$2.75 get you home

$2.75 gets you home with all the other people.  

A couple, reading. At Bedford-Nostrand, she passes him her novel, and he takes her novel and his novel, and puts both together into his tote. They get off the train.

A woman with a huge drum.

A man with a French beret that extends way out all in all directions, so that you wonder what his hair situation is under there, but also you don’t want to know.

You keep your eyes to yourself, but also they are everywhere. Like the eyes of a cape hare.

You have dreamt of a subway with people sleeping on the stairs so that you step on their raggedy clothing as you go down. Compared to these dreams, the actual subway is quite lovely.

In 2023, you can look up a train and see what time it’s coming. You remember a time when it wasn’t so. When you would descend and swipe, descend and wait. Now you have information, you can decide.

You would have biked, if it weren’t for your allergies. Your entire body racked by sneezes, three in a row, tic tac toe, and then again. Your nose running, your eyes itching all the way out to your ears.  

You’re reading a profile of Judy Blume in a magazine you borrowed from the library. The library is free. It offsets your coffee habit.

When you emerge in Park Slope, it’s 10:30, there are still lots of people out. With the sun down, and the temperature down about 15 degrees, it’s actually nice out, and you take your time walking home, stopping to peruse what the stoops are offering.

You shine your phone flashlight to read the titles of books. Nothing strikes you, but you only know that because you looked.

“WORKS,” reads a hand-lettered note on a toaster. This is the most basic level of retail, to write “WORKS” on an appliance you’ve set out on your stoop. More likely someone will take it this way.

This is America to me.

This is America. Not banning Judy Blume, not choking women at every opening of their body.