<Argyle>

It rolled up and down and all around the train car. The steady, rhythmic rocking of the train sent the half empty water bottle into something resembling the stumbling of the drunken frat boy who dropped it. The train rocked left, the bottle rolled left. The train rocked right, the bottle rolled right, until the off center of balance sent it straight down the center of the isle.

At two in the morning, there aren't many feet for the bottle to get stuck on, so it made a v-line towards me. I concluded, it sought me out. It needed to rest at my feet. I lifted my foot and released it after watching it for a few moments. No, thats a lie, I wasn't just watching it, I had the extreme focus one can only get at two in the morning after nine hours of pure, exhaustive, hard work. Everything else disappeared. There was only me, the bottle, and the train. The three of us, was all that mattered. We were driving down tracks coming from no where and leading into dark, empty space. I was trying to find meaning in this . . .

"This is . Door's open on the at ." The slightly effeminate, computerized voice spoke. He spoke as a computer, with a set script and certain variables changing at each stop. He spoke as a computer, with little, almost in-autible, pauses between the words while his computerized brain double checks the bits. He spoke as a computer, with synthetic emotion, which turns into negative emotion, making him less human then the computer his voice is coming from.

This voice draws me back into the real world. I shake my head, I shake out the philosophical thoughts. I'm tired, and when I'm tired I get stupid and lose track of the real world, which is the definition of Philosophical thoughts. That is when I released the bottle, let it continue on it's own track in life.

I looked up, for the first time for about thirty minutes, and saw who I was riding with. Only the right corner was occupied. Occupied by kids, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year olds--laughing, joking, acting wild as only chemicals can influence. I accidently locked eyes with the nearest to me. He stopped talking, stopped laughing, and started to smile, a glazed over smile.

"Aw fuck." I thought to myself. I did it. I started shit, and now my peaceful ride home is going to fly the fuck away.

Quickly I look back at the bottle. Focus even more intently on what its doing, where its going.

"Come to papa." I hear to my left. "Oh yeah, Oh yeah. Fifty-one potato. Thats just what I need." Some how, I missed the crumpled, lump of trash and newspapers, of a man, 3 rows to my left. This man, this bum, has lived his life so far by being invisible. He can shot at the top of his lungs and still not be seen.

He shot his hand down and met the bottle. "Water' is free," He laughed, "but bottled water is faaarrreeee-dom." He stuffed it into his shirt and retreated back into his pile.

"This is . Door's open on the at ." The voice again. It shocks me how middle of the road he is. This voice is effeminate, like I mentioned, but also has an underlined masculinity. When I hear him, I think of early T.V. sitcoms. I picture a middle aged, white man, with a wife, and a son, and a dog, and a two story house. He dresses nice, tie and suit and hat and all. He smells good, and enjoys a martin or some other acceptable mixed drink. He is secretly what every American wants to be, but not because he wants to be that man, but because he is supposed to want to be that man.

The door shuts and I stand up to get off at the next stop. The kids stand up as well. "Fuck, are they going to annoy me, or are they getting off here." They surrounded me, trapped me between them and the door. I feel trapped, claustrophobic. My heart pumps harder, I sweat, my fight or flight reflex is overwelmed. I think to myself, "If these kids where white would I be so freaked out?"

I don't recognize them as like me. They are not people I know and they don't look like me. We are all people, we have evolved into creatures that can look past these superficial ideas. No we haven't. We just tell ourselves we have. We just want--need--to feel better, but it's in all of us. Some where. Regardless, I'm not human right now. My mind has been taken over by animal instinct. I have changed, I grow fir, my spine contorts and I am on all fours. Now I'm a wolf trapped by members of someone else's pack, and I am alone.

One grabs my head and smack it into the door. Thump, Thump, Thump. Pause. I find myself questioning why my head sounds like a rip mellon. Thump. And I was down.

"Oh shit. Oh shit. It's going down." The bum said, burrowing even more. He whispers, "They coming . . . who killed J.F.K? I did, and I'll kill him again."

Finally blood gushed from my nose. A sharp pain at the side of my head, and in my stomach and then darkens. I was only vaguely aware of them going though my pockets, vaguely aware of them running out at my stop, vaguely aware of the train leaving. "The next stop is . Doors open on the at ."

* * *

I woke up at Howard, with the man announcing it was the end of the line. I stood up and walk out and sat down to collect my thoughts. The digital clock hanging from the celling said it was almost 2:30. "OK, to late to call anyone. . . um do I have my phone still?" I checked my pockets, frantically. "Wow, they left my phone, my keys, my wallet's gone. No surprise there."

That was the first time I was accosted, mugged I guess. I felt abused, I felt wronged, I felt misled. These kids hurt me, they took from me, but they did much less to me then what they did to themselves. What I did to them. These kids fit perfectly into their nitch, they fit perfectly into their stereotype, and I hated them for that. Everything they took was replaceable, I would heal, I would get a new wallet, but I could never forgive them for fitting into my overt, but accidental, racism.
They tore me down physically, but they tore themselves down in an infinitely worse way.