On my way home, packed breath to breath on a #4
train, we stopped for awhile between stations. I fantasized the collapse of the tunnel, the collapse of reason amongst passengers; the end of life as I had known it. So I thought, "What to do?" I addressed the man whose back was pressed into my face and whose dry cleaning was building up a reserve of static electricity on my jacket.
I joked, "Let's get comfortable!"
He smiled and turned around.
Although he turned out to be a military attaché for the war department (it was a uniform in that bag) I had to overlook my liberal bourgeois attitudes and talk to the guy . . . given the circumstances.
I mumbled something like, "You must be glad it's peacetime?"
He smiled the smile of a fox and I knew that I had stepped into his lair.
Of course, being the man that he was, he would prefer war. So I said, "One of those," half to myself.
(To himself saying, "Hippie, peace freak")
I smiled as I read his mind.
Looking down the barrel of a soldier I knew I had to quit this train.
Certainly this was an omen.
The train inched into Fulton Street and I squeaked out.
He followed, disoriented by foxholes filled with witches, this train of non-thought and the surprise of being read.
