"EL" IS FOR LOVE

My wife and I were spending a weekend visiting friends in Chicago. We were taking the elevated train from the south side of the downtown loop to meet our friends for drinks and Indian food. I must tell you that I love public transportation. One of the things I enjoy most about traveling in cities like Chicago or New York is learning the train systems and finding my way around, unassisted. I suppose it’s a neurotic need for independence, but it gives me a deep sense of satisfaction when someone asks me for directions and I can spout them off, complete with numbers and colors.

So, imagine my impatience when Betsy kept trying to get on the Orange Line rather than the Red Line to go north to Lincoln Park. Come on. I mean…sheesh. Wasn’t she paying attention? Didn’t she see how important it was that we look like we know where we’re going? Didn’t she know how important this was to me? People will think we’re tourists. We had long ago broken ourselves of carrying cameras around our necks and maps in our hands while craning our necks to see the tops of them big ol’ skyscrapers. We had gone native. We were wearing black for God’s sake.

As we boarded the crowded train, the tension between us brought silence. Not that it was noticeable. People don’t talk much on trains anyway. Only urban neophytes run their mouths on trains, so it suited me just fine. We stood holding the pole and looking around so we didn’t have to make eye contact with each other.

From my vantage point I surveyed quite a collection of folks. It was almost comical. I felt like we had stepped into the new reality show, “Stranger on a Train,” where great pains had been taken to artificially represent every imaginable group. It seemed that every race, culture, and orientation was represented.

There was the morose glam rocker. His mohawk, piercings, guitar case, and torn fishnet arm stockings webbed between his fingers told me this guy was not down with The Man. No sir. Judging by the condition of his eyes and the failure of his black-on-white makeup to maintain yesterday’s attempt at androgynous concealment, he appeared to be making his way home for the night, even though it was late afternoon. He didn’t give a damn. He’d look to see if you were looking, then tongue his lip ring and defiantly reject your gaze.

Sitting next to him was a youngish Latina trying to contain her two little babies. She was wearing some sort of working-class uniform, and I assumed that meant she was coming from or going to her mother’s house where she had picked up or was dropping off her kids before or after work, because I kept hearing “abuelita,” which I think is sort of like saying “granny.” She looked tired, but that didn’t tell me her destination; I was getting tired just watching her. Feeling the weight of the world, she roughly yanked one of the kids to her lap and began to assault him with a rapid-fire string of what I can only assume was Spanish profanities.

Standing next to her was the impatient businessman. He wore a finely tailored overcoat and carried a supple leather attaché case. He kept looking from the window to his Rolexy-looking watch, acting as if the world was a big inconvenience to him. I remember wondering why—if he was such a big deal—is this guy taking the El instead of a cab? Why rub against the common folks if you have so much? Then I thought, maybe it’s all a prop. It’s Saturday after all. Maybe he’s trying to impress someone. Maybe he’s just a paper tiger: a slob like one of us.

Two rows of college-aged guys sat across the aisle from the woman and her babies. Frat boys if I had to guess. They had the baggy eyes and raspy voices that betray the effects of late nights, social smoking, and alcohol-induced dehydration. But they wore their scars with a nonchalance and air of entitlement reserved only for the severely disillusioned, the socially privileged, or those emboldened by life lived within a pack.

In front of the frat boys sat an elderly Asian couple. They appeared to be in their eighties, and they weren’t speaking English. I couldn’t hear well enough to determine if it was Chinese (like I could anyway, with ten days in Sichuan Province as the extent of my cultural immersion). Their eyes and postures spoke of hard lives lived well. They held bags of groceries in their laps and chatted gently back and forth. They seemed at peace with each other, comfortable in their skin together, but apprehensive about the world around them. Right in front of me, but a world away.



I breathed in…ahh…the city. My homogenized home was far away.

Then I smelled it. And I hadn’t dealt it.

It was not the smell of a diaper. It wasn’t a surreptitious gas-letting. It was a pungent blend of body odor, bowels, and fresh vegetables. It was the old Asian couple. My suspicion was verified by the frat boys who were recoiling with opened mouths, smirky eyebrows, and waving hands.

“Mama-san and Papa-san shit pants!” said one.

“Clean up on aisle two,” added another, rounding his mouth and sticking out his front teeth on “two.”

They all began to convulse in their seats and stomp the floor in laughter.

Mama-san and Papa-san did not react. In fact they appeared oblivious to the ruckus. But the lines in their faces seemed to deepen. I stared at the frat boys in disbelief. I was struck with a deep desire.

What did I want? Justice. When did I want it? Right then. I wanted them to hurt. I wanted to open a can of Bigoted Frat Boy Whoop-Ass and throw down on the whole bunch of them. Violence fantasies cascaded through my head, but the better part of reason (or cowardice) prevailed, and I did nothing.

Just then, we came to a stop and most of the cast of “Stranger on a Train” began to spill onto the platform. Betsy, unaware of the vigilante fantasies dancing in my head, shuddered almost imperceptibly. She slowly shook her head as we sat in the vacated seats and the doors closed.

“Wow,” she said.
“Yeah,” I added knowingly as glam rocker, la familia, Mr. Rolex, Mama-san and Papa-san…and the smell exited the car. The frat boys left too, saved from the savagery of my vengeance.

The train lurched into motion. I could tell there was more on her mind.

“What?” I asked.
“I just had some kind of revelation,” she said. “Oh, but, it’s stupid.”
“What?”
“No, you’ll think it’s stupid. It’s just so elementary.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I just hit me when all those people were on here that God loves every one of them. And not one of them is loved any more or less than the other. No matter who they are, what they look like, or how they act. We can’t be bad enough or good enough to escape God’s love.”

All of a sudden I saw myself wearing my Kappa Gimme Gimme sweater, laughing at the poor and weak. I saw my face covered in Goth makeup scanning the crowd for someone to defy. I was an angry mother slapping my child. I was Uncle Rico, checking my cool watch so everyone could see I had a cool watch. It was too much. I was overcome. I felt the pain of every heart. The desperation of every soul to be loved like that.

Then I saw Him. Except he wasn’t a he, he was an old Asian woman. Time slowed. Everything got quiet as She looked at me like a mother looking into the eternity of a baby’s eyes.

It’s okay, son. You didn’t know. Thanks for wanting to protect me. Thanks for caring enough that you fantasized about beating hell out of those boys. It gives me joy that I mattered to you, that you thought about me at all. But you know what? Those boys matter to me. Their parents and I made them. Sure, they disappoint me sometimes, but you should see their hearts. Each one of them is the apple of my eye. And so are you.

Your stop is coming up and I want you to remember this. Never forget that there is no place you can go, and there is nothing you can do to escape me. Now, get out of here and be better than you were before.

And one more thing…listen to that wife of yours. She sees more than you think.

And there we were at Fullerton. Our stop.

Betsy got up. “This is us.”
“Yes it is.”