On the Subway: The City's Magnificent Undoing

There's always one: someone on the subway who's shameless about loud-talking, happy for anyone and everyone to hear. Often it's tourists, but not always (local loud-talkers are often young women in pairs, venting about a boss or a boyfriend). Sometimes it's unbearable, this violation of public space, of one's right to a peaceful commute. But there are other times when it's irresistable - eavesdropping, that is.

I'm on the platform at Union Square boarding an uptown 6 train. There is a group of four standing next to me - an older couple, a young guy, and a young gal. The couple and the guy get on the train, the gal is heading off somewhere else. The older woman sits next to me, and the two men stand, forming a triangular conversation - although, it becomes clear that the older man is of few (if any) words.

The woman is the loud-talker. She is a cheerful out-of-towner, probably mid-Western based on the accent, probably from a small town or rural area, based on the dress. The guy is scruffy and skinny, wearing a ratty t-shirt, expensive-looking hipster jeans, and cool thrift store sneakers. I think these are his parents, but it's not clear; they speak to each other more like distant relatives than immediate ones. I learn that the gal and the guy used to work in the same restaurant, but the guy now works in a different restaurant, and the gal quit her job and is leaving the city, back to her hometown, because she was dating the chef and they broke up. The guy's new job is a better job than the one before, perhaps he was a waiter before; now he is something in the realm of a cook. The next part of the conversation goes something like this:

"Why don't you hire her at your restaurant? Poor thing."
"Well, it's not really my restaurant. I mean, if the head chef died or something, I wouldn't like be next in line or anything."
"Aren't you #3? I thought you said you were #3."
"Um, yeah, maybe. I don't know."
"Do you have paid vacation now?"
"Yeah."
"Well that must feel good. Do you know what you'll have off around Christmas?"
"Nah, we won't know until just before."

They go on to talk about an upcoming wedding in the family, which I think is the guy's brother, the couple's other son.

"So are you bringing a date?"
"Nah."
"There will be a lot of single girls there. [Fiancee whose name I didn't catch] has a lot of cousins."
"That would be weird. We'd be, like, related."
"No, not exactly."

The whole conversation was pretty upbeat, but something about it was squirmingly fascinating; I couldn't stop listening. This mother was so eager, so cheerfully eager for her son to be... fixed. #3? #2? #1?* Dating? Married? Planned vacation? The strain of their conversational tone was killing me - so close, and yet so far away. The guy was pleasant and a good city host, but I could just imagine him later, after they left, after their visit was over, lighting up a cigarette, breathing a sigh of relief, calling up a friend (or a therapist) to unload.

People come to the city, and stay, not to be fixed - in any sense of that word. People come, in a sense, for the wild ride of breaking everything open, milling about untethered, so that anything can happen always. It must be awful for all these mothers of lost children, after 18 or 20 years of doing everything to hold these kids together...watching them undo it all.


*I understand that in Bali, there are only four first names. They are not gender-specific, and translated, they are First, Second, Third, Fourth, referring to your birth order.