You Need Ear Holes for Spaghetti Music

This morning I rode the subway.  I thought about how my friend has stopped talking to me because I stole her hair style.  I thought about seeing that celebrity on the train last week and I secretly hoped he would ride again.  I considered the line between stalking and soul-mate searching… was it not fate that this actor - one of few about whom I have fantasized - took a nonchalant seat directly in front of me?  Would it be considered fate if I found out where he was working and casually hung around there for the next week or two?  Or fate could move through me in such a way, impelling me to investigate the neighborhood near his train stop (I heard from a friend, he's living off of Graham Ave) and wait until some serendipitous morning when he happens to be braving public transit again.  Right? 

I felt my face furrow with serious consideration.  I took a deep breath and unstuck the expression.  The man next to me shifted uncomfortably as I took interest in his worn tweed pants.  The young woman in front of me pointed her eyes to ground when I looked at her face.  Finding real estate where our eyes can rest in a swollen subway car can take some effort, but the ground is usually available.  She went there.  I followed.  She wore blue suede sandals that wrapped snugly around her feet and showcased mint green toe-nail polish.  She too shifted uncomfortably with my attention. 

A mother and her daughter boarded.  The little girl's hair was alive with static electricity.  A large black man sat next to them on the one side, pretending to read a book, but I could tell he was sleeping.  He didn't fidget when I looked at him.  He just stayed on the same page forever.

Nearly everybody wears earplugs with spaghetti wires traveling to pocket-hidden or hand-held devices.  I realize I can hear it, the collective noise produced by these objects of convenience.  It's like being in a room full of preschoolers who each have their own musical instrument and are all playing fantastic sociopathic solos.  In these public spaces, the discordant song is quiet, but it's the same.

Green toe nails, big sleeping man, small girl with sea anemone hair.  Her mother stands over her, holding onto the support bar with one hand and cradling the large bag on her shoulder with the other, preventing it from sliding and swinging into the sleeping giant.  A young, bearded, bespectacled (thick, dark rims, flannel shirt, tight pants… maybe you know the style), chubby-faced man sits on the other side of the little girl, who I have noticed is carrying a headless barbie doll.  No private theme songs for headless characters.  You need ear holes for spaghetti music.  The girl is half asleep.  The young man is visibly bothered by the arrangement.  I can hear his thoughts above the hum of his headphones - he knows he should give up his seat to the mother, but goddamn it!  There are so many families here nowadays, and it's so soccer mom...Williamsburg.  It was way better like 10 years ago, or so he heard because he was a sophomore at Dover High School back then.  For some reason he talks with a valley girl accent, rolling his eyes and sighing inside.  He wants to sit and who cares if she has a tired kid, this is New York.  Everyone is struggling and he was here first, right?  His asshole is clenched.  I see it in his face.  He gets up, but not until he has to - the very last moment before the door closes on his stop.  He huffs away with the imagined pressure inflicted on him by the mother who softly slips into the space after his departure.  The little girl hugs her headless doll.  Her hair reaches in a multitude of directions and I smile - even though I might look crazy - because I love the one-act plays that regularly materialize before me in the underground mise en scene of New York.