Unconcealed
I left the bar hastily, accidentally throwing my kn95 away along with the .50 cent freshmint gum I purchased earlier. Ten minutes pass and I realize that I am maskless.
I'm disappointed.
In myself.
I'm darting around, avoiding the tourists, frantically scanning for an open CVS
at 10:00pm.
Maskless, I reluctantly board the R and feel around anxiously at the density of traingoers. I blink in and out of awareness of airborne pathogens, watch the blinking lights on the MTA map, notice new scents and stares.
I'm counting - 14 more stops.
What will I catch in these 37 minutes?
Perhaps the train's HVAC system is HIPAA compliant. A man gets close.
Why me?
I can't hide as he recounts his dating regimen, how he's unable to find something consistent - he wants a
permanent girlfriend
- finding great difficulty in floating in and out these women's lives. Coercion, finesse, or imagination, who can say?
8 stops left. I entertain the man, his rail-thin hair, cracked kitchenware teeth, and sickly sweet New York accent. He tells me one day when he gets enough money he and his friends will live in Manhattan because that's where all the pretty girls live.
6 stops. I ask him what permanent means. Doesn’t everything end? He just yearns.
3 stops. This one is his but he wants the ride to continue. The subway doors exhale, letting in a fresh barrage of people, their germs and their smells. He says I must have a nice permanent girlfriend. I raise up my now-ringless hand.. Our knuckles rap-
-a sad laugh – contact with a stranger, odd and humanizing.
He thanks me.
I feel his breath.
He pries himself away in the exhalation.
There are far less people with me now.
I exit the station wondering when the symptoms will show up and how bad they'll be.
Maybe that's the cost of normalcy for the evening
which I had almost forgotten.
//
Rajen Bhatt is an educator residing in NYC and makes music as well as visual art in his free time. Originally from the west coast, Rajen is combing through the words and images of the east coast in order to gain a better understanding of what place and space is.
