1. Strangers I Know
Observations (NOT Judgments)
By Christine Lavosky
Have you ever looked at someone on the other side of the T tracks and
thought to yourself with the utmost confidence, “This person doesn’t sleep?”
Maybe it was something about the feverish way she kept looking at that digital
screen that shows how much time is left until the next train arrives. Or maybe it
was the way she pursed her lips then chewed at some dead skin there. Or
perhaps it had something to do with her flinch at the boisterous, “Go Bruins,”
emitted by one of the millions, billions (or so it seemed) of yellow and black-
donning fans cluttering up North station. Or the rapidity with which she rubbed
hand sanitizer on her palms after some children–looking like they’d come straight
from the playground–walked by her.
She was ultra-prepared for the possibility of snow outside with knee-
length, waterproof boots, an electric blue down jacket and gloves like the kind an
ice-skater would wear. I wondered if there were remnants of snot on hers, all
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2. dried up, but something told me that she washed them too often for that. She
kept pushing her square, black-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose. I felt
that I could hear her thoughts out loud. I could feel her wondering what she was
thinking when she bought them, their perch so precarious.
* * *
Immediately after getting off the T (the red line, I’d been warned that there
were some delays lately due to congestion and construction on the Longfellow
bridge) I sat down on a bench in the station to finish my sentence about no-sleep
woman (I think her name is Jenn). I was quite happy to escape the elbow-to-
elbow proximity of T-passengers. Such a strange thing, everyone is standing so
close to each other, yet trying so hard not to touch each other. There was a
swarm of people at the station just as the train unloaded, but then it dissipated as
everyone walked off hurriedly to their destinations.
Well, who happened to be sitting next to me on this bench? –or not really
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3. next to me since there was a person sitting between us, and not really sitting
either. A homeless man who’d fallen into his shopping cart of possessions and
seemed to be stuck. His buddy sitting between us on the bench implored him,
“Come on Eddy. Come on, just get up.” An MBTA employee came to check on
Eddy after seeing him on the station’s camera monitor (as she explained). It was
clear that he was a regular at this station. She knew him by name.
“Eddy, you need medical attention. Let me call you an ambulance.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He was still lodged in his cart.
The MBTA lady said, “Nothing to be sorry about Eddy. I just came up here
because I’m worried about you.”
“Christ, Christ, Christ,” he repeated over and over again (more times I
wrote down here). But to whom? Himself? The higher powers? Whoever was
around to hear him? “Help me.”
“Someone. Don’t call an ambulance. I’ll get up from here. I’ll rest,” he said.
* * *
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4. Standing up, I have my notebook pressed up against one of the T’s poles
and was trusting that the tightly packed group of people around me would
stabilize my balance with no added help from holding onto anything. I open up
my notebook to a clean page just in time for the suited string-bean I’m squashed
up against to sneeze on it. This man’s sneeze is so forceful, so momentous, it
ruffles my notebook’s pages and makes me drop it the whole thing. The man–his
face red and leaking, but his hair gelled back– looks sheepish, but doesn’t say
anything.
He has sent me back to my scribbles on Eddy and now I wonder if I
should’ve helped Eddy in some way. After all, I just wrote about him and moved
on, didn’t even show it to anyone. An action altogether useless to him. A man
sitting (one of the lucky ones) in one of the seats across from me picks a piece of
wax of his ear and flicks it to the ground. I can just barely see (through the cracks
in between people’s clustering bodies ) the middle-aged woman in a black fluffy
coat sitting next to him. She shudders. Turns her head the other way. A clear
path leads to me to earwax man since another man carrying a grocery bag full of
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5. bottles wielding a strong body odor stands between me and him. He wins his
own space with the force-field of his unappealing fragrance.
Earwax man wears utilitarian grey boots rolled down at the ankles. The
boots are made to look utilitarian, this is their aesthetic. He isn’t wearing them to
trek through mud or anything. He wears a black pageboy cap that covers his
ears, concealing the ear-buds he is listening to music through (or simply
appearing to be listening to music through; there’s no way to prove it. Sometimes
I wear ear-buds just to discourage people from talking to me). If he is indeed
listening to music, I’d say it’s jazz. It sounds like it’s meandering about, not really
going anywhere. Seeming to lose himself in the music for a moment, he emits a
low hum. But then he catches himself, restrains his passion for the music, limiting
himself to tapping his booted foot on the ground. But the humming returns
(perhaps subconsciously perhaps not). The humming crescendos, gaining
strength and volume at some points and diminuendos, getting very soft and slow
at others. I wonder if he’s even aware of the sounds he’s making (I myself am
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6. guilty of the occasional unconscious humming, even singing, when listening to
music through headphones).
I’m slightly annoyed by him, but overwhelming this feeling is another, one
of pride. Yes, I know, pride for a complete stranger–kind of ridiculous. I can’t
exactly say why, but I’m proud of how un-self-conscious this man is. He clearly
isn’t worrying about disturbing the other passengers in our car. He’s fearless. He
reminds me of a child, carefree and not at all self-aware. Or, no, perhaps an old
man who feels that he has lived long enough and provided the world with enough
of his services to have afforded the right to do whatever he pleases. Or even… a
precocious, jazz-obsessed teenager who just doesn’t care and feels that he
needs to dedicate every one of his spare moments to the lollygagging verses of
Duke Ellington. The concerns that someone will give him the stink-eye, or tell him
to quiet down never seem to cross his mind. Or if they do– if he thinks it is indeed
possible that he will face some kind of consequence(s) for his inappropriate
noise-making, he doesn’t care. What a blessing! I wish I could indulge so freely in
my own private pleasures in public places. I suppose I sort of am right now.
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7. Writing in this tiny red notebook on the T. What if someone were to see me? I
kind of wish they would.
* * *
It’s snowing outside. The T’s passengers seem too cold and gloomy today
for any kind of humming. The car is unusually empty for this time of day; perhaps
people are hiding out in their houses their cold hands wrapped around mugs of
hot cocoa (option 1) or they knew better than to trust this underground
monstrosity in such weather conditions (option 2). A monotone voice announces
over the loudspeaker that there will be minor delays because of a problem at
Central.
A blond pretty boy is inexplicably standing up near the front of the car
even though there are plenty of free seats. He clutches his iPhone in one hand a
Dolce and Gabbana shopping bag in the other. After the announcement he utters
to no one in particular, “Fuck this day.” This guy is holding at least one bag of
expensive merchandise, one T delay and his whole day is fucked? Wow, I
suppose I just can’t help but to judge. I don’t know this guy’s life. Maybe some
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8. bad stuff did happen to him today, and then the delay, which he surely thought
would be much longer, was the cherry on top of a food-poisoned sundae.
Maybe he was getting his girlfriend a fancy lingerie set from Dolce and
Gabbana because she told him she would only try reverse cowgirl with him if he
did. Maybe just after he bought them he ducked into an alleyway for a smoke and
then had the underwear stolen from him from one of those classic Boston
characters over by the St. Francis House. Maybe the thief threatened him with a
knife, pushed it right up to his throat, forcing him to hand over the expensive lacy
goods. He probably thought he recognized the brand as expensive and was
going to sell them. So he was surprised when, instead, the man slipped his knife
into his pocket, slid the lingerie on over his clothes and sang “Love is a
battlefield” while nursing his Dewars nip.
Maybe he had to go back and buy the lingerie set again. But I dunno, the
fact that he would go to such lengths just to get his girlfriend to do a sexual
position which clearly didn’t appeal to her in the first place, makes him sort of an
asshole. Wow, this guy should really see a therapist. I’ve never been to one
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9. personally, but I hear they can be pretty beneficial, opening patients’ eyes to their
own self-deception and all that. Maybe the two of them should go together. And if
he refuses, his girlfriend should probably break up with him. At least she got
some nice lingerie out of the relationship.
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10. personally, but I hear they can be pretty beneficial, opening patients’ eyes to their
own self-deception and all that. Maybe the two of them should go together. And if
he refuses, his girlfriend should probably break up with him. At least she got
some nice lingerie out of the relationship.
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