Between 5pm Saturday and 10am Sunday I saw three people high on heroin on the subway. I'm not sure I can explain to anyone how frustrating and sad this was for me. The first was a hella pregnant young lady. So I'm on the downtown 6, sitting on one of those seats that slams when you get up. I'm furiously scribbling notes for a new story I'm working on, bopping my head to whatever AT40 hit is on my ipod, when I glance up and see a woman standing by the door. Her mouth is open, and her eyes are going up in her head. She's sort of swaying back and forth, and I'm like, oh god. I'm afraid this bitch is going to pass out or have a seizure or something, and you know she's pregnant. And I mean, I have a heart, so I get up and ask if she's all right, if she needs to sit.
She tells me her water just broke, but she's fine. And I'm like, are you sure you don't want to sit. She's sure. So I sit beside her, and then some babe is there, leaning against the pole, and he's asking her the same thing. Is she sure she's okay, is she sure she doesn't want to sit... we both keep asking if she was sure she was okay. She tells us she's on her way to the Staten Island Hospital. She's going to take the ferry and her sister is waiting in SI to take her to the hospital. I know. I know, what the fuck kind of thing is that to do if your water just broke, taking the 6 train to the SI ferry, so your sister can drive you to the hospital. Sure.
Bleeker is train babe's stop. When he gets off, he brings into view pregnant chick's travel companion, who's sitting on the opposite side of the door. Companion is in the exact same condition. He's nodded out, but his eyes aren't quite closed. For fuck's sake. We're approaching Canal and she's trying to nudge him awake, and it'd be funny if it wasn't for the pregnancy part. One junkie who looks like she's gonna faint, telling the other junkie to wake up. Given that they were both in the same state, you'd figure she'd know he wasn't actually sleeping right. But you know, whatever. The worst was how young these two were. Pregnant bitch could've been my age (cause everyone is on baby #2 these days anyway) but she definitely wasn't 30 yet. Companion probably wasn't even 25. It's bad enough to be a pregnant hood rat on baby number two (she told us she'd had her 4 y/o at Staten Island Hospital) why not throw a little junk into the mix. I mean, really, why not?
At that point I decided for sure I'm not making babies. The world is clearly already at max capacity of idiots, and I'm not going to be naive or vain enough to think my offspring is a) going to change or correct anything, or b) live in some amazing, beautiful, wonderful dream. This place is a shit hole. And you know maybe it's not that bad, and having children is wonderful. Right - children are the future, give them the world, etc etc. No, bitch. Refraining from populating a planet of retards is the most energetically responsible thing any of us can do. There are enough of us running around here with our heads up our butts. What we need to do is sit tight with the energy we've already got filling this planet, consolidate it, and put it to better uses. I'm not going to get into this now, just know the point is no babies.
So Sunday morning - I've barely gotten any sleep. I spent the night before drinking, chain smoking, and fixin for smoochies. By the time I made it to the sleep part, I had two and a half hours before I had to make it to the walk-the-dogs part. I was too drunk to reasonably consider sleeping. I'm standing at Essex waiting for the J. I'm leaning against the painted beams. You know the kinds in the subway; they're not concrete, but they're something hard, maybe metal or some mess. So I'm leaning on that because I'm tired and want the J train to hurry up so I can sit down and pretend to sleep.
You know when you feel someone looking at you, or standing close to you? Yeah, so I turn to my left and some girl is like maybe 3 inches from me, leaning toward me. I looked at her, like um, you're a little too close at 9:25 in the morning for this be cool. She backs up, walks to the other side of the beam, and gets a little too close to the platform's edge. I watch her swaying, eyelids drooping, mouth open and I'm like aw, fuck. There was no way this girl in her hightops and cornrows could even been drinking age. No way. I want to go up to her and tell her to be careful and stand back from the platform. But I don't say or do anything. She's nodding the fuck out, but manages to shuffle along down the platform, away from the edge, more to the middle. I watch her make her way down the platform, like a zombie, and walk right into a red beam. When her head hits it, she just takes a step back, and a step around it, and that hurt my heart.
Back in April while I was on lunch running errands in Chelsea I saw a dead guy in front of payphone, needle in hand. I was on my way to the post office, just skipping along singing 'If you feel it let it happen. Keep on dancing till the world ends.' You know, because sometimes I'm just singing Britney Spears while I walk down the streets. Boy, I'll tell you, nothing takes the 'Whoa-oh oh oh' out of your day faster than an overdose in broad day light. When I saw that guy, dead on 11th street that day, I felt like crying. The first thing I thought of was his mom - assuming she was still alive, and not a total cunt - I felt so sad for her. To think, the day she gave birth to him and held him for the first time, she'd never imagined he'd go out like that.
You know, cool. Life is difficult sometimes. It's brutal and it's sad, and it's ugly. But it's really whatever you do with it, and the most important thing you can do with Life is Love. I guess if you want to love drugs you could do that too. I'm not gonna throw stones off my glass balcony just yet. I love drugs. I think everyone should smoke pot. I think everyone should eat mushrooms and drop acid. I think any drug that's going to push your mind past the borders of your nervous system is something we all need to participate in. I can't really see an upside to anything that inhibits one whole section of your functioning (the pain receptor thing right?). But just because you keep turning off the pain button doesn't mean pain will cease to exist. Pain is a part of it.
And maybe that's the lesson I have to learn. I hate to see shit like that in my face: death, violence, other people's nameless hurt, demons, etc. I suppose this is how the Universe reminds me that it's not always rainbows and butterflies. And I don't have to like it, this is just how it is. Teenagers will get addicted to drugs. Babies will born to terrible shitty parents. You will do nice things for people and they will lie to you. On the other side of that you might spend your Sundays with sweetheart doggies, come home and have pork chops & spinach for dinner, and sleep hella snug with your down comforter. On the other side of that, you might have awesome friends who believe in you, who listen to and respect you.
It is what it is.
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