1. The Fallen Sandal
2. Will commute for caffeine
3. The Subway Guy…

The expression of the girl next to him was priceless as she contuied to listen to her iPod. I don’t know if it was the fact that he was flipping through that old technology called a CD case or the strange and awkward labels the man had on the CD’s. While this was going on another man handed that guy a piece of paper. The older man who handed him the paper was in my right-side blind spot since we were sitting on the same side of the train. He was an artist, with a clip board and a pencil. The paper was a sketch of the CD-Player guy. I peeped my head out and looked over at the artist and watched as he sketched a young girl who was rocking with the motion as her hand slide on the bar with every jump the train made.

I don’t know the last time I had seen someone have a portable cd player and a cd case with them. I’ve been using MP3 players now for about seven years and would think they are easier then swapping a cd or carrying the cases. But cd’s are still sold and I guess living in New York I’ve been spoiled, I’m sure somewhere in North Dakota a farmer is listening to ‘The Dixie Chicks’ on portable CD player as he herds the cattle.

This was just another morning commute which I felt “DOA” while ‘They’ turned my surroundings into a complex paranoia complex. Maybe ‘They’ (the three loud Australian girls) where watching me, following me, distracting me. Maybe this was the beginning of something new, random bunch of foreign girls piling onto the 1 train at 8am sipping each others coffee and rambling on about life… hmmm. Would be an interesting sitcom – Subway Foreigners – Hmmm maybe it’s just enough to publish as a blog post!

Rushing out of the sliding doors I raced for the corner coffee stand. He is a god in the city that never sleeps, a little guy in a silver box who brews cheap good coffee. Sipping away the paranoia slipped by as the iPod shuffled onward towards Gwen Stefani ‘hollaback Girl’ and I spotted the three lost foreigners turning and twisting a map, happily no longer could hear there cries as Gwen cursed them away. Once again the morning caffeine fix calmed the remaining nerves as I made my way to sit in front of a computer and watch my life whiz by me in binary.

“Can I borrow your cellphone.” she asked.

“What?” I replied a little confused since moments ago “Garbage” was blasting “Paranoid” in my head.

“I need to make an urgent phone call, Its local.” She insisted and was only a foot from me. A true New Yorker who seemed to go over her caffeine intact for the day. The confusion out weighed my paranoia and my cellphone was in the hands of a complete stranger. The bus pulled up, unusually quick and the droves of patient people hogged the entryway.

I made sure she walked in front of me, since my head was thinking of a story about Kevin Spacey who lent a kid in London his cellphone and after the kid started dialing numbers he ran off with it. She entered and sat down in the handicap/elderly area as I slide my metro card in the slot and stood above her. She yapped along for a good five minutes, as I heard her converse with someone about their day. As we got to the next stop, she finally handed me my phone back since I was hanging over her like a trained monkey. By time I got a seat she had already borrowed the cellphone from a young guy sitting across from her.

Her white, rather large, hat and loud voice as she yelled on the phone to the poor soul at the other end made her the center of bus-attention. The old blind man sitting next to her laughed at loud as the Cellphone Borrower snipped at another lady who told the young guy he should get his phone back before she runs off with it.

On the other side of the park she returned the guys phone and raced off the bus. As we passed her barely moving cross town I watched as she stopped yet another man random man on the street. He took out his phone and she started dialing again. I call her the Cellphone Borrower but it was more like Tarzan swinging from branch to another. The bus turned up Madison and I sat back in my seat smiling. The city that never sleeps, never stops surprising me neither.

Her eyes half massed, dreaming of a coffee heaven.

The uncomfortable subway seat was no match for her worn-out body.

Leaning her cheek against the sticky silver post didn’t seem to bother her.

By this point she was as relaxed as sleeping in her own bed.

Her left sandal slide off the foot, generating a slight twitch from her lip,

slightly spiking her cheek to slide across the metal bar that supported her form.

The chalk board shrieks of the subway woke her from that trance.

Quickly she noticed her bare foot and without hesitation she put it on,

then looked around in panic.

Her left cheek imprinted with a red mark across it

she jumped up as the trains slivering forced her back down.

Then as the subway made its way slowly out of the station

she must have caught a heavenly sign

as she smiled and closed her eyes for another round.

Then without my knowing a man entered the half full subway car, he limped over in front of where i was sitting and started his speech. It was rehearsed in the sense you could tell that he’s done it before, but sounded very sincere. He lost all of his belongings and was recovering from an accident, he purposely had his right pants pulled up. His leg had holes in the skin, about an inch deep the largest one. He held on to the metal pole as he continued to plead for clothes, food, bandages or money. Anything that could make his world just a little better. Past all his words, his muddy clothes, limp, orange beard was one other mysterious item. A mouse. A white mouse with black patches, pouching out of his shirt. The little guy was balancing inside the shirt on one of his buttons. As he spoke of his situation and with his right hand held the pole the left fingers gently pet the rodent.

He stood there without anything but a friend begging for a little help from total strangers. The tone he had wasn’t of pain or suffering but of courage. His little friend was a part of that life of his, a part of the struggle, they were in the battle together.

After the train stopped and he hopped off the young pretty girl next to me said loudly to her friend. “That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

I would have said: “strange,” but it was beautiful, a fallen man under the city streets with a little friend who stayed on his button and enjoyed his company. The little pet, the speeding heart, furry skin and beady eyes that get him through the day. Without a friend to confine in where would we be?