Author’s note: For 10 months I traveled to work in New York City from my home in southeastern Connecticut. Notice I used the word “traveled” and not “commuted.” The difference, to me, is mileage and duration. My daily “commute” was three hours each way, including a 45-minute drive, an hour-and-40-minute train ride, and subway rides across and uptown. Occasionally, I took notes on the people sitting around me on the train. What follows are two of several stream-of-consciousness entries I made in an untitled journal.

Monday, June 23, 2008

I want to attack the man sitting across from me. He has done nothing but sit quietly. He is listening to music through a pair of headphones and has not made eye contact. He is not taking up more space than is necessary and is allowing me mine. Still, I feel an urge to thrash him with my laptop. He is closest. That is why.

Three men are sitting across the aisle. A piece of poster board rests on their knees serving as a makeshift card table. They are playing poker, passing the time until they reach their respective destinations. They are all wearing wedding bands and eyeglasses, short-sleeved collared shirts with white T-shirts underneath, casual slacks, and shoes. One wears a moustache, the others are clean-shaven. These are different people and they are the same, just like the man sitting across from me, the man I want to attack. He has closed his eyes. It would be easy. He is wearing a pair of dress slacks and a long-sleeved, button-down, pinstriped shirt, open at the collar, sleeves rolled to mid-forearm. He is wearing a wedding band. He is clean-shaven.

Many on the train are sleeping, others are reading newspapers. They are content.

It is quiet. Nobody is talking to one another save the poker-playing trio to my left. And they are only talking about the game they’re playing. The woman sitting across from me, next to the man whose eyes are closed and whom I want very much to hurt, is sleeping as well. She is plain-looking and nondescript. She is wearing khaki slacks and a plain, navy-blue, short-sleeved top. She, too, is comfortable, complacent. She is not wearing a wedding band. She is close to looking frumpy. I have lost my desire to attack the man sitting across from me. The three men playing cards just shared a laugh. Something about the game they are playing struck them as funny. Each of them. All of them.

“I had clubs and spades. I had three of each,” the shortest of the three card-playing men is saying.

“You got lucky,” one of his buddies said.

“Better lucky than good.”

They are keeping score on the poster board, talking, after each hand, about what might have happened if things had not gone as they did. They are analyzing hypothetical outcomes after the fact, even while the man with the moustache is shuffling the deck and dealing the cards.

There is a woman standing between the train cars, looking out the window. It seems a good place to be. The man who was sitting across from me has gotten up. He is standing with the woman between the cars, getting ready to get off the train when it makes its first stop. I feel guilty for describing the woman sitting across from me as “close to looking frumpy.” She had been reading before she dozed off. Reading a book, a novel. She is awake now, thinking about something. She is wearing sandals adorned with smooth, tangerine-colored stones. Her toenails are painted pink. Her ankles and feet are tan.

The train has stopped. The woman is gone, as are the man I once wanted to attack and the three card-playing commuters. They left their poster board behind for someone else to dispose of. None of them is giving it a second thought. Someone else will take care of it.

A man who keeps his head shaved is talking on his cellular telephone, and has been for a good portion of the ride since the train left Grand Central Terminal. I cannot make out much of what he’s saying, though I do know he has to go through some e-mail tonight. His eyes are alert. He is wearing a long-sleeved, button-down shirt, open at the collar. A red tie hangs loosely around his neck. His sleeves are rolled to mid-forearm. He is wearing a wedding band.

A bald man in a business suit nearly fell on me as he passed into this car from another.

What if he had?

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

If she were not sitting slightly sideways to face and talk with an apparent coworker sitting catty-corner across the aisle she’d be unable to move at all in her seat. The man sitting to her left is the sort that might have to pay for an extra seat on a commercial airliner. He personifies gluttony. A person is morbidly obese when he or she weighs 100 pounds more than his ideal body weight. This gentleman is morbidly obese. He strikes me as the sort who, told by his physician that he should lose weight for health reasons, makes an effort to take a short walk after a heavy weekend meal if he makes any effort at all. He is in his late 50s or 60s. He will be dead soon. I am sure of it. He is breathing heavily, though his only exertion since this godforsaken train left Grand Central Terminal has been to read his mail, eat a bag of pretzels, sip a diet soda, and fiddle with his personal digital assistant.

He is wearing khaki slacks, a solid-blue, button-down dress shirt, a red tie, and a pair of bifocals, which match in color the tie and the personal digital assistant. This is a coincidence.

He is alternately clearing his throat and sucking his teeth. The latter is a sound that will drive me mad and yet fascinates me. He is like a cow, with bad, alcoholic skin that seems to be dripping from the bones in his face. He just sucked his teeth again.

He is wearing a wedding band. I’m certain that he sucks his teeth at home. He is not self-conscious because he feels important, kingly even. He is commuting from one fiefdom to another, home to a wife who I have no doubt is also an alcoholic and addicted to painkillers. I imagine she is the kind of woman who needs, each and every day, to kill the boredom and slow the advance of time. There are no more dreams, no more aspirations. They have plenty of money, money they will leave behind. She knows he will die soon and feels guilty about looking forward to change. She will be no more alone than she is now, whether he is at home or in the city, making very important decisions about very important things.

The Marketplace section of today’s Wall Street Journal is draped over his knee. It is full of very important information. The lead story is about companies called Rio Tinto and BP pushing the cost of iron ore higher. A photograph accompanies the story, as does a graphic.

He just sucked his teeth again.

The woman sitting to his right, directly across from and facing me, is drinking Cherry Coke. She is wearing a pantsuit beneath which is a tight-fitting, low-cut black top. She has olive-toned skin. Her shoulder-length dark hair has a natural style. She doesn’t have to do much with it. She has hazel-hued eyes and a youthful smile. When she smiles her nose wrinkles. She alternately fiddles with a sterling-silver pendant she wears around her neck and brushes the bangs away from her eyes. She is wearing a wedding band. Her fingernails are painted pink and cut short. She is no more than 40 years old.

Her son, with whom she spoke on her cellular telephone a few minutes ago, asked her to bring home cake. She told her coworker this, explaining that, to her son, every day is a birthday.

My birthday is two days away. I will turn 38. For the first time, the number seems real. For the first time, 40 seems significant, an age at which to measure accomplishment. Much must happen in the next two years if I am to be ready for that assessment.

The morbidly obese man has made a few calls from his cellular telephone during which he has laughed. He is on the phone now. I wonder whether the person on the other end heard him suck his teeth just then.

Each time he makes a call, the man says, “Aloha.” This is weird because it is the salutation I use in work e-mail. It is time to use a different salutation.

The man just called someone named Bob. He told Bob to pick him up in his car. Bob must have keys to the morbidly obese man’s car. Bob was told to bring along a golf shirt for the morbidly obese man, who is laughing again and has a slight southern drawl.

The woman has gotten off the train.

The man is laughing and on the phone again. Now he is off the phone, but dialing another number. During his last conversation he mentioned spending a weekend on Fire Island, either last weekend or the one upcoming.

He just transferred his bag to the seat next to him and has put a foot up on the seat next to me. He apologized for bumping my laptop.

“You’re working so diligently,” he said.

“I’m trying,” I said, “it’s not always easy.”

“You get points for trying,” he told me.

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