'MURICA
Home.
He had previously moved from the bench in the park since it was unprotected from the snow. At least the Macy's building provided some shelter. There was one problem, however. The frost somehow knew where to find him. No matter how hard he tried, it always managed to seek him out. Everyone knows a frosty nose doesn’t make for a sound sleep, so he spent his days wondering and napping in the subways where he hid out of frost's sight.
He made his way up the stairs slowly and with caution as the flurry of figures whizzed past him, occasionally pushing him out of the way. He stuck out like a sore thumb within the crowd as his feet dragged across the floor shuffling towards their destination. The sound of his stick barely made a noise amidst the hum of a passing train and chatter within the air. From time to time, the stick would make contact with a passerby. The wall had no objection to its encounter, while the passing traveler acted as though she had contracted some strain of Ebola just from the tap of his stick. He was accustomed to this reaction, always hearing the disgust and horror within their startled grunts and voices.
He had just about made it to the top of the stairs. He reached out to grab the railing that would guide him to some train, bringing him that much closer to his home outside the Macy's building. As he extended his hand, he felt a gust of air whiz past him. Next thing he knew, he was holding the arm of another, not the railing.
"Can you help me get to the Green Line?"
"Uh…hell… I don’t really know where that is.. Chrissie? How do we get to the Green Line from here?" Her voice was timid and soft.
"Come on Lindz! We have to go!"
He felt her arm being pulled from his grasp. Just like that, she was gone. The rattle of an arriving train filling the void she had left.
Pretenders.
Boston seemed so busy. She watched with searching eyes as she waited for a familiar face to stand out amongst the sea of commuters. The crowd began to blend into itself as waves of people continued to pour off the trains, becoming blurs before her gaze. She listened in to the conversations around her, to the hum, to the shuffle of feet. The faint echoes announced the arrival of an incoming train as they bounced about between the tall walls of the open pavilion she found herself in.
"Lindsey!" The scream behind her startled her back to reality.
"Hi Chrissie!" The two embraced in an awkward hug that carried more than just a few years of distance.
"Hope you managed to rest on the train here."
"Yeah, I got a few hours of sleep in. I'm so excited to be here!"
"Oh, me too, but come on! We have to catch the train to campus before it leaves."
With that, she was hastily dragged across the pavilion to another gate. They scurried down a flight of stairs before turning a corner and scampering up another. As they approached the next flight, a man stood on the steps as he struggled to make his way to the top. He was clearly blind feeling his way along; his stick swung from side to side. Her friend was fast to scoot by his person. On the other hand, she, herself was not used to the city's pace and was surprised when she felt the gentle grasp of the man on her forearm. He barely turned as he asked for direction towards the Green Line. She had no idea where anything was in this city, let alone how to navigate it's labyrinth of a subway. In a helpless plea, she turned to her friend for guidance to point the man in the direction. To her horror, she watched as her friend swooped in, grabbed her other arm, and pulled her away.
"You have to be more careful Lindz. So many people pretend to be homeless around here."
She looked back at the disoriented face of the blind man. His eyes were glassy with confusion as he listened around for the return of his aid.
Stay away.
"We were in a rush and he completely grabbed her arm. Nowadays, I can't tell you how many people pretend to be homeless just to get money. They pose outside along the street with their signs and buckets. One second they are all slumped over and the next they are answering a call on their iPhones. Like, how you are homeless, and yet you have a cell phone plan? How does that work? I'm telling you, you just can't trust them, especially the ones that have animals."
A glance.
His phone had just died. This forced him to find entertainment and distraction elsewhere for once, as he was no longer able to ignore the world around him. He hastily rummaged through his bag in search of his charger. Bingo! Into the socket it went as he stared at his phone waiting for it to charge. That got old after about a minute, so he decided he would fill his time with something else. The older gentleman beside him was reading. He could read. He thought it over for a second and decided against it; reading was out of the question as he had no books with him and it was so out of style to read anything not digitized. As he looked up to think, a woman walking by tripped and spilled coffee down her shirt. He chuckled and decided to amuse himself by watching the borage of commuters that scurried about before his gaze. He shifted in his seat to get comfortable in preparation to study each individual face that passed.
The nose of the man across the rail was particularly jagged when he laughed as he tried to flirt with a young woman nearby. The forehead of the woman who talked to this man rippled into wrinkles with every awkward smile—she forced onto her face. With each pause in the conversation, she inched further and further away, until the train arrived and they both disappeared out of sight. A mother furiously scolded her son in the corner as the kid blankly looked as his grey shoes. The groceries that hung from her arms flailed all over as she threw her hands in the air when she spoke. At this point, the boy was in an intense staring contest with the floor. He did not break eye contact or even blink the entire time she spoke. An orange flew from her bag and hit some woman in the head. The mother ran over and apologized while retrieving her orange. When she returned to her son, he was on his phone. By her reaction, you could see she was far from pleased and the scolding started all over again. Who knew the station could be so entertaining?
The stairs caught his attention as they continually spit out groups of people, all for his gaze to inspect and pick apart. His eyes fell upon one man in particular as he inched his way up, step by step. He had tattered clothes, dirty hair, walking stick in one hand, railing in the other. This man looked exhausted as he fumbled around feeling a path up the stairs. Person after person whizzed by him in complete ignorance. No one stopped to give assistance. No one cared. No one gave even a second look or a first one, for that matter. One after another, they all brushed by the man and continued on their way. Two young girls quickly approached him. One, much like all others before her, quickly brushed past him. However, just as the second aimed to do the same, the man reached out and grabbed her arm. She was immediately awkward and uncomfortable within his grasp, yet sweet as her kind eyes gazed upon the man and listened to what he asked. Like a fly to shit, her friend furiously whipped around and pulled her from the man's grasp. The girl looked back just as the two disappeared out of sight up another flight of stairs. Her ashamed eyes screamed with embarrassment as she was pulled along her way. The man charging his phone looked back at the man on the stairs, who was momentarily confused but indifferent as he proceeded to make his way along. After several more attempts at seeking help, he eventually found a spot against the wall, sat down, and fell asleep. He almost seemed to blend into the wall as his slumped figure slept. He became a shadow, a whisper among the noise around him.
An announcement came over the speaker. Train 137 to Connecticut. Gate 9. The man charging his phone hastily picked up his belongings. He had better hurry or he would miss his train. He looked down. It was up to 85% already.
'Murica.
They are here among us, figures in the shadows, unspoken, unheard, unseen, and yet we do see them and we do hear them. They speak to us, but we do not listen. They walk among us and we pass them in the streets. They call out to us and we politely smile. We carry on. We can afford to carry on. We can afford to simply smile--avoid. They cannot. We make light of their situations as we do not experience them ourselves."But I'll help the next one. He was faking. It's warmer out today, so he should be happy. Look at them all. He's pretty good at guitar, violin, drums, painting. Aw, poor dog. He'll just use this money on drugs. She'll just use this money on alcohol. Walk over here. Stay over there. Don't make eye contact. This is what we tell ourselves. This is what we are told. How are we to help if we stay away? How can we care if this is all we do and continue to do?
Lauren Markowitz is a sophomore majoring in Biology and English. She takes pleasure in hiking at the Wissahickon, researching within the lab, creatively writing and, of course, munching on the occasional donut!
