“Untitled Fragment #8″

The thugs jump around lightly in the light wind on the open platform like boxers, hitting like butterflies, not wanting to sting their friends. It’s been a long day. The young Latin girls, their caps’ brims as stiff as the boys from before, whisper about the black men who whistled at them safely from a block away. God, the day was long. The furry man with a defeated frown tucks his hands in his old sweatshirt, protecting their dirt from the wind. It’s been a long life. The college kid who can’t afford the LES smiles at the night air, hoping a whimsical detachment will protect him from all of this. A long year. A Hispanic woman looks at her young child, she loves him but why the hell is he so awake now after she worked all day and what a long day it was. As the kid prances around her, her eyes open and close as she stands, open-and-close, open-and-close. A businessman takes out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Are you allowed to smoke on outdoor train platforms? There’s no sign saying you can’t. Will anyone bother me? If they do I’ll say “Come on, it’s been a long day!”. But the black off-duty MTA employee knows that you can’t smoke, not even outside; he won’t say anything, too long of a day to bother causing problems. The twentysomething woman is an asthmatic, she coughs lightly at the smoke and steps away. Won’t this train ever come? The security badge from her office is still attached to her pants, she longs to remove her heels and–dear god–her socks. It’s been such a long day. I’m freezing out here on the platform, wearing July clothes in April, and neither the wind nor the conductor know or care to know what I’m wearing or who I am. The L Train never comes quickly when it’s been a long day, it doesn’t give you a break or a conciliation prize for dealing with so much shit. But then neither does New York.