Mash Transit
I love my Metro Blue Line commute back and forth to work each day. If a better place to people watch exists I haven’t found it. The dialogue I hear, whether a conversation taking place with others or simply with themselves, is priceless. Life on the train is without question, in session.
The other day I entered the five o’clock southbound train to the usual mosh-pit of bodies, making me feel like I was in the 1950’s and trying to see how many people can fit into a phone booth. I made my way, still standing, to a open section in the doorway and with the briefcases, backpacks and hairspray surrounding me, prepared for the 40 minute ride back to Long Beach.
The car I was in had mercifully whittled its way down to a few people by the Compton station and I settled into a seat in the middle of the car. As the doors where closing a shrieking, hyena like laugh erupted and without turning I could hear several loud back and forth conversations going on behind me and what sounded like a herd of pounding footsteps. I didn’t think much of it. It is the train after all.
They were kids, five of them and suddenly they had settled into seats I both aisles, all around me. I guessed their age at fifteen and sixteen years old, except for one who was around eighteen. His hair was a long, shoulder length and brown and I cannot describe his face for the simple fact that he was wearing a white plastic mask, a faceless mask like the one from the “Scream” horror movies. There was something in the way the other four deferred to him, or maybe the way he was driving the conversation that made me think he was the leader of the group.
The other four were made up of two girls, both blonde and bouncing from seat to seat around me, one of them gave the leader a big tongue infused kiss and then jumped back in her seat behind me with the remaining member. The last one was a boy with jet black hair. He was small, frail looking almost in his thinness and the only one of the group that was silent.
The conversation, if you can call it that went something like this:
“WE”RE FACELESS MAN, WE”RE FACELESS FREAKS!” Screamed the leader to no one in particular.
“Boo-Bear- you FUCKING rock! How much longer?” One of the blondes asked.
“Fuck, I don’t know, ask napalm (I kid you not) he’s the Long Beach CRACKHEAD!” Said the leader.
“Ain’t no crackhead- YOU’RE the crackhead, you crackhead.” The black haired boy behind me said quietly.
“Napalm.. how much longer?” The other blonde asked.
“bout 4 stops, then we walk a block from Pine.” Replied Napolm.
“Cool- cool-cool; Hey, you got money? The blonde asked.
“Fuck sake bitch- yeah I got money, why the fuck would I go to Walmart for CANDY if I didn’t have any fucking money. Stupid bitch.” The leader politely replied.
By this time some details were becoming apparent. First, the overpowering smell of earth, sweat and something resembling a old tennis shoe I had to throw out a few months back had surrounded me. I am, like most men, fairly oblivious to foul odor but this was something that hit you on the head like a hammer, at first sharp and painful then lingering like a heavy ocean fog throughout the car. I noticed the backpacks they were all toting on their backs. These weren’t the school book; have to carry my CD and Ipod packs but large and bulky camping backpacks.
“Damn Leese, you smell! And you nails look like you’ve been digging in a cow’s ass.” Commented Napolm from behind me.
“I like it like that crackhead- YOU smell like SHIT!” Said Leese.
This was all said amidst constant laughing and giggling, like they were five friends coming back from Disney. The next sound I heard was the wet smacking of Leese and Napolm as they mashed faces and tongues in the seat behind me.
At that point the Leader and other blonde went to the front of the car, facing me full for the first time and leaning up against the wall in front of me started making out almost to the point of conception. For the first time I could see their dirt stained clothes, ripped in places not made by a designer, their hair was matted in places and streaks of dirt ran down their arms, on the back of their necks and ears… obviously they were homeless.
Breaking away from the blonde the Leader started digging in his back pocket.
“FACELESS MAN! Awww, where the fuck is..”
Finding what he needed he went to the side door of the car and starts writing with a marker, the markings he drew was blocked from my view. He finished quickly and walked over to the blonde, handing her the marker.
“Sign it- everyone sign it.. FACELESS FUCKING CRACKHEADS!”
Giggling, the girl went over to the door and starts’ signing whatever the recently finished masterpiece was.
“Hey! Cool it you guys, we’re gonna get kicked off this train.” Said Napolm as he came up for air.
“Shut up crackhead.” The leader responded with a twinge of worry in his voice.
The blonde finished and walked past me, apparently handing the marker to Napolm. He paused for a brief moment and then stepped OVER Leese, landed with a thud on the floor behind me and went to the door.
“Napolm, sign my name too.” Laughed Leese.
“Everyone signs their own name.” Commanded the Leader.
“Yeah, I did mine, you gotta do yours crackhead bitch.” Added the blonde.
Napolm finished and began walking back to his seat behind me. His face for the first time visible to me and his blue eyes were clear. His skin, brown from the outside and a dark line of dirt ran down the side of his face completely down to his neckline.
“Didya put my name up?” Squealed Leese.
“Gotta do your own, we did ours.” He replied.
A simple code but necessary; rules after all, are rules. Leese rose up and accepted the pen like a relay race baton and almost skipping down the train aisle went to the door and performed her duty.
They laughed and hollered back and forth for awhile and when the next stop came, the stop before mine they poured as loudly off the train as they had come and were gone. At the next stop I departed and walked over to the bus stop that takes me the last several blocks home and sat down to wait. The earthy smell had left my nose, the memory of those kids had not.
I heard the laughter and screeching and looking up across the street to my left saw the group walking, no- striding down the street. I watched them, like a wolf pack moving forward but bouncing from side to side, running around each other wildly as they made their way. An old man with his wife turned suddenly towards a shop window carrying Diesel Jeans as they passed them and a woman with red hair in a green coat walked by quickly, passing them on their right and looking down at the street the entire time. The Leader suddenly put on his white plastic faceless mask and they all laughed hysterically, heading to Walmart to get their candy.
I watched them go, I could see them as they turned the corner and passed out of sight.
Tags: commute, homeless, kids, LA Blue Line, life, writing
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