before. Louva, the bartender, bonded with me on a few key points. He liked Bob Dylan, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and talking to guests when a bar is suffering through a slow night. He said that strange things always happen when he listens to this song, and he doesn’t anymore. If I ever see Louva again, I’ll have to tell him this story. Regardless, the next day, I was listening to the song and riding on the mid-rush-hour 6 train, downtown-bound to Bleecker street. It was a shit-packed, disgustingly hot train ride. Suits on their way home or perhaps to a quick dinner break before stammering back to the office. A few cigarettes, a bottle of expensive wine they’d never pronounce, and for dessert a sloppy blowjob at their return from a young receptionist. Maybe they aren’t like that, and I’m being mean. I don’t like finance-bro culture, it disgusts me. They treat women and the people under them like scum. I digress. Sometimes on these “packed” rides, you see people stuck out of place. The initial thrust of the car throwing them off their axis. Always a shameful smile between blush red cheeks to a New York native who gives them nothing back but a nod in return. Some are partiers on their way out. Fresh cheap cologne, all sorts of fake rings fit on their green stained hands, and eyes sharp as a knife; on the prowl for their sexual prey. The youth is hungry in this city, and just as cutthroat. But just once or twice in many many moments, you see a story. This couple came onto the train and they couldn’t have been more out of place. It was as if everyone else was blue and they were bright red. The guy was this hand-me-down kind of blue collar man. He brandished a worn, sun-stained ball cap, a landscaping shirt that didn’t fit him anymore and too many oil stains all over. Pants with holes and scuffs at the seams. He was unkept and rugged. His mustache hairs curled into his bottom lip, and his pale white skin seemed translucent. The girl was bizarre but I couldn’t stop staring at her. Her style was unlike the normal print-press of today’s fashion. A lady with short hair that seemed straight out of Scott Pilgrim, gelled up all gothic and trendy. It curled at the platinum colored tips in front of her ears. She probably lives in the east village… or maybe bushwick. She had tight black pants with long transparent polka dot socks that reached her knees. Her shirt was this silk fitted traditional kimono style blouse with a tight collar and white trimming. It was cut up and butchered, tailored by her modern imagination. Her purse, besides the fact it was falling apart and items hanging from it, was this small loose bag with glossy leather (poorly stitched) roses all over it. They couldn’t have been more different people. This is something I’m always seeing in New York, people are cool and their partners are cooler. Typically, couples fit together very well. The finance types with their Gucci girls and blonde hair, the old Italians with their thicker and kinder wives, or the tourist family decked out in bad polos, too much sunscreen, and maybe some New Balances. But like that pesky weed in your garden, these two and their connection prevailed in my surface level examination. Their eyes didn’t leave each other. It looked as if they didn’t know they were shoulder to shoulder with about 50 other New Yorkers. He would whisper to her and she would giggle. Stoic and unmoving, while she flowed and twisted like water. Her head up and down from laughter like a bobber on a fishing line. He was a lake, steady and unchanging, she drank and swam freely. He had her, and he loved her. Was their love in that in-between perfect stage? Right after the initial nerves of getting to know someone, but right before when things get serious and parents are met. It was the sweet spot. Right beside them a man came in a moment or two later on 28th street. A scruffy buddy holly looking guy. Wire glasses, flakes of dandruff on his green and white striped shirt. His expression was as hopeful as a dog that knows it is in trouble. What was he looking for, or maybe what was he afraid of finding? His fingernails were black at the edges and he had a tan line on his left ring finger. Divorced. He kept watching this couple like I did but he was stuck. I heard his heart screaming and exactly how his mind was sharply carving this sight right into his cerebellum. I felt for him, it’s not an easy thing - must have been recent. The woman and man noticed him. They changed completely. They stopped talking, stopped smiling, and just stared at each other. It was a different intensity - or maybe understanding. Were these two communicating telepathically? Was the divorcee casting a spell? I’m not sure, but that silent space in between them could have lasted a lifetime. I felt the air in that car curdle and start to stink. The ride was over. We all get off. The couple was a few paces in front of me and the man went the other way toward the NE corner exit, but he was still watching. When we finally got to the exit on the Lafayette side the couple walked up the stairs and they separated into the opposite perpendicular staircases. I was dumbfounded. No goodbye, no kiss, and no nothing. They were just romantic and then as if they were strangers. I went up the stairs and there they were. Both walking further away from me opposite ends of the world. The wind was hot coming up from the subway, as if the warmth they shared was racing to get back to them; it was lost and unnatural. I stood there, my head going back and forth to see if the hot wind would catch them, and turn one of their heads back toward the other. They remained cold, the thread of their bond felt visible, stretching and stretching, as if it was about to snap. It did, they never turned back. I felt the threads as if the two pieces, grey and lifeless were lying in each of my hands. After they were fully out of sight there was only one thing that remained. The man in green; he was staring at the same thing as me on the other side of the street. Two observers in the entire world saw that strange and confusing phenomenon of the couple that stuck out. I noticed the man in green and he noticed me. He gave me a look that lasted all day in my head.