the habit of being

Hipsters and businessmen let go of their faces. Old ladies do their plastic rosaries in the morning. Sometimes I can just stare at someone, lock eyes for minutes with no expectation of speech. These are our real, slouching selves, with our sad eyes and our earbuds protecting us from the noise of the City.

A Hispanic girl is crying on the R. She has a large purple bruise across her right cheekbone. Her hair is pulled back so tightly she seems to be going bald around the edges. She pulls tissues out of the side pocket of a motled brown bag with cultural embroidery. She knows I know she’s crying, even if no one else is noticing. She has a really wide nose and I wonder if it’s ever been broken. Her lips are swollen and her knees have dirt on them. Our else they’re designer jeans spray-painted to look dirty. She looks at herself in a compact mirror; she has large silver rings on both hands. We get off at the same stop and I follow her down the sidewalk a couple blocks. I think about asking her if she’s alright, but she’s on her cellphone talking cheerfully to someone she calls Baby, someone she’s meeting in a few minutes.

There’s a crazy guy masturbating on the W. His hair is greasy and his eyelids are droopy and he’s jacking off like a woman. With two fingers, he’s tracing quick tight circles on his inner right thigh, in a spot where I can only imagine the head of his penis lies beneath his bluejeans. While he does this, he’s slowly sliding over the hills and valleys of the bucket seats on the other side of the car, which is nearly empty. His head is tilted upward. When the train stops, he snaps out of it and gets off.