Central Line Threeway

When a train gets too crowded you end up having to sit side by side with strangers, personal spaces invaded with arms touching arms, perhaps with an attractive woman who decided to wear as little as possible in London’s recent summer haze, who you end up sitting next to, and opposite across from her (obvious) date. This happened last night - of my writing, not your reading, this - though that barely matters. Nights have a way of cultivating on top of one another, stacking into volumes of forgettable Proust, and then we are asleep, all met by the same stubborn ball of sun every pale dawn. This, ladies and gentlemen, is called time.

We are not friends, so I awkwardly eat my Pret a mange falafel and halloumi wrap through a set of tight hand and facial movements which do not require me to look straight ahead. Her date, who hasn’t made love to her yet, and probably ever, talks in a manner so as to impress upon her how complex and unique his mind is. He goes on about himself, actually saying “anybody who knows me knows...” I know this, because I’m a male, and there’s a certain way males in our species act towards females they want to have intercourse with; it’s a kind of pathetic self nobility, the tight-rope walk between confident and cocky. He managed to remark on how “cool” his own suit was, code for him being cool too.

They were old friends, perhaps from university or even earlier, as they inquired about the lives of mutual friends, in a casual non-judgmental way. “How is Eric Wilson?” “Hey, whatever happened to Jake, the steroid bodybuilder, remember?” “ Is Jessie still married to that dickhead?” “I hear Tom Marshall was gay for awhile.” “Is Ben Connelly still, you know...” Each name thrown out like pawns for ennui chess. Life happens. We live slower, older. Those who hold on to their youth - name dropping the latest hip band, wearing the relevant styles of shirt, all with an edgy haircut - do so with wrinkles and layers of fat attached, the assemblage of chronic self. When I finally looked at her, she was less alluring than I imagined. To dream inside a woman’s face is to always wake up.

And the answers: “Who knows.” “Got a masters, moved to Canada.” “Yeah, absolutely” “I think so.” “Maybe, wasn’t he a Muslim?” “ I thought they got divorced, or he died or something?” The answers often incur more questions. The occasional silences between them were great, save of course the train background noise and the awkward squishy saiva-lubed mastication of my mouth. I hate eating on public transportation, but I didn’t have a chance to eat through two different shifts. We were given urban modern life rules: to eat so close together next to one another as in family and close friends, but not be in the same place, so I earnestly tried to ignore the lovebirds, finishing my wrap, until briskly escaping my narrow position when my stop arrived, and exiting into the street of my single world.

I don’t know who Eric or Jake or Jessie or Tom are. It doesn’t matter, because I have my own set of wonder: Louie L., Andre G., Annie N., Shannie P.,and Emmanuelle can’t remember his last name. You have your own too, the ones who fell out of your mind then back in, the flappy mask of someone in your mind; the clear names and blurred faces we carry. Some people manage to lodge themselves inside the chest, as cardiovascular tissue memory, or cancer, like warm pieces of tar.

The hard truth is that men are boring, and we always will be. After dinner he’ll try to kiss you, and you may concede, lightly leaning in with mild acceptance, your lips pensively sealed as you feel a tepid patch of wet on your cheek, a lost ship moving towards the mouth. You will become a name he’ll ask about years later, a face he never managed to see on his pillow erased by a million lies. You will hear cars careening behind you speeding to their respective destinations, driven by people who, for one moment at the red light, turned their head to see the quaint sad scene of two people going through the motions of a pavement farewell.

He goes on Facebook and looks for you, finds you, then stares at you, forensically deciphering each clue in your background - the telling season in the branches; the coffee stains on your top; the grim location of someone else’s hand - as if patching together the mystery of why you didn’t smile that night. The click of a mouse is its sound of lament. Every hint is a preserved hieroglyph, fleetingly traced by the abrupt forward force of a camera’s unloving blue flash.