The amazing degree of diversity among people is a fantastic thing, and the millions of people with their own lives and stories so radically different than your own are super fascinating. I guess that is sort of an opinion statement, but unless you have already formulated your own strong opinion against other people being interesting I think you should trust me on this one. Although it is sort of weird to trust someone that you never have, and may possibly never will meet, so I understand if you don't. But its not like you have a lot to lose by letting me guide you on this little thing, its not like I'm asking you to trust me with your social security number or to watch your dogs for a month while you vacation in Aruba or something.
But whether or not you do trust or agree with me on this one I happen to find other people quite interesting. That is why I consider myself fortunate to live in relatively close proximity to New York City, a place who's consistency in producing strange and intriguing people is comparable only to the consistency of a particularly unhealthy milkshake, who's contents are so thick that the effort exerted in pulling the chocolaty goodness through the straw and into your happy tummy burns enough calories to almost cancel out the milkshake itself. Almost, but not quite.
One night, or early morning I guess if you want to be all technical about it, I found myself in Penn station boarding a 2:47 AM train back home after a long day of hanging out in the city. I was accompanied by my two cousins, Annie and Tara. Annie lives near me, and Tara lives out in California, which poses no relevance to the story.
My cousins and I got onto the train and found ourselves in a completely empty cart. Since we had the luxury of choosing from all the seats in the cart we sat in one of those seats with three people on each side facing each other. Normally I would not be that guy and take up the big seat when my group consisted of only three people, but since there was no one else there I figured I would just throw all my caution into the winds. I was a little disappointed that we were all alone, but I thought I would just take a little nap or something.
This nap however, proved to be impossible as our train cart was invaded by a swarm of men who can best be described as a cult.
They consisted of about 20 men, all sporting matching outfits, despite the fact that adult males in matching outfits is about as cute as one of those big noisy bumblebees laying eggs on your pillow. Just imagine the sights and sounds that would be associated with that.
They wore what appeared to be tie- dye lab coats, which were long enough to wear decently without pants if desired, and their denim covered legs appeared as little nubs poking out from beneath their multicolored cloaks. Visors in various neon colors rested at the summit of their scalps, and while the men themselves differed greatly in age and physical appearance, they all admirably maintained long hair swooping majestically from their visors to drift gracefully a bit past their shoulders. ( I often have trouble spelling shoulders. Just a fun fact).
My cousins and I stared in wonder and awe as the men trooped purposefully into our train cart. A few of the men lumbered over to our six person compartment, their obvious intentions to fill the three remaining seats. Annie however, disagreed with their intentions.
Annie does not invest a great deal of worry into the feelings of others. Therefore, when the innocent matching men approached the empty seats, she greeted them with a lovely, "Hell no."
These men were obviously not the most suave or confident fish in the sea, and they, startled by this unexpected obstacle in their rear's quest for a seat, turned and quickly fled the scene. The men blushed so furiously and with such passion that red driplets probably leaked from their cheeks to soil their special lab coats.
With the speed and grace of a blind three legged gazelle, they found seats among their cult members, all of whom were looking and me and my cousins with resentment and disgust having witnessed Annie's unprovoked attack on their brethren.
We then sat in a train cart filled with silence. The awkward produced by the encounter was like a large and exceptionally sweaty monster, breathing heavily on everyone involved and moistening us with the hot water vapor produced by it's breath. How repulsive.
The man breezily entered our cart. He looked to be in his young 20s and his strong bone structure and long blond hair pulled back into a pony tail gave him the appearance of a Hollister model who had just barely come out favorably from a boxing match against a rabid chicken.
He wore a wrinkly button down shirt and his jeans were so torn apart that they seemed exhausted to even be holding onto his body. They were also covered in sharpie drawings of Bible scripture and phone numbers. The only thing he carried with him was a blue blanket speckled with tiny white stars that draped over his shoulders. (There's that word again. It's a tricky one.) He was quite the spectacle.
It soon became apparent to us that there was nowhere else for him to sit other than in our six person compartment. This realization hit the cult members as well, and they all sneered at us in a look that said, "Oh you don't want us sitting next to you? That's fine. Why don't you take a nice does of HOMELESS instead!"
One man who I assumed to be the clan chief due to his confidence despite the fact that his visor did little to conceal his balding scalp even let out a loud snort, and a look that said, "Ha! This is what you get noobs!"
I gave him a look that said, "Shut the Alexander Hamilton up." (I obviously did not use Alexander Hamilton's name as a exclamatory phrase, I have merely substituted it in place of profanity in fear of offending any gentle ears. I mean eyes. Looks like that's a mistake I didn't learn from the first time.)
The homeless man approached the empty seat next to mine and politely asked if he could sit down. I said sure.
From the moment he sat down this man who introduced himself as Dave T ate up the awkward silence like it was the only thing he had eaten in weeks, which it may very well have been. The awkward silence was not however, replaced by nice or even comprehensible conversation, but instead by phrases expelled from Dave T's mouth with such speed that they ceased to remain a part of the English language. His nonsensical sentences were an assortment of words which had no business being placed next to each other.
He continued his unbroken speech until his acute observational finesse distracted him. It was then that my inability to ride a train without the delicious distraction of a chocolate ice cream cone proved to be my downfall.
The combination of ice cream- chilly as it generally is- an air conditioned train, and a strapless sundress had produced some shivers in me. The little cold wiggles which ran down my body did not go unnoticed by Dave T.
He immediately stopped his incomprehensible speech- which had something to do with government conspiracy- and said, "You're cold." A statement, not a question.
No I'm ok, thanks though." I reply, flattered by Dave T's kind concern. It was then that Dave T took his kindness to a new and unexpected level. Without warning or confirmation as to if his actions were wanted, he removed his star speckled blanket from his shoulders (the word returns), fanned it out, and tossed it towards me.
I watched in the purest for of horror as the blanket soared in my direction, flakes of an unidentifiable substance chipped off as it descended towards me. As it came ever closer, I wondered if my sheer repulsion could will it away.
In a panic I squealed and swatted it away with the grace of a paraplegic cat which had ingested too much caffeine. (By the way I apologize for disabling so many hypothetical animals in my writing, such as the three legged blind gazelle and now this limbless cat. I assure you that it is purely for the purpose of conveying the extremity of the situation. I do not cripple imaginary animals for my own enjoyment, that would make me several different types of awful.)
The blanket's projected course now altered by my flailing limbs, it found a new home in Dave T's lap. He looked down at the blanket, and then back up at me with an expression of absolute fury. I braced myself for some sort of rage fueled assault, and the cult uniformly tensed in anticipation.
"You smell like smiles." He whispered, his expression still swathed with maddening rage.
"I didn't know smiles had a smell." I replied tentatively.
"Well they do. It's my favorite smell. Get to know it." He then looked across at Tara sitting opposite him, put his head on the edge of her knees, and drifted off into an apparent sleep. Tara, although visibly flustered, decided upon just letting it happen.
With this turn of events the snickers of the cult, which had been incessant since Dave T's arrival, reached a new and flagrantly rude volume.
One of the cult members grew a little more daring. He reached into the pocket of his lab coat to retrieve a blackberry. He then pointed it at our little scene, not working particularly hard to conceal the fact that he was snapping a pic of the events before him.
I looked to him and smiled. It must be rather strange, as a camera, to be constantly smiled at, regardless of whether smiles are appropriate to the situation.
Upon noticing my smile and obvious knowledge of his actions, the cult member clumsily returned the camera to its happy home in the lab coat, suddenly bashful about his attempt to immortalize the encounter before him.
"You want a picture?" Annie questioned in mock curiosity. The man provided answer by means of a two or three shade increase in the intensity of the red blotch clouding his cheeks. These men all apparently shared a small reservoir of self confidence which was thinly distributed among the 20 or so of them.
Among all of them, except for one man. The cult chief. He was apparently above the shared confidence system. he took a disproportionately large swig from the reservoir, and rose to stand above his brethren. He exuded all the grandeur attainable by someone wearing a psychedelic scientist's garb.
"Yes actually, I would love a picture." the chief said.
The cult member who had originally hatched the idea to take a photo lit up with the happiness of an ant who had stumbled upon a crumb cake.
"Come on boys, gather round."the chief commanded. The cult men, as if compelled by an evil and disciplinary god, rose from their seats to shuffle closer to our compartment. I was confused by this tun of events, and looked to see that my cousins' faces were also contorted by the struggle of their brains to understand exactly why and what was happening in our little train cart. This was an absurd scenario, and I wondered as tie- dye lab coats closed in if maybe Dave T's hallucinogen had drifted into my own brain.
Speaking of Dave T, he emerged from his slumber as the cult closed in and quickly assessed the situation. After a moment of thought an epiphany hit Dave T like a hand across the face of a cheating husband. He had resolutely decided that he did not want his picture taken by these mysterious men of several colored lab coats.
He started to voice his discontent, but by now the cult had already poised itself on and around our seats, creating a frame of men in which Dave T was the reluctant centerpiece.
"What the actual Genghis Khan?" I said, my brain unable to string together a more classy group of words to voice my disbelief and unhappiness towards the situation.
Dave T's protests became louder and more persistent as the chief held up his phone to take the picture. By now the cult had adopted a uniform half lipped smirk. There isn't a lot that I wouldn't do for a copy of this picture.
With the flash of the camera phone, both Dave T and the picture were snapped.
Dave T leaped from his seat and let out a roar with the intensity equal to watching the chase scene from Taken while skiing down Mt. Everest on a pair of splintering tree branches in pursuit of a terrorist who had kidnapped a puppy with the intention of utilizing it in a suicide bombing mission to explode a local orphanage.
His roar was so loud and prolonged that it would not be the least bit surprising if children in a distant Himalayan orphanage were frightened by the mysterious noise.
As I watched Dave T transform from a peaceful antelope into a monstrous banshee, clenched fists raised and veins protruding from his neck in the blood's vain attempt to escape the beastly cry, I realized that I had never been and might never be so terrified in all my life.
Coincidentally, as Dave T's cry reached a chilling conclusion, the train lurched to a stop. I wondered if the train had been ordered to take an immediate stop by the conductor fearing that there was murder afoot.
That was not the case. The train had merely stopped at one of the many train stations on our journey home.
The cult men, all as pale as the death they seemed to believe was in their imminent future, took this opportunity to flee the train before I could offer a polite goodbye. Not that I could have supplied this courtesy regardless, being that the fear produced by Dave T's episode had crippled my vocal chords.
I believe without a doubt that the cult men had left the train as a deterrence against their impending deaths at the hands of Dave T, and not out of convenience. I can only imagine the conversation on their walk home.
The train commenced on it's rout, and before Dave T had time to regain even a sliver of composure, the ticket guy, a happy old gentleman with a fun mustache, entered our cart looking for tickets to stamp.
He was either oblivious to or just choosing to ignore the distress visible in all 4 members of our cart.
"Tickets please!" He said jovially as Tara mechanically handed him our tickets. This man seemed to genuinely enjoy his work, along with life in general. I hope that I'm as happy with my job someday as this guy.
He stamped the tickets and handed them back with a,"Thank you ladies," turned to Dave T, and said, "And yours Sir?"
This is when Dave T began to remove his belt and then his pants.
He roughly threw down his trousers and stuck his hand into a pair of worn gray boxers, all the while maintaining intense eye contact with the ticket guy. I simply did not understand.
After shuffling around a bit, a ripping noise was heard and Dave T produced a zip- lock bag which had evidently been taped to his upper thigh A lot of things went through my mind as Dave T rummaged through his boxers, but the possibility that he may have been fumbling around in an attempt to dislodge a makeshift wallet in the form of a zip-lock bag taped to his thigh simply was not one of them.
The ticket man stood unflinching, awaiting Dave T's ticket. I can only imagine the strange and unnatural things this man must have seen in order for him to stand there and watch, unaffected, as a stranger calmly and without warning removes his pants.
Dave T opened the bag and extracted the remains of a wrinkly old ticket, and handed it to the patiently waiting man.
"I'm afraid this ticket seems to be from 2008." The ticket man said.
"Ah. I must have lost track of time. " said Dave T. I'm not sure if Dave T actually thought this was a rational response or if he couldn't thing of any better excuse for trying to use a ticket which had been purchased 3 years ago. I guess in the life of Dave T the years fly by like minutes.
"Hmm. Well this is obviously not a good thing." the ticket guy said, his forehead wrinkling in agitation. This was the first time throughout the entire ordeal that he had shown any sign of discomfort. The man's ability to gauge the problematic consequences of a situation was obviously abnormal, as he rationalized a strange man undressing before him as nothing to think twice over while Dave T's inability to produce a legitimate ticket caused him visible distress. Again I wonder what this man must have seen during his lifetime in order to alter his train of thought in such a way.
"Look, I don't know what to tell you man." Dave T said with a sharp attitude. I wondered why Dave T would take such an aggressive approach with this nice ticket man.
"Well alright, I'll let it pas this time." The man said, because he was a lovely person.
He left, and Dave T returned to his seat. He lectured us for a while on the dangers of employment on your major organs, and how, unbeknownst to us, this entire time he had been channeling into our brains through mind waves. And there I was thinking it was just brain freeze. After a while we reached our stop, and bade Dave T farewell. His parting remarks were, "By the way, my name's actually Anthony."
I will never forget Dave T/ Anthony. Mostly because he scared the ever living bejeezus out of me during his manic episode, but also because he was just sort of a cool guy. Everyone deserves to be forced into spending some quality time with a guy like Dave T.
Thanks for listening, or reading rather, and have a beautiful, lovely, fantastic day.
Love Katie
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