i can roll holy ghost from coast to coast

Not often do I find myself so close to possible death. Well, alright, alright, fairly often I find myself staring steelily into the mug of death. Less often, however, does death spit bits of fried chicken on me.

During a cramped and crowded train ride this evening, somewhere beneath 32nd street, I find myself the closest in proximity to this man: tall, fat--rotund, perhaps--dressed in an oversized camoflauge parka and mis-matched sweatpants and -shirt. Perched on his bejowled face are a pair of large black plastic rimmed glasses, which I later notice have no lenses in place. He munches contentedly on a drumstick of fried chicken.

Just after the doors close, he looks up. "Which one of you motherfuckers just shushed me?" he yells. Chicken meat, fat, and gristle spew out onto those of us nearby.

The rambling begins. "Fuck you, motherfuckers! Don't you be motherfuckin' shushin' me, I don't give a fuck, you motherfuckers, I don't give a motherfuck if you white or black. Fuck, my grandfather was a whitey, I don't care, shit. Motherfuckers, I got my Tek-9 in my fuckin' bag right here." He glances down at a navy blue duffel at his feet. I glance too. He fixes a googly eye on a snazzily-dressed young black man up the car; "You think I care if you a white son of a bitch?" Chicken bits continue to spray. "I've got something to show you motherfuckers!" he yells, turning back to once again address the entire car. "I'm fuckin' prepared, I'm from the old school..." He retrieves the bag which, ostensibly, contains a Tek-9 firearm. He holds it aloft and points a finger at its dangling weight. "Fuckin' right."

All at once he plunges down the tightly packed car; "Excuse me, motherfucker; I'm gonna find who was shushin' me--when I push you and say 'Excuse me,' that means fuckin' move!" He wades through the crowd and down toward the next set of doors, where he sets himself upon several different people as possible shushers. The navy duffe is left alone. No one touches it; I cast it furtive glances.

He comes back to his original post. At this point, I'm beginning to sweat just a tiny bit in my tweed coat. Yes, I'm enjoying this as a lark on some level, but there's the lingering possibility of that pistol. The man plants his feet wide, hitches up his sweatpants toward his belly fat, and stares directly past the back of my head. "Yeah, motherfuckers, yes." He leans down and unzips his duffel, then stands back up to stare again at the young black fellow up the car from me. His eyes narrow. The train pulls in at the next stop, he tosses the gnawed and denuded bone to the train's floor, and steps lightly out onto the platform.

Also, earlier in the day, I encountered a man in a full camoflauge jumpsuit, with antennae fashioned from glowsticks. He lamented the fact that he, a being from another galaxy, was marooned here after a planned 19-year mission to study humanity went awry after his spacecraft broke. He admonished us to contribute "human earth currency" to its repair, and then said he would attempt to communicate with us in his native language. He lifted a baritone sax and played a sprawling free-jazz squonk indebted to Ayler and late Coltrane. I would have given him some money, but I didn't have any.