Banana Gold

Banana Gold

It’s five in the morning in New York City. It’s Winter. I am on the subway en route to a job. At that hour, the train is a combination of the city’s laborers, the city’s homeless, and a random straggler on their way home from a night out. I notice I am feeling fairly relaxed considering I have encountered one too many drug fueled folks during these times where I feared for my safety. My lack of sleep helps with this relaxed state. I’m simply too tired to let my mind run with possible scenarios that any one of these misfortunate folks might trouble themselves with, begging the world to notice them. I see them. I know we are all them. However, I don’t yet understand how it befalls some to exist this way. On this particular train ride, one man brought tears to my eyes. He was elderly. He looked frosted over like he had just exited a freezer. He struggled to walk. “How can we allow this as a human family?” I wondered.

I sat on a seat alone, across from what looked like a laborer. He had his backpack and flask with warm coffee maybe, and a plastic bag that probably contained his lunch. I hoped for a peaceful train ride, as I always do nowadays.

At the other end of the subway car a man began talking loudly. Well, “I got in a few minutes of peace,” I thought. The chattering man then rose up from his seat and started pacing the floor and talking to himself. He made his way down the car to the door across from where I was sitting, and he stared at his own reflection in the door, talking to himself and laughing. His body was making big gestures. I looked around at the others on the train, and you could see the change in their countenance; more serious, more concerned. Their eyes changed from sleepy and drifty looking to more focused, unblinking. The man’s ( I assume homeless) humorous conversation with himself turned aggressive. He was now the betrayer and the betrayed from what I could pick up on this conversation with himself. He wasn’t on one of those trips you see people having where they are in their own fantasy world and you simply do not exist in their current reality. You feel safe around them as if there is a protective invisible shield between you and whatever reality they are currently visiting. Then there is that other trip where the person is clearly in a fantasy world, but they are hyper aware of your existence too, and you simply don’t know what role you are playing in their fantasy. Here is where I pray the train would move faster, so that I don’t have to find out. He moved to the door next to where I was sitting and slammed his skateboard on the ground. I jumped. The aggression died down, and he continued to converse with himself. When the subway doors opened at the next station I hoped he would exit. He didn’t appear to move, but just as the doors were about to shut his arms and legs were suddenly flying everywhere and he somersaulted out of the train. I let out a sigh of relief, and then just as quickly I saw his tall figure acrobatically jumping back onto the train like a stunt man. “Hah A BANANA,” he roared. His face lit up with joy and positive pride at this accomplishment. His adrenaline had kicked in and allowed him to perform this impressive stunt to grab a banana from the train’s platform, and jump back on before the fast moving doors shut. He smiled as he peeled the banana, and I couldn’t help but laugh at this incredible action. To look at him, it was as if he had found gold. Banana Gold.