Beetle Body Baby

Saturday morning I was tossing and turning in Hela's bed trying to avoid her cat. I'm horribly allergic. I had laid there all night trying to get comfortable on a bed of fur and dander, till the early morning light streamed in through the huge bay windows and Brooklyn rattled and smashed to life outside. I would doze off and either be awakened by my own sneezing or by the cat walking on my head. I would move her and she would cry. Loudly. Then something in the room would occupy her attention and she'd go running after it. I would hear her pounce on something as I drifted off to sleep. Then she'd get lonely and cry again, jump on the bed, scratch at the covers, dig into my flesh.By 11:00 Hela had gotten up to feed the cat and clean the apartment. I was passed out. My phone rang at about 11:10. The display read in bold block letters and bigger than usual, ROLDAN. It was my boss calling but I couldn't really be bothered to pick it up, too tired. He was supposed to call me Friday evening to tell me what site to guard on Saturday. He had never called so I just assumed that I didn't need to be up early. "Piero, it's Harry Roldan, Saturday morning. Listen, I just called over dere an' dey said you never showed up for work dis morning...", his tired old phlegmy voice was lying to me again. Now I was three hours late to work. I left Hela's apartment running the four blocks to the F train, back to Manhattan. I looked forward to seeing the soaring view of Brooklyn in daylight, having missed the real scene coming in the night before as it was too dark out to really see much, (black metal stabbing open sky framed by beacon light in mist and shadowy block figures here and there) now I was fortunate enough to be on the F and high above everything. My problems lay somewhere on the ground, smaller than the naked eye could see. Soaring ancient Brooklyn was all smoking industry, aged tenements, empty lots. Took an end seat near the window and kept my eyes trained on the world outside, at Jay Street walked 'cross the platform in time to transfer to the A, rode underground in a crowded car. Dozens of people, families, mom, pop, kids selling M&M's, batteries, hipsters, hard working thugs, elderly women, homeless, packed in musky rickety subway cars dangling arms over metal handles, shoes on sticky floors, experience here the underbelly of all creation. I stood near two interracial families, one black/white, the other black/puertorican. I made a game of trying to recognize both racial traits in the children. They looked like exactly what they were, hair curly not kinky, skin tan to brownish complexion, eyes dark, lips full, high cheekbones. I was in a mood to observe people and take notes. I wasn't alone, this really cute hipster girl was on the same trip, smiling to herself, when this overworked single mom began yelling at her army of children, really screaming obscenities at them, "Come here. Come here! What did I tell you? Yeah-heah, keep playing, motherfucka...da's what happens...", the kids seemed pretty used to it. The hipster girl's smile faded.At 14th street this old man got on the A, tightrope walking his way onto the car past rigid chatting passengers, tip toeing in unnoticed. The doors shushed shut behind him, the conductor announced the next stop unintelligibly. The train was pretty crowded by this point. He was carrying a lot of shit, old plastic bags full of useless kitsch that only old men need. He was stooped over and beetle bodied, black with soot and grease, had wild graying curly hair, wore Jesus' swaddling clothes, a poor old Raiders down jacket. While trying to reach one of his bags on the floor he began trembling all over, he had gone into an epileptic siezure, immobilized in half sitting, half standing position. The car was barreling down the tunnel at screaching velocity and was bouncing up, down, sideways on the track. People were grabbing at their children to get out of the siezing man's way. A woman screamed instinctually, piercingly. Someone asked in a panicked voice what should be done, what should be done. "Sit 'im down. Sit 'im on a seat!", I rasped, voice still plagued by allergic reactions. Poor guy was shaking so much he couldn't bend his body to sit. I saw the look in his eye, this recognition, this familiarity of disfunction, knowing that everything would be alright given the time to ride it out, just like last time and a thousand times before. The siezure had subsided in a matter of minutes. A crowd of people emptied out onto the thirty third street platform. The old man now sat slumped down in a chair surrounded by his bags of crap. He had his head in his hands, doing his best to seem invisible. He was wiped out, sweat poured down his cheek. Unable or unwilling to talk, he would only smile and nod politely to concerned passerby. The conductor was summoned at the next station stop. This really foxy thirtyish black woman with a duct taped loud feedbacking radio come pushing her way in asking if he needed assistance. Her conductor cap was oversized and pulled over her eyes, her black work shoes worn out at the heel. The man politely refused treatment. Most everybody got off at 42nd Street leaving him pondering the palm of his hand in his seat. Through the window I saw him smiling and nodding to no one in particular. I walked into work some time after noon with his blanked out weathered face still in my head. I told the story to anyone who would listen, no one seemed as disturbed by it in hearing it as I had been in experiencing it. Everyone had that calloused, glazed over look of the singleminded New Yorker, that all knowing poker face that I had yet to perfect...