Up, Up, and Away: A Man on the Metro
By: Allison Moon
Tags: Poverty, Nonfiction, Urban Perspectives, Homelessness, Racial Justice

Courtesy of Jessica Bell on Facebook

I try to think about my privilege at least once a day; if not, more.

White. Cis-gender. Binary. Heterosexual. College-educated. Middle class. Able-bodied. Employed full-time.

I try not to feel shameful when I see an intoxicated black man on the metro. I look at the back of his head from three rows back. I gaze at his profile as he turns slightly to his right. He has beautiful curly eyelashes. I try to imagine him as a child, a baby. I wonder if anyone loved his curly eyelashes. I’m snapped back to reality as I see the man slump completely forward, chest flat to his lap. He’s barely able to sit up and the stench is now reaching me, three seats behind. The man lifts his head slightly, and starts staring at the person across the aisle, likely the only direction he can turn in his current comatose. It’s a young white man in a suit across the aisle, about my age. The man in the suit makes eye contact. He is braver than me. I wonder how often he thinks of his privilege.

“What time is it?” He heaves, barely audible, his long eyelashes curling up.

“It’s 8 o’clock,” the man in the suit says.

“8 in the morning or at night?”

The man looks at his phone and looks back at our friend again.

“Its 8 o’clock in the morning” he says as gently as possible.

The man slumps further and stammers “8 o’clock in the morning,” he repeats “8 o ‘clock in the morning. Oh man, damn it. Fuck. What have I done. It can’t be,” he cries.

Maybe to him 8 o’clock in the morning means another day homeless. Another day of brutal sunlight with no where to go. Another day of searching for anything that will make him feel alive again. Another day of scoffs from the cruel world. Another day he has failed. Another day the world has failed him. But what do I know? Shame on me for even trying to imagine how it would be. How it would be to not know whether it’s 8 o’clock in the morning or 8 o’clock at night. Look at me trying to understand when I know damn well it’s impossible.

I want to tell him I don’t think differently of him than any other man in a suit on the metro. I want to tell him I know he’s had a life I can’t imagine. I want to tell him there’s help for him. But what do I know? Maybe there isn’t.

I watch people scoot and move around him as the train car fills and empties, as the man struggles to keep his chest above his knees. He finally gets the strength to make it off the train just before the doors close. I watch him stumble into a sea of suit pants, fancy lunch bags, and designer purses, searching for something solid to lean on, something to grab a hold of to steady his world. He finds the escalator railing and clenches it while still standing on the platform. He grabs the railing from the side, with both hands, not realizing whether the railing is moving itself or if this perverted world is playing tricks on him again.

And that’s where he leaves me. Grasping the moving railing, letting his arms get taken away only to find gravity pulling them back down to the ground. The rest of the world, who just happen to be on the other side of this railing, is moving up, up and away. Off to places they have to go, where people expect them. No one is expecting to see our friend today. No place to go and no one to see.

I hope I’ll see him again. I hope I’ll have the courage to look him in the eyes and maybe say hello. Silently telling him that I see him. He is human and he is worthy.

Until next time, my friend. Safe travels.