Two
white kids in the train, maybe from out of town, maybe 13. Their shirts
hang a bit voluminously on their scrawny frames but otherwise they have
not completely adopted ghetto chic. A black kid gets on, a bit older,
accompanied by his girlfriend with a big round butt in tight jeans and a
long dyed-blond perm. He looks very street, a baseball cap over a
do-rag, a shirt with an airbrushed black cartoonlike figure on it. He's
on the phone with the wireless earpiece in his ear, speaking brusquely
and somewhat officiously to a friend: Where
you at? I'm on the train. Where you at? Fourteenth? I'll be there in
five minutes. I'm with my girl. I'll be there in five minutes.
The
white boys have been watching him as I've been watching all of them.
One white boy gives a nod to the black guy, that upward only nod, a
complicated gesture meant to summon attention but also evincing tones of
recognition and admiration.
"'at's…
awesome!" the white boy says, and the other white boy nods and says,
"Yeah!" self-consciously touching his fingertips to his chin.
The
black kid plays it stone cool, acknowledging the others only by
glancing at them momentarily and giving the ghost of a nod. Next stop
the white kids get off and the couple remains, he scrolling through the
numbers on his phone while she faces away and stares at the darkness out
the window or perhaps her reflection in it. He puts his phone away and
nuzzles into her leonine hair.