The Newspaper.
Purely Urban and Abjectly Primal,
The Contest for Interpersonal Triumph
Attracts an F-Train Albatross.
By Todd Alden Marshall
Saturday, December 9, 2000.
DATELINE: Manhattan.
Special to corndancer.com
It was a bleak, overcast, and uninspiring morning when I entered the damp, musty subway station on Ave I and 20th street in Brooklyn. In the gray sky above there was no hopeful signs of the sun emerging and it was difficult to distinguish where the dark clouds began and the pollution from the car exhaust ended. The drizzling, freezing rain coupled with the brisk wind was irritating enough to make any sane person regret having to venture out of the house on such a dismal day. The miserable weather even made the jolliest of souls send secret death-threats to those insensitive drivers who, trying to make it to the stop signs at the speed of light, come dangerously close to running them over.
I am amazed at how much the elements can influence my moods. The foul weather had totally fouled my attitude. When I left the house I was quite cheerful and peppy, but by the time I reached the subway station my mood had turned sullen and gloomy. To make matters worse, I knew what was in store for me and the rest of New York because the forecast indicated a continuation of this same depressing theme.
I entered the tepid, clammy, and cave-like subway station with a sense of relief. I had arrived at the station in under twelve minutes. The next train to Manhattan wouldn't arrive for a short while. I was early. The cold, harsh wind had given me a hearty incentive to quit schlepping and get out of this dismal weather as swiftly as possible. I managed to warm up just in time to see, there above me in bold, red, flashing letters, the message: F-train to Manhattan approaching the platform. The unusual punctuality of the train lifted my spirits ever so lightly.
Time and an Unwritten Code of the City.
I pulled out my token and went to put it into the slot, but inadvertently bumped into a young guy obviously on a mission. He was scurrying to run through the turnstile, race up the stairs, and jump on the F- train. I looked at him hesitantly, half waiting for an apology of some sort, and half wanting to give him a condescending look of disdain. I wanted to make him feel guilty about his unthoughtful act. Then, perhaps, he would offer me an apology. Silly me. This is the big city. Time and an unwritten code of the city do not allow for public displays of social intercourse. Instead of an apology, I got a sigh, heavy with disgust. He pushed his way through the turnstile and headed up the stairs, turning his beady little head back slightly. He was giving me the look of interpersonal, impersonal victory. Yes. I could tell by the smile on his face that he was feeling great now because he had made it through the turnstile before I did.
A victory in the city. Yes! Every city dweller knows the nature of these unspoken treasures. They are the trivial reward for success in a kind of competition, purely urban and abjectly primal. New York, I think, takes home the trophy for being the most persistent at these daily little skirmishes between strangers.
The contest at times becomes a game of one-up-manship that keeps people in a constant state of mild panic. It manifests as a lion-like reaction to perceived opportunity - the prey! - and it causes people to leap, pounce, and attack at the slightest hint of getting ahead. Too many people are shoved into a small area. They are surrounded by cement buildings and cell phones. They are pushed and crowded and driven to a primal state. Although we humans have built massive cities, and have designed them to look tall, slender, and elegant, we are no better off than our ancestors who lived in jungles. Tell me the difference between nature's trees and forests and the tall, cold, and impersonal cemented trees in our cities. Our jungle instincts are roused. They emerge in the game of victory quest.
Few would ever admit to playing such a childish game. Those who do own-up to it foolishly assert that it is all a part of life, the necessary actions and reactions of aggressive go-getters. The opportunities to gain victories throughout the day are endless. Why not seize them, the go-getters say. You must be ready and willing at any time to carpe momentum and jump in, barge in, or maneuver past the person in front of you. At first you might be hesitant to play. O, foolish ones! As if you actually have a choice in the matter. Sooner or later, you will be forced into the game, like or not.
The more victories you gain, the easier it becomes to ignore the peaceable human being standing in front of you. Oh, did I say standing? Now I see them reeling from the body blow you administered in your manic maneuvers toward your destination.
The victory game is not an undertaking for the considerate, the fainthearted, or any unfortunate soul with a guilty conscience.
A High-Five.... Or a Secret Death Threat.
I'll admit, it took me a while before I learned how to play the game and even began to embrace it, now and then, as I adjusted to the city. I'm still a novice, but I'm becoming more skillful after only three months of residency! I guess that explains my reaction to the guy who raced past me, then looked back to signal his victory. I didn't know whether to high-five him, or send him a personal and quite secret death threat.
I snapped out of my split-second rush of trauma and followed the rest of the crowd up the stairs and onto the wet platform. The damp, humid air coupled with the exhaust from cars, buses, and trains made it a challenge to breathe. I gave up the thought of breathing in any fresh air and inhaled the city smog like the rest of the duped people all around me. I was trying to push past as many of my rivals as I could and gain my quota of victories as I struggled toward my favorite car on the train. Third from the rear, as always: Go figure. It's my comfort zone. I made it there, too, but not before running into two old ladies and a man with several bags in his hands. "They'll get over it," I said to myself as I turned to them and uttered, reluctantly, under my breath, in a whisper, "Excuse me." (Later I would discover that my victory was tainted if not negated, according to my friend Leon, a seasoned veteran of the game, because of my lame attempt to offer an apology.) Nonetheless, I won my spot in the third car from the rear. Victory!
I sat down and started to drift away into an exquisite world of daydreams and fantasy. I tried to ignore the filth that surrounded me. Refuse of food and drinks were all over seats and on the floor. The grafitti-scratched windows were covered with black soot and what looked liked fossilized saliva. And the stench! The air reminded me of that horrible smell that comes from bus stop restrooms: a concoction of urine, smoke, and body odor. It was enough to make me vomit, so I mentally escaped in the only way I knew how, in the haven of my daydreaming.
Avenue 18.
The train came to its first stop when a new form of the game emerged. A gentleman of kingly stature quietly and discreetly placed a newspaper that he had finished reading on the seat next to me (another way of gaining a victory) and got off the train. "What a way to get rid of a used newspaper!" I condescended. As more people started to get on the train, it soon became obvious that a skirmish was soon to unfold.
Who Wants to Read
Someone Else's Newspaper?
The seat occupied by the newspaper would need to be freed of its burden. Someone had to step forth and claim that seat. How could they with that newspaper sitting there? Why should I pick it up? I've never enjoyed reading someone else's newspaper anyway. I prefer the joy of opening my newspaper for the first time, smelling the fresh ink as I head for my favorite section with heightened anticipation! Nothing quite like it! Read someone else's newspaper!? I've tried that. Usually they have ripped out part of my favorite section to get an ad or make a cheap wrapper for chewing gum. Sometimes they have spilled coffee or tea on the paper and I have to wade through all the stains just to find the baseball scores. The big kick I get is when I have picked up someone else's paper only to find that they have misplaced the sections into a confusing jumble. I have to spend most of my precious time reorganizing it all before I can settle down to read it. No way! Not me! I want to be the first person to read my newspaper. Not to mention the fact that the last thing I wanted to do was to pick up the used newspaper in the seat next to me, an act that would signal weakness to the car full of rivals. The rag wasn't my property. Claim it? Never. Not in a heartbeat. My stubborn New York attitude was starting to blast through the haze and the clatter. I didn't want anything to do with that newspaper! Not now! Not on my morning ride to work. Perhaps I would deal with this strange new issue with more aplomb on the way home from work. Now, however, events were forcing my hand. I had to make a decision. In a matter of milliseconds I elected to leave the paper in the seat, hoping someone else would take it off my hands.
The ball was rolling. A young, yuppie-like woman approached the seat, caught sight of the newspaper, and shied away into another part of the car. A chubby man with bloody remnants of a morning fight with his razor came up to the seat, saw the newspaper, and then angrily stormed off. A woman dressed in a business suit came dashing towards the seat. I was certain that she was going to sit, but despite her considerable momentum, she managed to pivot on her right foot, twist her body around in a 180-degree arc, and latch on to one of the straphangers above my seat. Nobody, I mean nobody, wanted any part of that newspaper.
Ditmas Avenue
To make matters worse, everyone was assuming - I just knew it, I just knew it - that I had placed the newspaper next to me as a signal to avoid having to share my turf on the train. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the whole situation, but I remained hesitant to pick up the newspaper and claim it as my own. I was beginning to think I was being somewhat childish. The sense of victory was waning.
Borough Hall
Then, the surprise - and the unexpected insult. A woman, obviously homeless, sat down in a seat across from mine. On her head was stringy, greasy mess of strands that looked like Medusa on a bad hair day. Her soiled, dirt-tone clothes were actually patches of disgarded materials sewn together. She reached across the aisle to pick-up the newspaper and began to read it. "Yes. It's finally over," I muttered to self. The joy was short-lived. No one had rushed forward to claim the seat. Cruelly, with disdainful indifference, the old woman placed the newspaper back on the seat next to mine. "That's it! If a homeless old hag can't find any use for that paper, I sure as hell don't want it!"
York St
The newspaper had become the plague. My forty-five minute ride into the city began to bear down hard upon me. I tried to forget that the newspaper resided in the seat next to me. I tried to imagine that it was not there, or that in its place sat a breathing human being, someone, anyone - but the seat remained empty. The vacancy began to consume my consciousness. It began to torment me.
E. Broadway St.
Pick it up, I thought. Pick it up! I hadn't an iota of desire to read it. I would have to feign interest. And it wasn't my newspaper! It was 7:30 in the morning and I was getting blown away.
Delancey St.
The next stop brought new blood to the game. There! Maybe that sensible, middle-aged couple will rescue me. I noticed, just across the isle, the alluring presence of one empty seat. That made my seat and the one occupied by the newspaper an ideal solution for them. We could swap out. "Do you want your newspaper, Sir," she asked in a polite voice. "It isn't mine," I sneered lightly in order to keep my composure.
She picked up the newspaper and handed it to her husband, who quickly glanced at it. He held it in his hands with a look on his face like might he read it, or might not, according to his whim. "He's toying with me. No, wait. He just might read it." I argued in my head. I stared at him with intense anticipation, hoping he would stuff the paper under his corpulent arm and unleash the ball and chain attached to my lame-trained sensibility. To my doleful astonishment, when their stop came, he stood up and placed the newspaper back in the seat next to me. He sent the damnable albatross flying back to me again.
2nd Ave
I was surrounded by enemies with their cold, condescending stares bearing down upon me. They had become my judge and jury. After a brief moment of deliberation, the verdict was in: I was an insensitive seat-hog.
I wouldn't justify their verdict by accepting it. No! Instead, I would forge a superior form of victory. The newspaper is not mine. They could not pressure me into claiming it.
Washington Square
Finally, my stop arrived. I stood up, nonchalant and indifferent, not once looking at the dreaded newspaper. My superior demeanor and my elegant stride certainly conveyed the notion that I was not the sort of person who would abandon a newspaper. Just as I was about to make my escape, a young lady ran up to me and said, "Excuse me, Sir. You forgot your newspaper."
Spare the Next Innocent Victim
Of the Torment.
I don't know what came over me. I can't say why I did what I did. Perhaps I was delirious from the stress of so much combat. Perhaps I could see no end to the torment. Perhaps I was willing to forfeit the victory to gain valuable peace of mind. No, it wasn't that, none of those reasons. It was my honorable sense of humanity and altruism that motivated me. I would be benevolent and spare the next innocent victim of the torment I had just escaped. I reached out my right hand, accepted the newspaper, and thanked the lady.
I climbed out of the subway station. The streets were loud, dreary. I was beclouded with murky thoughts and foggy-headed second-guesses. Half-heartedly, I looked at the dreaded newspaper and wondered: Is it really mine? Maybe I forgot that I bought it.
In the park outside my office building, I hurried along in the rush and mulled over the morning's daft episode. I spied a garbage can near a bench. A young and handsome college man was sitting there, enjoying the weather. To each his own, I thought. I was just about to toss the paper into the garbage can when a spiteful idea entered my otherwise pleasant stream of thought. I'll do it! Sheepishly, I placed the paper next to the young man and just kept walking. I was hungry for another victory, no matter how shallow. I glanced back. He was picking up the newspaper. Ha! Gotcha! Now it would be his turn to deal with the newspaper. The black and white bundle of sorrow was now his burden to carry.
I didn't turn away soon enough. The man, I noticed ruefully, stood up, looked left, then right, wadded-up the newspaper, and casually tossed it into the garbage can.
Todd
Alden
Marshall
A
Personal
Note
Written
at
CornDancer's
Request.
TODD in a Moscow apartment, Winter of 1993
I have always enjoyed the power of words. I am intrigued by the way words can express the innermost thoughts and feelings that humans experience. I suppose that is why I have studied many foreign languages, including French, Russian, and Spanish. I figured that the more languages I could learn, the more words I would know. Thus, I would obtain more insight into the human mind and soul.
However, I soon learned that having that knowledge is useless if it cannot be reprocessed and given back to the human community in some way that is beneficial, instructive, or simply entertaining, which also has its place in assuaging the human spirit. I discovered that insight, like words, is futile if it is not utilized.
I wrote poetry for many years, but never wanted anyone to see it. It was my catharsis, my way of coping with the deeper, more probing questions of life. Recently, I have had the opportunity to get a few poems published. Now, as I am getting older, I have been feeling the urge to use my latent, perhaps limited, talents at writing. With the encouragement of a few colleagues, and the true burning desire to get something down on paper, I have embarked on a new journey. While I don't pretend to have the necessary abilities to be called a writer, I hope that one day, after years of practice and improved self-editing skills, I will at least come close to it. Anyway, all the great ones say that to become a better write, you must write. So, here is my first attempt at it, but not my last. In my spare time, when I am not teaching ESL and Spanish, or putting the finishing touches on my long overdue dissertation, I will be writing, writing, and writing.
I'd like to thank those people in my life who have inspired me to let the pen flow as my life and heart move me. I would especially like to thank the editor of this short story, who knew how to grab onto my voice and bring more life to the tale.
