escapades down on the 6 train

god, i'm in such a better mood lately. thank you, new york.

so, among other perks of being back in the greatest city in the world, there is the re-introduction of the 'subway character of the day', which is, naturally, the one interaction you will undoubtably have on the subway during your morning or afternoon commute with someone who is pretty much completely out of their mind... the subway character of the day is statistically a given; i have done extensive cataloging of these occurences and found that it is far more likely than not that you will encounter a subway character at least once during the course of a day. especially if you are me. sometimes, there is more than one, creating a competition to see who takes the title. exciting!

anyhow, tuesday's subway character is the subject of today's post, and i will now recount the scene for readers as best as i am able.

boarding the 6 train to work at about 10:30am, i take my seat across from an older gentleman who has a very large black plastic trash bag at his feet and who is presently engaged in a conversation with, so far as i can tell, himself. i settle myself in, open my magazine and begin reading. at some point, said gentleman's solo conversation gets a bit louder, and i take aural note as he pulls something from the trashbag and holds it up, proudly. looking up, i see it is a can of colt 45.

'my grandmother gave me this beer when i was BORN!' he announces, with a giant grin. 'i have had this beer since way back before world war TWO!'

now, this is funny, and a small smile reaches my lips despite an attempt to supress it. he proceeds to talk about drinking beer as a toddler, all facilitated by his grandmother, and while i'm picturing his younger self, drunk on colt 45 and careening around his grandmother's backyard, and contemplating whether he means that his grandmother gave him a colt 45, or whether he is delusional and is trying to say that he has actually had this particular can of colt 45 since before world war two, and also trying to gauge whether colt 45 has been around that long, he switches gears, perhaps fueled by the colt 45, having cracked open and taken a healthy swig of the malt liquor. he now turns his attention to his fellow subway riders.

sizing up the inhabitants of the subway car, he says, suspiciously, 'where y'all goin'?' and then, louder 'it's eleven A.M...y'all ain't goin' to work...'

then, with an air of revelation, he says, 'y'all are goin' SHOPPING!' the woman next to me, perhaps startled by his incredible powers of deduction, shudders slightly. the man doesn't notice, however, because he is busy following up that observation with 'or else you on welfare...' this last part is muttered, maybe out of consideration to those people who are actually on welfare, or maybe just because this guy is a nutball and decided to mutter that part, but then the crowning moment, the sealing of the subway-character-deal happens.

he has just started to ramble about something else as we pull into 77th street, when the doors open, and he shouts 'OH NO! NOT THE PO-LICE!' and there, in the doorway, is a transit cop. just like that, he's gone, trashbag; world war II-era colt 45 and all.

good times. recent subway characters have also included the guy who came into our car from a smelly car and started preaching about how we should all be tolerant of other people's smells, but also mentioned that one can be killed in jail for farting, which is something i did not know. there was also the dude from monday night who sat next to me for two stops before he just started laughing, loudly, at nothing in particular, and then proceeded to do this sort of aerobics routine of o.c.d.-like maneuvers. charles saw some young dude dance with the subway pole like it was a stripper pole, and he said he worked into it, slowly, as if he were warming up.

anyhow, obviously i will update the subway character as often as necessary. who will be my subway character today? it's anyone's guess.

in other news, the fighting lebrons are making this whole nba playoff thing even more crazy exciting than it already is...if they take it all the way, i say we lobby cleveland to rename the cav's 'the fighting lebrons'...

that's all charles williams right there. all right...off to work. more details as they are received.