Scenes from the L
Last week, while I was riding the train to school, a man entered the carriage and began to address its passengers in a loud voice. He was about mid-thirties, I’d guess; black, heavyset, and well but not expensively dressed. He claimed to be out of work, recently out of prison, and presently residing, for $12 a night, at a particular extended-stay hotel on Wilson Ave. — one I wouldn’t wish even my former landlady to stay in.
He admitted to being displeased at having to resort to asking for handouts, but considered it his last course of action, having no family, and refusing to steal. He spoke calmly, and there was a certain dignity in his directness, which I found oddly moving. Having no cash on hand, and thereby being relieved of any kind of struggle with conscience, I found myself considering the economics of his approach — paying some small amount, either to keep him quiet, or to allow him to continue to avoid a life of further crime, and so on.
I was also reminded of a similar harangue I experienced on the metro in Shanghai, while returning home from work one evening. There was a Chinese man who could be seen semi-regularly on Line 1 trains bellowing at passengers. He had always been too far removed for me to make out what he was saying, but this night he walked on the train right next to me, as I was sandwiched between a number of other passengers, wondering for the umpteenth time whether a woman would have to actually be going into labor for someone to give up his seat for her.
Seeing him approach, I braced myself for the onslaught, when he surprised me by yelling in perfect, weirdly unaccented English a fairly elaborate tale, which I now wish I had written down, of being kidnapped and tortured by security organs of the CCP. He finished the story by saying he wanted no charity of any kind, only that I think kindly of the “fat man on the Line 1 metro,” and that I relate his story to others whom I might meet. Which I suppose is what I’m doing now.
On a semi-related note, I keep noticing advertisements on the L for Manifest, a Christian lifestyle magazine. The thing is, the first time I saw it out of the corner of my eye, I thought it read “Manfest.” Which, you know, is really not the same thing at all.