Everyone and No One
Dana Frazier
Creative Nonfiction
 
Listen. If you see me on the train, don’t sit next to me. I know I seem okay with your intrusion, like I’m more than willing to sacrifice for you. That’s not actual me. That is fictional me. Oozing politeness, this fictional me will eagerly remove the object preventing your butt from resting (a purse, a back pack, a plastic baggie filled with Honey Nut Cheerios) and surrender the personal space, while actual me mentally chastises you for existing. It’s 8:20 and both of me hate you. Admit it. You don’t want to sit next to me either. You don’t want my All-Stars or my stupid back pack to touch you. Bitter, you too mourn the loss of space…I can see it in the squint of your sleep-encrusted eyes and the tired and defeated sigh you give as you swing around and plant yourself, butt-first, deliberate. Your thigh just touched me… grazed my thigh and simply decided to remain. I move closer to the window and lean my head against the cool surface, drowning you out. My now furrowed brow sticks a bit to the brown tinted double paned windows. I lift my head and leave on the very scratched surface a small grease spot. I wish you didn’t make me do that. Please, try your hardest to keep your appendages to yourself and I’ll make sure to keep Paul Simon on low. You’re sitting in the aisle seat, worn tan leather briefcase resting upon the rigid orange-brown filth of the floor, unzipped, papers sticking out. You make your indifference obvious, though, as you do nothing to adjust the situation and allow the dust to settle upon your possessions. Get yourself together. I want to ask you where your stop is, because I cannot effectively read your ticket and be aloof at the same time. I’m already growing irritated at the prospect of later asking you to move. I wish you would somehow know if I’m getting off first and sit accordingly…but don’t ask me. Your conversation is not welcome. I know we’re going to the same place, at the same time, via the same South Shore train, and perhaps you find this fact common ground for shallow prattle, but please don’t make eye contact; that may obligate me to make an arbitrary comment about the weather or the poorly upholstered seats. Both of which we collectively understand exist and therefore have no need for discussion. Thank you for resisting the urge. * * * Sigh. I am sick of glaring at homework that bores me. I see you reading and nuzzle my nose in your book, undetectably though, like an invisible snake. Out of the corner of my slightly spotted lenses, I detect familiarity. In a moment you have gained my respect and penetrated the only soft spot I have during such tumultuous times. The words in your book are the words in mine. Now amidst the stale encapsulated air and rickety rack of our transportation, for the ten minutes between Hegewisch and Kensington I don’t hate you and we are friends. We are friends like Oprah and her Best Friend. We are reading together and discussing the characters openly, laughing like those other people that always sit in the four-seated section and talk and laugh and buy each other doughnuts and know about each others’ lives. They are train friends. I never understood train friends until now. We could be train friends. But then again, I still don’t know how I feel about your thigh touching me. Unwanted bodily contact aside, I long to tell you I too am reading that book. That it is on the carpet in my bedroom. I love that book. I want you to know the way that I feel about it and to listen and consider and care what I say. But your thigh is touching me and you are sitting on my footrest. Because of you, my bags are on the floor. Just like yours. They’re getting dusty. At 57th/Hyde Park the feeling passes as it arrived, inappropriate and abrupt. You still stare at your book. I return my stare to my homework. * * * We arrive at Van Buren Street. Through clenched teeth I wait for you to gather your poorly organized things. You are too slow. I get through the exit in a huff and power walk down the stairs, overfilled back pack thumping, body awkward each step, squeezing past people too slow to be allowed downtown, feeling the thud of their bodies against my bag. With Paul Simon in my ears drowning the disconcerting sounds of laughter and talking and shouting, I feel you on my right side and am taken aback as you cut me off, stopping me in my hurried tracks. The aggression is noted and unnecessary, just so you know. Now you are in front of me and you don’t hold the door open. It hits me and I feel stupid. In silence I curse you, curse the lack of common courtesy, the lack of respect. I let you sit in my seat. Taking far too many names in vain I push forth the door, full gusto, without a glance behind or a smidgen of hesitation and charge on, bobbing and weaving, racing everyone and no one in attempt to cleanse myself of the heaviness of the inching mob. The white blast of the morning sun through the street opening surprises me the moment I turn the corner; as my eyes adjust I see you. Two steps ahead, you look as disoriented as me as you half-jog up the stairs. As you move to the right, lifting the appropriate arm to hail your cab, I am conflicted. I hate you and I want to hug you. I want to tell you my life story. I have been awake for four hours and have not yet heard my own voice. My lungs ache for speech but I will not speak to you. I do not know you. I see you five days a week, more than I do my own mother, but I remain in myself, apart, protected. And yet I am impulsed to wave. But if I do so, you will look at me funny. If I do so, I will look at me funny. I just leave…and consider this encounter the remainder of my day. The words in your book are the same as mine. And you will never know it. * * * I wonder now, the possibilities, the questions… At 8:20 do you look around with fear that someone will talk to you while simultaneously carrying anxiety that they won’t? Do you see the downshifting eyes when they accidentally meet with yours and wish that, if only for a second, the connection was acknowledged and not disregarded? What would have happened if I had just said hello as you took my seat? Perhaps I ought to have mentioned the proposed new platform, or noticed your businesslike attire and asked about your job. Perhaps I could have given you special insight on our book. We could have started a book club or something. I could have brought a dessert. Reclusive amongst the throngs of fellow commuters, terrified of touching for fear of true contact, a nakedness you have forgotten… Perhaps you are sick of traveling in your own commute with your own seat on your own train, talking on a cell phone while sitting next to a live human being. I know I am. We are together sick, sick of whom…no, what we have become. You and I. Do you know when you stopped participating? When being around others made you crawl into yourself? I don’t. It’s like we’ve existed here forever and here we are with everyone and no one. We could throw down our fears. We could talk and consume each others’ words and thoughts. We could understand that my thigh is your thigh, my Cheerios are your Cheerios, my life is your life. We could be the same. I should have said something. My voice is missing. I can’t even choke a good morning. If I see you on Monday, maybe… just please don’t touch me again.