Taking the L
Have you kings and queens ever seen Ghost World? Also for the record, if someone somehow doesn't know this about me, I love the Beatles very much.
One of my favorite things to do lately is walk home from the L while listening to music really loudly in my headphones. The thrill of nervously looking over my shoulder after every song for a silent assailant makes me feel not only very important, but beautiful and vulnerable in an acceptable way. I live in a safe neighborhood and walk home while children leave their elementary school, which is a couple blocks from my apartment. Usually no one is directly behind me, but last week I could hear a man and his dog on the sidewalk across the street from me. The sexual tension between us was almost revolting. I peeked over my shoulder at him twice in a way that made my hair fall into my eyes sexily, but at first he was thumbing at his phone pretty incessantly- probably pretending to look busy in order to avoid an awkwardly exchanged glance or lip bite with me. The second time, though, he was picking up dog shit with something that looked too much like a Ziploc snack bag. I decided that that was too unattractive to pursue anymore, and I kept it moving.
This new hobby makes me feel like the world is at my tragic fingertips; my cursed footsteps. I don’t want something scary to happen to me, of course, but the story and experience that I would gain if something scary did happen is monumental. I’m sure there would be a news article written about me, or at least an estranged friend or two would reach out to tell me they were thinking about me, and to see if I was okay, and that this whole abduction/ransom/heist/carjacking fiasco was soooo crazy. Once more people found out that something bad happened to a girl who isn’t ugly, I’d become micro-famous online and possibly get to launch a podcast or clothing line. I’d make it a skimpy bimbo line, in order to pander to society’s growing anti-modesty attitude. Maybe it’s not so much an attitude as it is early-2000’s fashion making a comeback. There’s an echo of school-faculty-enforcing-dress-code, too, that adds a layer of risk to my walk. Their cop-like scrutiny will always live in my head. Anyway, it’s one thing to walk while wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but it’s another strange thrill altogether to walk while wearing a skirt and/or heels. I might as well have my hands out to my nonexistent enemies, asking them politely- or begging them- to tug me here, and capture me. Sometimes I do have my hands out like Jack at the helm of the Titanic. It makes me feel powerful while also airing the sweat that accumulates during my fearful/wistful walk.
I feel like a movie star imagining that I’m the pathetic subject of a frightening crime before I actually become one. My goal is by the end of the year to have a story to tell about this experience or to at least have someone grab my arm from behind. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. I’m grateful to have been safe my whole life, but I feel left out of the conversations about how men are pigs or dangerous menaces, or slobby, sickening, scary scoundrels. I’ve never had a boyfriend before, and I guess I don’t know many men in general. My dad hasn’t been in my life since last year (he moved to New Hampshire with my mom), and the janitor in my building won’t even look at me (he is legally blind, but how can he see the work he is doing if that’s the truth? I think he hates me and therefore avoids me). I’ve had men talk to me on public transport before, asking me if I had a cigarette they could buy or telling me to please get out of their way as they try to exit the train because this is their stop. Today someone talked to me, and he kind of wouldn’t take the hint that I had other stuff to do besides yap with him. He wanted to make sure he was heading in the correct direction of his destination: an interview on North Wacker Drive. He had sweat marks under the arms of his white button down shirt, and I could tell he wanted to impress whoever he was having the interview with because he had matched his belt to his shoes and his laptop bag. I tried to check if he had a wedding ring and a watch on, too, but he was moving his hands too fast for me to see. He was either air drying the clammy sweat off of them, or he was trying to expel some of his nervous energy via this up and down hand motion. I should’ve tried to assure him that he was heading the right way, but this thrill sparked up inside of me. I took one of my earbuds out to hear him better.
“Oh, North Wacker? Buddy, your best bet is actually going to be taking the Yellow Line to that one. Uhhh,” and I laughed a breathy, girly laugh, “that’s actually gonna be that-a-way.” I pointed north, which was Howard-bound on this Red Line train. Obviously, I was playing a prank on him, but he dropped his bag on the ground and held his head in his hands and I think he began to weep, which I thought was unattractive that he couldn’t take a joke. I didn’t know how to break it to him that I was only joking, and to maybe lighten up? So, I rubbed his back with the bottom of my water bottle before exiting the train 4 stops early to avoid any more interaction with him. I plugged my earbud back into my ears while I walked to the end of the platform to wait for the next train so that I could get right back on and continue to my destination, which was Hobby Lobby. I was re-listening to one of my favorite albums: Beatles For Sale by The Beatles. A lot of fans hate this album, but I like how unpretentious they are in this time frame. This album was nestled perfectly between their worldwide fame and their Liverpudlian obscurity and displays their raw talent for writing songs that girls like while mirroring less-mainstream-but-more-talented black artists of their time. As John begins to cry out, “This happened once before/I came to your door/no reply-Y-y-Y-y,” I feel someone grasp my arm just above my elbow. My heart sank and spun at the same time. I whipped my head around, and it was the same sweaty man that I was now trying to avoid. He took his hand back after I turned around.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. How can I get to the yellow train? I am not from here. My family paid for this trip so that I might move them all here from Peru. I must receive this job on North Wacker Drive, and you are a local girl.” This explains why he was talking with an accent. It’s because he was Peruvian, and he had a Peruvian accent. I was surprised he needed my help, but it felt like he was trying to attach himself to me like a leech. Not a very good look for someone who cares about matching their belt to their shoes to their laptop bag. As the train rushed away from us, and his hair dreamily blew into his eyes, and my eyes squinted from the dirty air placing particles of street trash and pigeon fecal matter into my retinas, I decided to come clean. I decided then and there that I didn’t like having my arm grabbed and didn’t want it to happen again. So, since honesty is the best policy, I’ll change my ways from now on. This decision meant that no one would do that to me again. I choked on my spit for a second and then coughed.
“What was your- ahheuuhhhhh- name again?” I asked while inhaling deeply and wiping a tear from my eye. I know that he never told me his name, but I was wanting to say to him, ‘Look, [name], I don’t know why you can’t tell that I’m being ironic on a societal and feminist scale, but you wanna keep going on this train until some stop in the Loop. And I’m not even from here, but what made you think I was a local?’”
“Ricardo,” he said and that was all. He didn’t ask for my name. I felt as if in another life, Ricardo and I could’ve gotten married and in exchange for citizenship, he could’ve loved me unconditionally. I would’ve loved him unconditionally back.
“Ricardo,” I said while putting one hand on my hip and the other pointing my finger north again, “the yellow line connection really is that-a-way, back at the Howard station, but for Wacker Drive, you’ll keep heading south on this train-“ but he was already gone. The man had given me a thumbs up and sprinted down the exit stairs to get onto the platform on the other side. Just like if he had been wearing headphones with music playing really loudly, he hadn’t heard the entirety of what I said, and left before I could grab his arm from behind to tell him to wait. I felt like the grocery bag of spoiled, packaged meat in the middle of the tracks below me. His whole family’s fate rests on him getting this job, and I might’ve ruined it for him because of my selfish prank. If more men would talk to me more frequently, I wouldn’t have felt the urge to mess with Ricardo, but I really couldn’t help myself. He was vulnerable in front of me, and in a way, I was vulnerable in front of him, too. Suddenly I heard John Lennon in my right ear again. “I’m a looo-oooo-oooser/I’m a looooo-ooooo-oooooser,” and I turned the volume up. I love this song.
As my second 95th/Dan Ryan Red Line pulled up and started screeching to a halt, I saw Ricardo panting on the other platform, and he gave me another thumbs up and then blew me a kiss as the train began to obstruct the view between us.